Other project partners: Ringsfield Primary School, Brampton Primary School, Bungay Middle School, MLA East of England

(Learning about American bomber squadrons)

Description: The result of this partnership is an education package incorporating two loan boxes and a guided visit to the museum. The children prepare for their visit in class by using the loan boxes which contain a mixture of artefacts and a ‘Memories’ folder collected by NASAM volunteers. Some of the stories are particularly designed to appeal to this age group: one of them recalls a boyhood memory in Norwich when Woolworths was bombed and sweets were scattered across the street! The author of this story is one of the people the children have the chance to talk to on their visit to the museum. The visit itself is carefully organised around a series of volunteer-led activities:

1. Morse code: children use reconstructed machines to send messages to each other and decode received messages

2. Reminiscence: children have the chance to talk to someone who was a boy during World War Two — while sat inside a rare Vickers Valetta aircraft! An ex-fighter pilot also tells them about his experiences

3. Learning to fly: they can then test out their skills using the flight simulators

4. Research: the children use the collections to find out more about the people based in Flixton, including an American tail gunner posted to the area who is still in touch with the museum

5. Survival kit: finally they decide what they would pack in their own survival kit and then discover what’s inside the real ones in the museum. The visit was trialled over three weeks, and involved three schools and a total of 126 children. More volunteers got involved each week as they discovered what was happening.

The visit was trialled over three weeks, and involved three schools and a total of 126 children. More volunteers got involved each week as they discovered what was happening.

"It’s excellent…hard but excellent" ..."This is well cool!"

Legacy: The success of the pilot means the programme is being launched more widely from April 2008 onwards to become a core part of NASAM’s educational offer.

About the partners: NASAM is recognised as East Anglia's Aviation Heritage Centre. Maintained and run by volunteers, with one paid staff member, the museum constitutes an impressive collection of aircraft and equipment. It also houses the Royal Observer Corps Museum, the 446th (H) Bomb Group Museum, the RAF Bomber Command Museum and the Air Sea Rescue and Coastal Command Museum.

All the primary schools taking part are local to the museum. Funding came from the MLA East of England Learning Links programme.