The Outreach team in UCL Special Collections recently hosted two students from the IOE BA Education Studies course.  Tasked with creating a pitch for a new after school club, Jiayi and Yunrui spent time getting to know the collections, learning about the Outreach programme and devising an original idea to present to staff at the end of their placement.  It was a pleasure to host them, and we hope to implement their project ideas in the next academic year.  This blog is written by Jiayi and Yunrui, and shares some of their reflections and learning at the end of their time with us.

Ella Zhang

After completing our Education Placement at UCL Special Collections, Yunrui and I are thrilled to reflect on the enriching experiences we had during our time here.

Throughout the placement, we developed a general understanding of UCL Special Collections. We had the privilege of engaging with key staff members, embarking on tours to Special Collection places on UCL Bloomsbury Campus. We were also introduced to key collection items and delved into stories behind them. Under the guidance of Daniel Dickins, we honed our skills in online collection search, catalogue navigation, and item viewing, equipping ourselves with invaluable tools for future studies.

We were introduced to the Outreach Programme in Special Collections under the supervision of Vicky Price, and the standout highlight in the placement for me was our participation in the after-school club Illustrate!, a part of the Outreach Programme at Special Collections. I visited Stratford School Academy, where I saw pupils enjoying perspective drawing in the workshop. Yunrui and I then visited UCL East with an authentic opportunity to observe collection items with pupils from Stratford School Academy. This firsthand experience in the after-school club, witnessing how children immersed themselves in the exploration of collection items, made me reflect on the learning process. As an education student, I was then led to the philosophical debate of the relationship between learning and fun – are the two elements separate or could they be mutual–facilitating? To me, real learning experiences are so closely intertwined with ‘fun’. The after-school club facilitated by Special Collections managed to achieve this – Illustrate! provides pupils with a well-balanced educational experience as it supports pupils’ learning with collection items while stimulating the intrinsic curiosity of pupils.

Inspired by our experiences, Yunrui and I seized the opportunity to design our own after-school club – Poetry Lab. Motivated by our fascination with the poetry store, we envisioned a space where Key Stage 3 pupils could discover poetry beyond its stereotypical image. This was inspired by Liz Lawes, when we were introduced to the small press collections. Through sessions focused on concrete, visual, object, and sound poetry, we wanted to encourage pupils to understand poetry as a way of creative expression. We also designed creative activities in each session. These activities would allow kids to construct different forms of poetry by themselves, aiming to help them develop a deeper appreciation of poetry and language. This experience gave us a real taste of programme development including collection use and resource preparation.

To sum up, Yunrui and I have both really enjoyed this placement in the lovely working environment in Special Collections. Our collaboration has been particularly rewarding, with our shared enthusiasm and teamwork spirit. Throughout our placement, we had the pleasure of meeting great people and developing new skills. We sincerely hope there will be future opportunities for us to work with Special Collections again!

Yunrui Zhang

This term, as a part of Education Placement Module, my course mate Ella and I have been assigned to have a 50-hour placement with UCL Special Collections and worked with the outreach team on the after-school workshop. The placement started at late January and mostly finished at late March. Before this placement, I knew nothing about UCL Special Collections. Through this placement, I gained some relevant knowledge. This includes what archives, rare books and manuscripts are, how to quickly search items in Special Collection’s catalogue and how to use these items in after-school workshops in the Outreach programme.

Our final task was to design an after-school workshop for the outreach programme, using collection items from UCL Special Collections. This required us to have clear knowledge and become relatively familiar with some of the collections. Initially, I thought it would be quite challenging to familiarise ourselves with the collections and develop a suitable workshop topic within the 50-hour placement. However, the supportive environment at UCL Special Collections and the guidance we received, including weekly explorations of different collections, have made the process more manageable. One particularly memorable experience was our visit to the poetry store with Liz Lawes. We were fascinated by the diverse ways in which poetry can be presented. With Liz’s guidance, we deepened our understanding of different forms of poetry and ultimately decided on the topic of our after-school workshop: “the poetry lab”.

Beyond visiting and exploring various collections, we also had the opportunity to observe after-school workshops in person. These experiences taught us a lot about the ideal format for such workshops. Unlike traditional school classes, after-school workshops should integrate fun and interactive activities into the learning process to ensure an enjoyable experience.

These insights have also inspired the design of our own after-school workshop. We’ve structured it into 5 sessions, each focusing on a different form of poetry. This allows students to learn and understand the different forms of poetic expression during the workshop. We have designed different activities for each session to encourage active participation and deeper understanding. For example, one of our sessions is focusing on object poetry. The activity we designed for this session involves students making their own object poetry and sharing their thinking with the class. This hands-on approach can facilitate their understanding on how object works as a metaphor to help people better visualize and understand the poem.

In fact, my learning journey has already begun when I started learning about the Outreach programme. Over the two months of the placement, as I gradually deepened my understanding of the Outreach programme, I gained some new insights about the role of universities in society. I realized that universities could have profound impact beyond their traditional academic roles to foster a more interconnected and supportive society. UCL Special Collections can be a good example that extends the university’s reach beyond its immediate academic community by providing assistance and resources to schools and individuals, actively contributing to broader societal well-being.

Throughout the whole placement, I also learned a lot from my course mate Ella, including her outstanding communication skills and her ability to learn new things. It was a great pleasure to work with her on our after-school workshop proposal. At the same time, I am also very grateful to Vicky Price and Daniel Dickins and everyone else in UCL Special Collections for their help and support during the placement. This experience will be a treasure for my future, and I am very lucky to be able to spend these two months with UCL Special Collections.

The Outreach team at UCL Special Collections have spent a great six weeks delivering an after school club to Year 7, 8 and 9 pupils at William Ellis School. Pupils attended in their free time to explore how written texts have been produced through the ages and to learn about some of the ways printing has influenced western society.

Each session involved a hands on art or craft activity, producing manuscripts complete with calligraphy and gold leaf, block prints of historiated initials and lino cut illustrations. We are proud to share the end results of this final task with you – pupils were asked to choose a poem from a selection and to create an image they felt represented the poem in a lino print.

Porcupines

By Marilyn Singer

Hugging you takes some practice.

So I’ll start out with a cactus.

(Poem taken from the Poetry Foundation)

Trees
By Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

(Poem taken from the Poetry Foundation)

 

Extract from The Cloud
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

(Poem taken from The Poetry Foundation)

 

To Catch a Fish
By Eloise Greenfield

It takes more than a wish
to catch a fish
you take the hook
you add the bait
you concentrate
and then you wait
you wait you wait
but not a bite
the fish don’t have
an appetite
so tell them what
good bait you’ve got
and how your bait
can hit the spot
this works a whole
lot better than
a wish
if you really
want to catch
a fish

(Poem taken from The Poetry Foundation)

 

The Eagle
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

(Poem taken from The Poetry Foundation)

We can go one better than the traditional ‘ten Lords’ and offer you ‘one royal’…

We’re not going to lie to you, this one is a bit tenuous. But we couldn’t resist the opportunity to share one of our most successful outreach projects to date.

Thousands of children have been involved in an immersive First World War education programme that UCL Special Collections have played a key role in delivering. This was part of the Shrouds of the Somme project, one of the major centrepieces of Armistice commemorations that took place at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from Thursday 8 to Sunday 18th November this year.

The Shrouds of Somme project is the brainchild of Artist Rob Heard, who has spent the past five years making more than 72,000 small shrouded figures, each one representing one of the men killed and never recovered from the battled field at the Battle of the Somme. On Thursday 8 November, each of the shrouds were laid out as a graphic reminder of the scale of sacrifice they made in the Great War. The installation welcomed just under 3000 school pupils as well as around 85,000 members of the public.

UCL Special Collections teamed up with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and UCL Institute of Education’s First World War Centenary Battlefields Tour Programme to create free online teacher resources, worksheets for visiting schools and a programme of workshops for schools in the neighbouring Olympic Park boroughs (Tower Hamlets, Hackney, Waltham Forest and Newham). Special Collection’s Education Coordinator, Vicky Price, delivered 33 workshops, visiting 12 schools and reaching almost 1000 pupils.

The workshops combined historical enquiry with creative writing and used primary resources from UCL‘s College archive. Through exploring archival items like Rosenberg’s student record and a publication of perhaps his most famous poem, Break of Day in the Trenches (in Poetry: a magazine of verse. Vol. IX (3), December 1916 [reprint edition, 1966], STORE Little Magazines), pupils learnt of the poet Isaac Rosenberg, who had been a student at the Slade School of Fine Art. He grew up in a Jewish working class family in Mile End and went to art school to become a painter. When war broke out, he volunteered to fight, sending poetry back to the UK from the trenches. He was killed in France in 1918.

But where does the royalty come in? (I hear you say). Well, we were honoured to be invited to attend a visit by The Princess Royal at the installation site. Vicky Price (UCL Special Collections Education Coordinator) shook the Princess’ hand and explained the work we had done alongside pupils and the Head Teacher from the Bobby Moore Academy.

Last week saw the launch of a new UCL Special Collections display outside the Donaldson Reading Room entrance on the 1st floor of the Main Library. Dante’s Divine Comedy: Modern Visual Representations features a selection of printed materials inspired by the great medieval Italian poet’s literary masterpiece. Produced over 700 years ago, the Divine Comedy is still celebrated today for its incredible imagery of the afterlife. The twentieth-century publications chosen for the display contain their own distinctive illustrative depictions of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, but are united in the way they seek to capture elements of Dante’s extraordinary imagination. The display is scheduled to run until Tuesday 26th June.

Running alongside this display and throughout the summer term are two public programmes dedicated to Dante. Weekly readings of the Divine Comedy take place on Monday evenings at the Warburg Institute, Woburn Square (6:00 – 7:30 pm), while talks about Dante, his life and works take place on alternate Tuesday evenings at the Italian Cultural Institute, Belgrave Square (7:00-8:30 pm). Both programmes are free and open to all. On Tuesday 29th May, UCL Special Collections will be at the Italian Cultural Institute to present a selection of highlights from the Dante Collection from 18:00-19:15 pm. In addition, Tabitha Tuckett (Rare-Books Librarian) will be providing expert insights on the Collection in a public talk at 18:30 pm. We hope to see you there.

If you wish to consult materials held by UCL Special Collections, please send enquiries to the following email address: spec.coll@ucl.ac.uk