Ulster Museum: School history project made into a museum exhibition

BBC News

15-05-2025

Have you ever done a piece of school work that impressed your teachers so much, it went on display on the classroom wall? Well, imagine it being so good it gets put into a museum which attracts over half a million visitors each year. As part of their school history project has made some pupils in a Belfast school were asked to create a 'Museum of Childhood' in the school, so they began collecting as many interesting, old toys as they could. The collection was so impressive, that it is now on display at the Ulster Museum in Belfast.
They gathered the items by asking parents, grandparents, teachers and classroom assistants to check their own collections of childhood items. They were handed old dolls, dolls' houses, 19th century sewing kits and even a letter written to Father Christmas by a child in 1945.They also managed to collect scrapbooks, card games and a vintage radio dating back to the 1940s.As part of their research, they asked the people who donated the toys to fill in a survey to find out what their favourite toys were at the time.
The girls had unexpected reactions to their findings and said it made them think differently about their spare time, both in early childhood and today. One student, Aimee, who is 14, said she found the annuals and books the most interesting items as it showed "how different the children would have been back then because the stories that they read, we would never had those type of stories". "Just playing with other people, out in the streets with your toys or in the house with your sisters or brothers, there is something lost because it's all on screens and you're all looking down and there's no interaction any more," another pupil, Annabelle, told BBC News NI.Comic book annuals like the Beano and Bunty became very popular with children in the 20th century. Annuals were books released once year featuring characters like Dennis the Menace and Minnie the Minx, and were very popular feature of what the girls were given.
Aimee added: "A lot of the toys are similar, but it's the material they were made out of and how they would have been played with."Theirs were a lot more delicate and you can see from years ago that they're still intact - so it shows how much the children took care of their toys, as they only had a few."Jacqui Barker from the Ulster Museum said what the girls had collected showed their "passion and enthusiasm" for history."One object can have so many different connections to many people and mean something different to so many people," she said."And I think this display really reflects that. It may inspire people to want to know more, inspire their curiosity."