Blog: Learning

Hi Bulb Buddies,

I wanted to give you a heads up about an exciting new competition that will be launching soon!

It's a chance for all groups participating in this year's Spring Bulbs for Schools Investigation to show off their fantastic filming and storytelling skills! You'll be asked to work in groups to produce 30 second videos exploring what you've enjoyed most about the Investigation. 

I'm looking forward to sharing more information with you and seeing what you all create! 

Watch this space for further updates soon...

Best wishes,

Professor Plant

Last year we celebrated Adult Learners Week in September, alongside other learning providers across Wales. 
We were excited to deliver activities across all 7 museums within the  Amgueddfa Cymru family, building on existing offers and piloting new sessions and activities.
At St Fagans we were able to develop a full programme of activities which took place throughout the week, including crafting taster sessions and workshops, mindful nature walks and opportunities for Welsh and English learners. 
The Amgueddfa Cymru programme was promoted via the new Adult and Community Learning section of our website, with the individual site offers also appearing on their main What’s On listings page. We were also able to promote our programme via the Adult Learners Week platform, supported by the Learning and Work Institute, as well as ensuring we ran a comprehensive social media campaign in the run up and throughout the week, across X (Twitter), Instagram and Facebook.
As part of this work, we also promoted our series of virtual craft tutorials and taster sessions and the self-led learner resources we offer. 
We worked closely with partners including Dysgu Cymraeg Caerdydd, Menter Caerdydd, Adult Learning Wales and Creative Lives to ensure our programme was tailored to the needs of the learners we hoped to attract and was enhanced by the richness that partnership working brings.
Over the course of the week, we saw a total of 160 people take part in the learning opportunities on offer at St Fagans and a total of 331 people across Amgueddfa Cymru as a whole. This marked our biggest ever Adult Learners Week, of which we are very proud. Take a look at some of the highlight here: https://youtu.be/lgKtmLHr1_Q 
We wanted to ensure we collected feedback from learners to help us develop and improve our adult learning offer across the organization. 
Here’s a sample of some of the learner feedback we received: 
“Wonderful, positive, creative environment.” 
“Learning a new skill is fun and fulfilling”.  
“Very social and therapeutic experience”  
“I really enjoyed the workshop. Very fun and positive experience. Facilitators were really friendly and found it really therapeutic and sociable.”  
“Very much enjoyed – great opportunity to learn a new skill. Great teacher. I feel very chilled now.” 
“Thoroughly enjoyable and interesting walk – saw things I’d never noticed previously.” 
“Yn agordrws i fydhudol.”  
“I really enjoyed the Mindful Nature Walk at St Fagans. I learnt a lot and would recommend it! It was great to have someone so knowledgeable leading the session.” 
“Friendly environment, not at all intimidating, so if you want to try something new go for it!” (willow weaving bird feeders) 
“Empowered! A great way to learn a new skill.” 
“Great fun! Just go do it, you will enjoy learning a new skill!”  
“Dw i’nmeddwl bod digwyddiadauyn y Cymraeg yndddaiawn.”  
“I have always wanted to make an autumn wreath and the course gave me the confidence. It was an inspirational course.” 
The tuition was fantastic. There was help when needed but given enough space and time to try and do it yourself.”  
“Very much enjoyed drawing again after 20 years. Must get back into it now!” 
“I thoroughly enjoyed the sketching session at St Fagans and the encouraging nature of the group.”  
“A motivating, supporting and encouraging session which was led excellently by Marion and Gareth and so well hosted by Loveday.” (Sketching workshop at St Fagans with Creative Lives).  
“It feels so wonderful to try something new and see the results so quickly.” (Enamelling taster session).  
Legacy programmes: 
As a result of the piloting opportunities Adult Learners Week provided, we have since been able to launch 3 new regular Adult Learning programmes at St Fagans and National Museum Cardiff. 
Our monthly Audio Described Tour programme (alternating monthly between the two museums and shortly to launch at the National Roman Legionary Museum in Caerleon, with a view to extend to other sites as and when capacity allows).
Our new monthly Sketching Group at St Fagans, in partnership with Creative Lives (and building on the success of the wonderful National Museum Cardiff Drawing Group). So far we’ve held 3 sessions. Our first attracted 6 people, our second 8 and our third 24! Feedback has been so positive and word is spreading far and wide. If you’d like to join us next month please do so. All the info can be found in the link above. 
New termly Bore i Ddysgwyr Cymraeg Welsh Learner Mornings in collaboration with Dysgu Cymraeg Caerdydd and Menter Caerdydd. Last term we welcomed 35 Welsh learners to the museum to take part in a session on Welsh Christmas traditions. We’re looking forward to welcoming an existing group of Welsh speakers and learners on 25^th January for Dydd Santes Dwynwen where we’ll be exploring the Welsh Love Spoon collection and then the next Bore i Ddysgwyr Cymraeg. 
The 6 commitments enshrined in our 10-year strategy Amgueddfa2030 are embedded throughout our adult learning programme, specifically that of inspiring creativity and learning for life. 
We look forward to continuing to grow our adult learning offer and hope to welcome you in 2024 to one of our museums to take part in an activity or enjoy using one of our self-led learner resources! 

I wish to say a big thank you to all the schools who participated in the investigation this academic year. Thank you for sharing your weather records, comments and photos. I hope you all enjoy the holidays.

Please share any observations on the type of weather you see over the holidays with your comments when you return to school. I wonder if any of us will have a white Christmas!

Happy holidays,

Professor Plant

On Tuesday 12th September Amgueddfa Cymru kindly hosted our ESOL class on an ESOL trip-out to the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. Welsh Refugee Council volunteer Souleymane Ouedraogo submitted the following report on the special outing. 

As part of an outing organized by Welsh Refugee Council ESOL tutors Marie and Chris; ESOL learners from different cities in Wales gathered at the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. We were warmly welcomed to Amgueddfa Cymru (National Museum of Wales) by museum staff recalling that Wales has several museums including that of Cardiff created more than a century ago. 

We then went to visit the Clore Discovery Centre. In this learning centre, there are multiple carefully preserved objects from geological, paleontological, archaeological and natural history research. Each object has its origin story. After the tour of the centre, there was time for a practical exercise that combined theory and practice seen during previous ESOL lessons. We practiced brilliantly with the support of our guide and the WRC delegation. It was both fun and educational at the same time. 

We then proceeded to visit the Art Gallery. Pictures and paintings are often tinged with landscapes and varied reliefs. Everyone can analyse and appreciate the artwork in their own way. Some paintings are very old (over 500 years), others more recent. You often have to get closer to better understand the artistic work. You need eyes to see, but even better, you need to have ingenious eyes to understand the messages conveyed by these beautiful paintings. Thanks to the great work of painters of other times, each new generation has elements of research to better understand history. 

I would like to thank the Welsh Refugee Council for organizing the outing but even more so the National Museum for having offered this invitation. It has allowed us to not only learn a little more about the culture of Wales but to also create contacts for possible opportunities in the future. 

 “I would like to reiterate our thanks to Amgueddfa Cymru, for an excellent day for our students.  I thought that there was a really nice balance of activities, excellent use of relevant artifacts and pictures – not to mention your enthusiastic and motivating presentation.” said Martin Smidman Volunteer & Partnership Manager at the Welsh Refugee Council.

Diolch yn fawr Amgueddfa Cymru.

A group photo in the Clore Discovery Centre!

Hi Bulb Buddies,

I want to say a big thank you for all your hard work on planting day. You helped to plant 11,183 bulbs across the country and from the photos I’ve seen, it looks like you all had a great time doing it!

Weather records should be kept from 1st November. Please make sure that your thermometer and rain gauge are in a suitable place next to your bulbs so that you can take weather readings every day that you are in school. Don’t worry if you are on holiday this week, you can enter ‘no record’ for any days that you are not in school. 

There is a resource on the website to help you prepare for taking Weather Records. I’ve attached this here in case you haven’t already seen it. This resource helps you to answer important questions, such as ‘why rainfall and temperature readings are important to our investigation into the effects of climate on the flowering dates of spring bulbs’!

Use your Weather Chart to log the rainfall and temperature every school day. At the end of the week, log into the Amgueddfa Cymru website to add your weekly findings. You can also leave comments or ask questions for me to answer in my next Blog. 

Let me know how you get on. You can share photos with me via email or X/Twitter.

Keep up the good work Bulb Buddies,

Professor Plant