Museum workshops

The toys used in the workshop and loans box are very similar so you might find that the children are repeating activities if you book both the loans box and workshop for the same group of children in the same academic year or if they have done the Toys workshop or engaged with the Toys loans box in a previous year.

This also applies to the the Local Area, Victorians and Homes in the past workshops. If the class has already done one of them in this academic year/previous academic years, please note that the clothes and domestic items are the same for each of these workshops so they will already have handled them.

If you have booked a workshop at Brent Museum and Archives, please consider the following:

Journey length

When booking your travel, please ensure you book your free travel for the whole day rather than a half day to allow you time to get back to school if necessary. Please ensure you arrive no less than 10 minutes before allocated time to give children time to hang their coats and bags etc. after arrival before the start of the first workshop.

Length of workshops and stay

All our workshops are 1 hour

If you are coming for a workshop and bringing two classes at a time, one class spends time in the Museum galleries and then swaps over with the other class to have their workshop in the Education Room

Please allow 20 mins to clear the Education Room and before lunch time if you would like to have 2 classes come and stay for lunch

Our Education Room can accommodate one class for lunch seated at tables or two classes eating their lunch sitting on the floor at a time.  The Education Room is where the workshops take place.  Please allow 45 mins for the children to eat and clear up rubbish. 

Please note, no workshops can be booked to be held after lunch due to clean up of the Education Room.

Terms and Conditions

If for any reason you need to cancel or rebook your session, please contact us in advance. Sessions cancelled with less than 30 days’ notice will not be refunded.

Teachers and group leaders are responsible for the behaviour and discipline of their pupils during the workshops. Teachers must stay with their class for the duration of the workshops. Appropriate ratios of responsible adults to children must be provided by the school for the duration of the visit.

If booking a workshop to be held at your school, appropriate space must be provided for the class to work in groups. Please discuss this when making the booking.

If the workshops are to be held in different locations/classrooms, please allow 10 mins for the workshop leader to go to another classroom and for the next workshop to start.

If the workshops are taking place in the same location, please allow 5 minutes for the children to leave and for the next class to come in if the workshops are taking place in the same location.

Terms and conditions

If for any reason you need to cancel or rebook your session, please contact us in advance. Sessions cancelled with less than 30 days’ notice will not be refunded.

Teachers and group leaders are responsible for the behaviour and discipline of their pupils during the workshops. Teachers must stay with their class for the duration of the workshops. Appropriate ratios of responsible adults to children must be provided by the school for the duration of the visit.

Audience: KS1/KS2
Ideal for: history, literacy, black history
Duration: 60 minutes

Icons of Colour - Portraits of Brent’s Change Makers

Children will learn about the experiences of Rachel Yankey; Jayaben Desai; Zadie Smith; Riz Ahmed; and Cyrille Regis and their links with the borough of Brent. Children will explore ideas of representation, using portraits to think about pose, props and backgrounds used in the portraits and what the portraits can tell us about those people. They will then create their own simple self portrait to express their own identity. 1 hour.

Audience: Key Stage 1
Ideal for: history, literacy
Duration: 60 minutes

In this hands-on and fun workshop children dress up in items connected to Wembley Stadium, explore maps and photos, handle objects as a way to explore local and national changes within living memory and significant events and people. Children will learn about key moments and people connected to Wembley Stadium over the last 130 years. Children will be able to describe how the site changed from a landscaped pleasure park to the new stadium we know now. Children will be able to identify different ways that photos reflect the personalities of the people in the portraits.

Audience: Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, literacy, Black History Month

This workshop uses music, objects and photographs to help children empathise with members of the Caribbean community who came to Britain as part of the Windrush Generation and who were interviewed as part of the Windrush 70 project in 2018.

The workshops explores the arrival of the HMT Windrush and looks at issues of racism. Children handle popular domestic objects such as 7" records, a framed 60s wedding photograph, glass ornaments from the Front Room and a full 60s petticoat, allowing them to explore popular items from everyday life. They learn how to play dominoes, a popular leisure activity.

Audience: Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, literacy, local area studies

Students learn about changes in Sudbury from 1950s-1980s using interviews from local residents.  The workshop uses music, objects and photos to help children compare changes in toys, leisure, home life and how the area has changed.  This workshop is also relevant to teachers in other parts of the borough whose pupils are learning about toys, leisure, home life during 50s and 80s.

Learning resources

• Sudbury – Then and Now (.pdf, 8.67MB)
• Then and Now Sudbury 50s to 80s Education Pack (part one)
• Then and Now Sudbury 50s to 80s Education Pack (part two)
• Then and Now Sudbury 50s to 80s Education Pack (part three)

Audience: Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, literacy, Black History Month

The workshop starts with an introduction to black history in Brent – pupils learn about some of the ways we can explore the experiences of Black people in Brent such as through oral histories and photographs. Images of Brent residents from the 19th century, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and their stories inspire children to create their own poem.

Learning resources

Celebrating Black Lives and Black Brilliance (.pdf, 1.76MB)

Watch video: Celebrating Black Lives and Black Brilliance in Brent

Audience: Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, Ancient Egypt, literacy, art and design

Students discover how Ancient Egyptian artefacts came to be in Brent Museum and learn about mummification methods ‘wrapping’ amulets around a doll with linen bandages. They then make an Egyptian amulet to take back to school.

Audience: Key Stage 1
Ideal for: history, science, literacy
Duration: 45 -60 minutes

Queenie, our Victorian doll made from porcelain and real human hair, helps children to think about different objects used for play and the materials used to make them. During the workshop children handle and play with a wide range of replica toys from the past. They explore and discover what life was like for children in the past and the toys they played with.

Learning resources

• Toys From Brent's Past

Audience: Key Stage 1
Ideal for: history, science, literacy
Duration: 45 - 60 minutes

Children handle and explore fascinating household objects. This session highlights the impact of electricity and plastic on the design and convenience of household gadgets. Pupils think about different forms of homes and make connections between materials and their properties.

Audience: Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2
Ideal for: local area studies, history, literacy

These are fun, hands-on and highly visual workshops. We start with images of your school and your area guides of Brent so that the children enthusiastically name places they know, simple geographical features, different forms of transport and buildings.

We use an image of a road near their school in the past and the corresponding modern image to compare then and now. Carousel activities then include: dressing up in replica clothes from the past and comparing then and now using images and maps of the local area to see how their local area has changed over the last 150 years.

Find more information about local areas

Learning resources

Find teaching pack and learning resources about Brent and its local history.

Audience: Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, Romans, literacy, local area studies

Children handle real roman artefacts found near Brent in groups, discussing the materials, function and preservation of these and other items in their locality and what those artefacts tell us about life during Roman times in Brent.  They explore maps and use their detective skills to solve a puzzle about St Andrews old church in Kingsbury.  Children learn about everyday life in Roman times and try on a replica child’s size legionary’s helmet.

Learning resources

• Romans in Brent (.pdf, 650.0kB)
• Video: Roman Brent - Amphora Handles

Audience: KS2
Ideal for: history, Saxons, literacy, local area studies

Children solve the Anglo-Saxon place name puzzle by learning how to read place names on Brent maps to see where Saxon people settled. Children dress in replica clothes and also handle replica domestic objects from the period.

Audience: Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, literacy
Duration: 60 minutes

Children explore the impact of World War I on the people of Brent through handling and investigating a wide range of materials including photographs, artefacts, maps, local stories and costume, developing transferable historical enquiry skills. 

Children explore issues on the wider world stage by learning about the contributions of African soldiers to WW1

Audience: Key Stage 2
Ideal for: history, literacy
Duration: 60 minutes

Children explore the impact of World War II on the people of Brent by handling and investigating a wide range of materials including photos, newspaper extracts, personal testimonies, original artefacts such as gas masks, ration books and tinned eggs, developing transferable historical enquiry skills.

Charges apply from 1 September 2023 - 31 July 2024

Charges apply from 1 September 2023 - 31 July 2024