Past Events

Past Events at Heritage Skills Hub

We’re thrilled to share that our events and training programmes have received overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants. The expertise and guidance provided by our industry-leading facilitators have been invaluable in empowering local heritage and cultural professionals.

Join our growing community of satisfied participants and learn from industry leaders. We’re committed to providing high-quality training that meets your needs. Get in touch to share your ideas and learn more about our upcoming events.

Colleagues from both the heritage and educations sectors in the county joined us to mark the launch of the Heritage Skills Hub in July 2023. An afternoon of mixed weather did not dampen the enthusiasm of our speakers who covered a variety of topics which included the needs of schools when considering the development of their curriculum, examples of heritage sites being used to develop young entrepreneurial skills and an insight into the fantastic opportunities that local heritage provides in developing a relevant and engaging curriculum that reaches beyond history alone.

The opportunity to network, while exploring Stanwick Lakes’ rich heritage and consider how the Skills Hub can support both sectors moving forwards, was popular, as was the presentation from one of Luton’s Heritage Impact Accelerator Practitioners. This generated much interest in our Corby Heritage Accelerator programme and how schools will be able to engage with this aspect of our heritage project.

Photo shows Suzanne Oliver, Heritage Projects and Partnerships Officer at the University of Northampton at the Heritage Skills Hub launch. She is standing in the Solstice Room at Stanwick Lakes, presenting to an audience that is out of shot. In the background is a purple pull-up sign with UON branding.

Nadia Norman, Stanwick Lakes Heritage officer, presents to a crowd of approx 15 people outside at the Heritage Skills Hub launch. She is pointing at some large tree trunks in a roped-off area.

Photo shows a group of approx 8 or 9 people outside a one-storey building at Stanwick Lakes. They are looking through an open door. Inside, the room looks like it is full of people.
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What attendees said:

“As a launch event it was spot on! Next events would be nice to have some workshops to begin to develop practical skills. I will continue to explore Heritage curriculum beyond history. Thanks so much. It was lovely to be part of such a positive, well organised and inspiring event.”

“The presentations were all great, but there was also time to network during the breaks and when looking around the site, which I really enjoyed. I was unfamiliar with the site.”

Thank you to everyone who supported the event, to our inspirational speakers and to the amazing Stanwick Lakes team for hosting us so wonderfully!
Training from Historic England on their Heritage Schools programme were run in Corby and East Northants and brought together teachers from local schools to consider how to teach History at KS1 and KS2 from a local perspective.

With support from both Northampton Museum and Corby Heritage Centre, the two days were well received, and teachers went away with ideas, and resources to use.

“The local heritage walk showed us the key areas of the town. I also found the activities that you could use in the classroom incredibly useful too. The pack is amazing too, thank you!”

“It was good to make local links and connections with other schools, heritage and artists.”

“Learning about the use of maps and aerial photography was most useful as well as the games and techniques to make students look at images.”

“It was very informative, learned very useful techniques.”

We are looking to run these sessions again in the next academic year so please do contact us if you would like to be involved.
Hosted by Corby Sixth Form, the first Heritage Education Fair in February 2024 saw teachers come from across the county to find out about the rich heritage available locally.

We were joined by a wide range of Northamptonshire Heritage Organisations who all had a unique offer for schools: from hands-on days onsite to loan boxes and outreach workshops. Organisations were given the opportunity to run taster workshops in addition to a traditional marketplace which were particularly well received.

“All presenters were very friendly; the workshops were good and informative.”

“I thoroughly enjoyed the two workshops that I attended and loved meeting colleagues from Heritage venues across the county.”

The Corby Heritage Accelerators were also in attendance, talking to both schools and heritage organisations about their work and their current lines of research and many seeds were sown, and feedback was positive. Heritage Organisations were overwhelmingly positive and supportive about the event developing in the future.

“It was a brilliant first event – the number of attendees will only grow with time.”

“It is great we all have the chance to run talks and workshops at the event. The highlight was our starting a partnership with a local school, who are excited to help us develop our offering. We spoke to other museum professionals and briefly discussed ideas to work together on learning projects.”

When asked if this should be an annual event the response from everyone was a definite yes and we have already received may offers from heritage venues around the county about hosting next years!
Our workshops series facilitated in partnership with the Northamptonshire Community Foundation and Richard Clinton, CEO of Delapre Abbey Preservation Trust guided participants through the process of developing a heritage project, step-by-step. Each session provided valuable insights and practical guidance, with time in between for the application of what was learnt, 1:1 support available to discuss and develop ideas and opportunities for networking.

“It has helped me to visualise the shape and content of my project in a very helpful way.”

“The slides were excellent and great to have them after the even to refresh or highlight things missed.”

“An incredibly useful event held in a great environment.”
Run by our partners at the University of Bedfordshire, this interactive workshop explored oral history projects that experiment with participatory approaches to community engagement to explore issues where public history and intangible cultural heritage concerns intersect.

The benefits and challenges of merging creative expression with oral history were discussed and sharing of creative interpretations of some of the local and national oral history projects.

“It was useful to look at some case studies of existing projects.”

“I found the practical tips to be useful, i.e. information about securing funding and choosing appropriate equipment.”

“The discussion about ethics was also food for thought. I hope to incorporate some Oral History into my practice; this is not something that I have ever done before. I now feel better equipped to do so.”
We were delighted to provide training with leading experts in copyright and licensing, Naomi Korn Associates, who delivered an engaging and informative training session to over 30 different heritage individuals and organisations from the county.

“It was very informative and engaging with opportunities for questions and mini-tests.”

“Naomi was inspirational and excellent at communicating and enthusing.”

“A huge thanks for all the work that you put into the Copyright Day. A massive effort to wrangle all those folks was needed and you managed brilliantly and delivered something of real value. Awesome job!”

Look at their website for many free resources to support the cultural and heritage professionals and organisations.