V&A Museum of Childhood, from volunteer to OPA

Since September 2013 I have been volunteering at the V&A Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. It has been a massive learning curve for me to get an insight as a museum staff, learning about the museum operation from the inside out.

While being a part of the V&A, the museum itself runs with its very own quirky system. The main audience is family with children under 10 years old, this has a great effect in the way which their education programmes were designed. In addition to the usual volunteer responsibilities (meet and greet visitors, managing the lunch room, observing learning sessions, patrol the gallery, etc), I have had the priviledge to work closely with the previous education manager Carolyn Chin, who was resposible for most of the current education platform within the museum. Carolyn was a great mentor for me and have offered me the opportunity to develop activities for the gallery, allowed me to train new volunteers, and hired me as part of the education team's Occasional Professional Assistant (OPA). Getting a paid job in museums under the current cut is a big deal and I am so grateful for this. I will keep posting about the programmes that I am currently develop for the museum on here, so watch this space!