How to guides for developing your learning programme or services

These short, practical guides explain the benefits of developing your practice and give step by step advice on how to do it; they signpost useful resources and sources of further support so that you can take things to the next stage.

These resources were produced by the Heritage Sector Partnership, with thanks to funding from the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom, to help heritage organisations make the most of Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC).

We hope that these guidance notes will:

• improve your understanding of how to develop key aspects of learning provision.
• give you the confidence to make changes and apply for the LoTC Quality Badge.

It’s not always easy to find the time, resources and expertise to make changes to your learning programme or services. These how to guides will help to support you in developing:

• feedback, evaluation and review,
• staff performance monitoring and management,
• writing a learning strategy and policy document,
• planning, producing and running learning activities and resources,
• and creating and implementing equality, diversity and inclusion policies.

Example Documents

Learning services and the way in which they are delivered differ from organisation to organisation. Your organisation’s learning service should be appropriate to both your collection (or site) and your means. But once you have begun the process of developing a particular aspect of your service, it is important not to do so in a vacuum.

These documents illustrate particular aspects of education practice in other heritage organisations. You can use these documents as a starting point for developing similar materials at your own organisation. They might also give you some ideas about what sort of “evidence” you might produce during a Quality Badge assessment visit. Click on the links.

• Plan your visit: information for teachers (Brading Roman Villa)
  This document is available to teachers to help them plan their visit. It provides important information such as costs, group sizes and adult/child ratios, opening times etc. It also includes a list of education activities available linked to learning objectives.
• Schools pack (Natural History Museum)
  This document is available to teachers to help them find out what learning activities and resources are available at the Natural History Museum during the Spring Term. It links learning activities directly to the curriculum and to different key stages.
• Schools booking form (Thinktank)
  This booking form allows the organisation to collect important information about the visiting group including learning objectives, special requirements, numbers visiting etc.
• Learning officer job description (Horniman Museum)
  This job description focuses specifically on learning through science, but highlights some of the important skills required by those delivering learning in a heritage environment.
• Education assistant volunteer description (Osterley Park, National Trust)
  This describes the role of a learning volunteer at Osterley Park – although the roles of learning volunteers vary between National Trust properties.
• Volunteer enquiry and registration form (Osterley Park, National Trust)
  Osterley Park sends this form to individuals who are interested in exploring the possibility of volunteering at the organisation. It asks for important practical information such as availability, contact information etc, but also skills and experience as well as areas of interest.
• Evaluation form: primary schools (Museum of London)
  This is an evaluation form for primary school visits, to be completed by the teacher. It asks the teacher to evaluate the experience against specific learning outcomes and to evaluate the support received before and after the visit itself.
• Health & safety guidelines (Thames Explorer Trust)
  These are health and safety guidelines for teachers and other group leaders planning visits to the Thames and its foreshore. These guidelines include the identification of risks and hazards and control measures; accident and emergency procedures; advice on environmentally responsible behaviour and examples of risk assessments, equipment lists etc.
• Child & vulnerable adults protection policy (Museum of London, 2009-12)
  This policy outlines the steps taken by the museum to protect children and vulnerable adults in various different scenarios.
• Learning policy (Fleur de Lis Heritage Centre)
  This learning policy document outlines provision for learners, target learning audiences and objectives for the organisation’s learning service.

Are you interested in applying for the LOtC Quality Badge? Find out how to get started with your Self Evaluation Form.

Learn more about our work on the Learning Outside the Classroom project.