My Primary School is at the Gallery

Photograph of a group of children standing in a blue room looking at a painting
Photograph: Abe Neihum, 2022

In May 2024, The Gallery is running the My Primary School is at the Gallery project for the third year. The 6th-class students from Saint Christopher’s Primary School are in residence in the Gallery. For a full week, they will base themselves in the Millennium Wing Studio, using the whole Gallery as their classroom to explore subjects across the curriculum including art, English, maths, geography and history. The students invite you to their Open Studio, to see work produced during their residency and their reflections on how it went. 

The students' Open Studio

The students will hold two Open Studio days in the Gallery's Millennium Wing Studio in June:

  • Saturday 1 June, 10am–4pm
  • Sunday 2 June, 12pm–4pm

My Primary School is at the Gallery, supported by SMBC Aviation Capital, Schools Partner.

About the project

My Primary School is at the Museum was conceived by architect Wendy James of Garbers & James, and developed in collaboration with the Department of Education & Professional Studies and the Cultuaral Institute at King’s College London. The project was developed against a backdrop of threatened museum services, a shortage of school places, and ever-growing evidence to support the range of benefits of learning in cultural environments and through collections. It tested the benefits of co-locating primary and nursery school classes for extended periods of time within a museum. The initial project consisted of a number of pilot residencies, and the detailed research report identified benefits including:

  • For children: increased confidence and improved social and communication skills; greater engagement with and sense of ‘ownership’ of local cultural spaces and places.
  • For museums: a deeper understanding of younger audiences, enabling the development of more relevant, engaging programmes; an extended use of their spaces and collections.
  • For schools and teachers: examples of creative ways in which to deliver the curriculum and confidence using out-of-classroom spaces.

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