Find Your Talent

Ancient Egyptian Adventure - the Secret of the Jewelled Heart

Dotty and Jesse on the rapids

An exciting Key Stage 2 outreach programme started on 2 November 2009 when National Museums Liverpool (NML) offered an Ancient Egyptian Adventure to 63 primary schools in Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens. The 'spectacle' was enjoyed by more than 6,000 young people.

The day of the visit began with an assembly featuring 'ancient Egyptian' actors. Performances then followed in which intrepid explorers made some unusual discoveries in a pyramid.

Watch the adventure in action and what children thought of it

Photographs from the set construction and rehearsals can be found on our Flickr page.

The project offered the children a fantastic experience and aimed to inspire them, their parents, teachers and schools to visit World Museum and explore its unique and wonderful collections with a sense of adventure, curiosity and enthusiasm!

The programme had an ancient Egyptian theme but used a cross-curricula approach, which involved the following elements:

• A high-impact visual spectacle to be experienced by the whole school.
• An interactive performance to be experienced by KS2 classes.
• A History/Science/Maths workshop for selected classes.
• A resource box for loan, containing replica artefacts.
• A sharing event with parents at the close of the school day capturing and celebrating the learning that has occurred.
• A follow-up visit to World Museum to see authentic objects and artefacts that will help pupils appreciate the stories and civilisation of ancient Egypt.

In addition there was a Continuing Professional Development strand to support teachers using the programme, and the associated cross-curricula resources. These were especially useful in the area of Literacy.

Model of the Egyptian temple set being created at World Museum. By Lois Maskell - Theatre, Performance and Environmental Design

The project was funded by central government through the Find Your Talent programme, and directed by a team from National Museums Liverpool, the targeted schools, and creative practitioners brought together by Hope Street Ltd. It ran until April 2010. As a part of the Find Your Talent programme, the Ancient Egyptian Adventure is restricted to certain schools in Liverpool, Knowsley and St Helens. The project is being closely monitored and the experience will inform future work in World Museum.

For further details please contact Jon Marrow, senior education officer for humanities, on 0151 478 4034 or send him an email.

Further information

• Learning Resources for the Ancient Egyptian Adventure
• Participating schools