Education projects

We've worked closely with schools and Education Scotland on a range of arts and heritage projects for children and young people, delivered in partnership with national creative and heritage organisations.

Junior Curators (2020 to 2024)

We developed relationships between our museums and heritage service and local schools. In 2019 and 2020, National Galleries Scotland ran workshops at North Walls Primary School and Kirkwall Grammar School, exploring how to make our heritage offer accessible to children and young people, focusing on curation, interpretation and how young people describe art and objects in their own words.

This led to the creation of Junior Curators, starting at Scapa Flow Museum in partnership with North Walls Primary, and later expanding to Kirbuster Farm Museum with Dounby Primary School.

National Schools Theatre Touring (2020 to 2024)

We took part in the National Schools Touring Theatre offer, in partnership with Imaginate. In 2020, Orkney was the test bed for an online, live-streamed production, Potato Needs a Bath, performed by Shone Reppe and delivered to every school in Orkney, earning a mention in the Scottish Parliament.

Further performances included Chalk About by Curious Seed, Family Portrait, a dance and film installation by Barrowland Ballet, Going For Gold, Me and Lynford Christie, and, in 2024, One of Two, a show exploring the lived experience of disability.

National Creative Learning Network (2019 to 2023)

From 2012, we were part of the National Creative Learning Network, a partnership between Creative Scotland and Education Scotland supporting creative learning in schools.

Highlights included pupils from North Walls Primary School presenting a Q&A session at the network's 2020 annual event, based on a film about learning at their school, and pupils from Dounby Primary School running sessions in 2023 on their project exploring school community. The Dounby project was later featured internationally by education organisation HundrED.

Between 2019 and 2022, we received Creative Learning Network funding to work with creative education consultants Hidden Giants, developing a Twinning and Mentoring programme.