: Learning

In June 2019 the opportunity arose to begin a partnership between the Learning Team at St Fagans and the Access Base at Cantonian High School, Cardiff. The Access Base offers a provision for children from the ages of 11 to 19 who have a statement of educational need for Autism. As a Learning Facilitator I have always found working with Autistic Spectrum Disorder groups rewarding, so I was excited to be asked to organise a programme of activities for the group. I was particularly looking forward to getting to know the group as the same learners would return each visit.

During June and July we met with the students and staff for 3 visits. These visits acted as taster sessions where we could all get to know each other a bit, and find out what sort of activities would be enjoyable and beneficial for the group. They included a guided tour of the site, making coil pots with air drying clay, and potting plants with our Gardening team. Following this, it was decided the students would visit fortnightly with activities based around a different project each term.

Our first project was based around the theme of craft, with Christmas in mind. We began by making baubles and woollen 'fairy lights' using the wet felting technique. This hands on, tactile activity proved popular as the students enjoyed coming up with different colour combinations! In the following visits the group made more baubles and designed and created their own sets of Christmas cards using stamps and ink. In our last meeting before Christmas, the students decorated plant pots before planting daffodil and crocus bulbs to take home and grow.

Following the Christmas break, the plan was for the group to help develop a resource for ASD visitors, allowing them to become familiar with the site before their first visit. Developing a resource like this is something I’ve been interested in for a long time. This has involved visiting the galleries and buildings at St Fagans, and taking part in workshops such as the Warrior Grave and Lambing. I have collected feedback to add to the future visitor resource - for example the need to be aware that there's an echo effect while walking through the Atrium, and low level lighting in the buildings.

Unfortunately, our time together working on this project was cut short by the current events. There are still many more buildings for us to visit together, and more workshops to take part in. We look forward to welcoming Cantonian Access Base back to the museum in the future.

Miss Aimee Phillips – Cantonian High School said “Having a partnership with the St Fagans Learning team has given our pupils some amazing opportunities to learn outside of the classroom. Multisensory, hands on learning is vital to our pupils who are on the Autistic Spectrum. When working with the learning team, our pupils have been able to develop and refine their social skills which is a key area of learning. Some of our most memorable moments at St Fagans over the past year include, working in the Italian Garden, learning how to be a miller, the warrior workshop and most recently, watching lambs being born on the farm. As a teacher I would highly recommend the Learning team and their resources to anyone wanting a unique learning experience.”

You can learn more about the St Fagans Learning programme on our website. 

Hello Bulb Buddies,

I hope that you have had a good half term. Have any of your plants flowered over the holidays? Remember to enter the date your plant flowers and the height of your plant in mm to the website. We ask for the flowering date for every single plant to be entered, these are then used to work out the average flowering date for your school.

Schools that are taking part in the Edina Trust Extension Project are also asked to note whether each daffodil record they enter is from a bulb planted in the ground or in a pot.

We talk a lot about the weather records you take each week, but the flower records are just as important. We are investigating how changes in the weather effect the flowering dates of spring plants. To do this we need to be able to compare flowering dates for each year the investigation has been running.

The bar chart below shows the average flowering dates for spring plants in Wales since 2006. You can see from the chart that 2019 saw the earliest flowering dates since 2008. Do you think our plants will flower earlier or later this year Bulb Buddies?

Average flowering dates for Wales 2006-2019

The bar chart below shows the average flowering date for each country in 2019. You can see from the chart that plants flowered earliest in Northern Ireland and latest in Scotland. Do you think we will see the same pattern this year Bulb Buddies?

Average flowering dates 2019

Watch your plants closely over the next few weeks. Last year the average flowering dates for crocus was 22 February.

It’s fascinating to see how your plants change over time. There are activities on the website about the life cycle of plants: https://museum.wales/spring-bulbs/

Remember to share your photos with me Bulb Buddies.

Professor Plant

We have just launched our self-guided mindful tour here at St Fagans National Museum of History. The tour is through the gardens around St Fagans Castle. Our new free fold-out map of the gardens encourages visitors to take in their surroundings and explore their different senses.

The idea of the tour came from my own experience of using mindfulness for my mental health. St Fagans Castle gardens are beautiful all year round with animals and plants to see whatever the time of year. It is also a place where you can usually find a bit of quiet even during our busier times. Mindfulness is about being in the moment and focusing on individual senses. It’s surprising how much passes us by when we’re focused on our busy lives. Just stopping and concentrating on what you can smell or hear can help in times of stress.

Having the opportunity to walk around the gardens and take in the sights, sounds, smells and textures of nature has been very calming for me. My particular favourite is the Italian Garden in the summer with the running fountain. I feel incredibly lucky to work somewhere where I can do this and I wanted to share it with everyone who visits St Fagans.

Last summer I created a draft plan of a map to test with staff and community groups. Even though it was a very basic map at the time the feedback was very positive:

"Wir wedi mwynhau’r daith - diolch Joe! Braf cael cyfle i grwydro gerddi’r castell a mwynhau’r awyr iach. Diolch!"

“Lovely and peaceful, I like the sound of the water. The gardens were beautiful and very relaxing.”

"Wedi mwynhau gwylio’r colomennod ar ben y colomendy."

“Lots of quiet, secluded areas to sit down. I did find myself stopping to take note of my senses – smelling leaves, listening to the birds”

"Gall hwn fod un o highlights newydd SF"

“It felt like I had permission to take time and look and explore which was so nice.”

The feedback fed into the creation of the final version. It is designed by Frank Duffy who has done a great job of the illustrations and the look of the map. The map was funded by the Armed Forces Covenant who have supported a range of innovative events, displays and programmes at the Museum since 2014. One of the aims of the funding is to support the wellbeing of veterans and their families, so the concept of the mindfulness walk fitted in perfectly with the Covenant’s objectives. Members of the Armed Forces community had a first look at the new maps on 9^th December 2019 with very positive feedback for how it could be used to help those living with mental ill health.

Try the tour out for yourself by picking up a copy at St Fagans. The map is available at the front desk or you can download a PDF version here.

During 2019 we spent time developing the skills programme at St Fagans, working with partners and communities to create opportunities for adult learning and skills development, linked to our work under the Fusion Initiative and the Well-Being of Future Generations Act. To mark the launch of the new section of our Learning website for Community Learning here’s an update on what’s been achieved so far and what’s to come in 2020.

Community Learning and Skills Development:

We have been working with organisations such as the Wallich, Hafal, Crisis and Oasis Cardiff to collaboratively establish craft skills taster sessions with their participants. Workshops including leather and copper work have inspired the participants to use the museum’s collections as inspiration, whilst bringing their own cultural experiences with them to each session. 

People who have taken part have shared their experiences and feedback with us. Here are some of the highlights:

“Immersing, interesting, rewarding”

“It’s something that I’ve never done before so I found leather work really interesting and relaxing.”

So far 243 people have been taken part in sessions from April and December 2019, with further sessions planned in 2020.

Widening Accesses Partnerships:

We have been collaborating with Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Widening Access department to bring accessible learning programmes to the museum, using the museum’s collections to enhance and deepen the learning potential. In 2019 two creative writing courses and one in complimentary therapy were delivered at St Fagans. A second Complimentary Therapy course is currently running and further courses are planned for later this year.

Learner feedback highlights:

“The course has been a good confidence booster and showed me where I would like to progress.”

“Really enjoyed the course, well tutored, supportive environment.”

Language Skills:

Creating opportunities for people to learn and develop their language skills forms an important element of the skills development programme. In 2019 St Fagans built on its partnership with Cardiff University School of Welsh, who delivered a 20 week Entry 1 course (January to July 2019). Many of the learners went on to enrol on the Entry 2 Course which started in September 2019. A blended Entry 1 and 2 course also started in September 2019, with a new Entry 1 course starting this January.   

ESOL Learners are benefitting from the St Fagans ESOL learning resources, developed collaboratively with Cardiff and the Vale College (CAVC), proving opportunities for them to use the museum as a safe space for learning, sharing their culture and developing their knowledge and understanding of Welsh cultural heritage. Groups have been visiting from colleges such as CAVC and the resources are being regularly downloaded from the Museum’s website – in total 174 downloads between May and December 2019.

This year we are celebrating this success and building on it by launching the new Community Learning section of our website. Head over to have a look and learn more about how to take part and book a visit.

Thanks to all the participants, partner organisations and the team at St Fagans for everything that’s been achieved so far.

Hello Bulb Buddies,

I’ve heard that many of you are expecting your plants to flower soon. Well done for looking after your plants so well. I’m looking forward to seeing photos of your flowers so please share these with me.

Why not have a go at drawing botanical illustrations of your plants? There are lots of different examples of drawings like these on the Amgueddfa Cymru – National Museum Wales website if you want ideas. I’ve added an example of a botanical drawing from the museum’s collection on the right, does this look like your plant?

Can you name the different parts of your plant? Do you know what the anther and the sepal are? Drawing and labeling your plants is a lovely way to look at them in more detail. Please share your artwork with me if you do this.

Remember to look at the ‘Keeping Flower Records’ resource on the website. This shows how to tell when your plant has fully opened and how to measure your plants height. These records are important for our study, as we will look at the average flowering dates and compare these with previous years.

It will be interesting to see whether our plants flower early this year. The MET Office reported that January 2020 was the 6^th warmest January since 1884, with lower than average frosts for the time of year. Do you think this will have affected our plants growth?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments section when you enter your weather data Bulb Buddies.

Keep up the good work!

Professor Plant