Published: Tuesday, 26th November 2019
Sixty west Norfolk schoolchildren took over Stories of Lynn on Friday 22 November and learned what it was like to run the museum and bring history to life.
Students from Eastgate Academy in King’s Lynn took part in the annual event, organised by Kids in Museums, as a celebration of children and young people’s contributions to museums, galleries, arts organisations, archives and heritage sites.
Rachael Williams, Learning and Engagement Officer for Stories of Lynn, said: “Takeover Day once again exceeded my expectations: the children had great ideas about what roles they wanted to get involved with, and on the day their commitment and spirit of enquiry was astounding. During the day they tweeted their views, received visitors at Reception, toured the exhibits with visitors, made merchandise, met the staff and found out how they make museums a fantastic place to be. It was great to have them here.”
Tweets from the students included Rico who said: “#takeoverday was really good fun, did you know that this museum was an actual olden day house?”
Meanwhile Harvey said that he had learnt that the voiding knife is fascinating, you’ll have to come to Stories of Lynn to find out what it is! Follow @storiesoflynn on Twitter to see more comments from the children.
The children enjoyed dressing up as the mayor and were surprised when our actual Mayor of King’s Lynn & West Norfolk turned up with the mayoress.
The Mayor, Cllr Geoff Hipperson, said: “I would like to congratulate whoever thought up this idea, and also the museum and town hall staff and Rachel for agreeing to being 'taken over' for the day.
"The children were interested and having an enjoyable time whilst learning the history behind the exhibits.
"They were a credit to their teachers, polite and well behaved and their questions showed they had already grasped the significance of events at the time they took place and the relevance to some of the things we do today.”