I’m Milena Jockovic, a workshop leader for Leicestershire County Council’s Creative Learning Services. I deliver workshops in schools for children through our carefully-curated museum artefacts and resources.
Whether the pupils are studying the Stone Age, Vikings, the seaside or local history, our sessions create unique learning opportunities for schools. My aim is to inspire curiosity and learning on a whole range of curriculum subjects!
A typical day for me involves visiting schools across the county. We start the session with an introduction using specific artefacts to get the children’s curiosity going. It’s a great way to see what prior knowledge they have. It also encourages further questions to deepen their understanding if we show them something they’ve not seen or heard of before.
Our workshops also involve setting children independent activities where they can immerse themselves even more by handling the artefacts and completing various tasks about them.
The highlight of being a workshop leader is seeing the children’s faces light up with excitement the moment they enter the room. Their eyes immediately scan the activity tables and the artefacts, and they start asking questions about them before they’ve even sat down.
It’s also great to hear them say a big thanks at the end of a session as they leave the room and that they’ve “had the best time ever!”
So far, my favourite collection has to be the items from the “Wild Things” workshop. The taxidermy animals, especially the fox, create such curiosity for the children and they fire so many questions about them before we even get started.
The coin maker in the “Stone Age to Iron Age” topic is also a brilliant artefact as the children feel such glee to take away the little coin they’ve made!
I’ve enjoyed every minute of becoming a workshop leader and am constantly blown away by how much the service can offer to schools. I always look forward to hearing which school I will be visiting next and what session I will be delivering there.
If you’d like to learn more about our museum learning sessions, visit our Creative Learning Services website.