Westminster Abbey, Education Skills Sharing Session

Who are we?

Westminster Abbey is one of the world’s great churches and the Coronation Church since 1066. Kings and queens are buried, alongside authors, poets, scientists, musicians, dancers, actors and politicians and over one million visitors each year to discover over ten centuries of British history in this truly remarkable building which is a UNESCO world heritage site.

However, the Abbey is first and foremost a working church, offering daily services and the opportunity for all to worship.

Westminster Abbey’s Learning Department provides a high-quality experience which aims to enhance the learning of young people and families from the UK and beyond. The Abbey is a tremendous resource which inspires and amazes learners of all ages. Find out about all our programmes: https://www.westminster-abbey.org/learning

Community Learning Officers Zahra Dhalla and Aaron Paterson, and Digital Learning Manager Sian Shaw, will be taking over the GEM Twitter feed on behalf of Westminster Abbey’s Learning Department.

Learnings from Lockdown

Ahead of the summer holidays, now is the perfect time to join the conversation about developing, running and evaluating family learning online in the current climate. We’ll be thinking about how to implement engaging, educational and (most importantly) fun family activities remotely during lockdown by sharing Westminster Abbey’s experiences of creating content for the Easter holidays, May half term and downloadable content for the website. This had been a massive learning curve for us all so we’ll be reflecting on what worked well and the lessons we’ve learnt so far.

We’re keen for an open discussion as every organisation has different strengths to play to and we are very aware that organisations are in very different places in terms of website access, social media presence and digital literacy.

From reworking original ideas to the practicalities of managing the technical side of things with confidence, we’re happy to discuss any aspects of what we’ve offered to our family audiences since lockdown began. In particular, we’re going to think about:

1. Virtual sessions – exploring the thought process behind how our onsite programme could be adapted to work online
2. Long term digital learning – developing an A to Z of Westminster Abbey, with 26 downloadable activities that require limited materials
3. Building digital confidence – practical advice for taking the leap, learning as a team and constantly expanding our skills
4. Re-understanding our audiences – working out which really engage with us online vs those which are harder to reach, such as teenagers
5. Running a cross-organisation family day – the logistics of running it, trouble shooting in advance and the role of the host organisation
6. The future – what are our next steps and how is evaluation helping to inform that?

We’re looking forward to chatting with you all – see you there!