On Friday 7 July Bourne Hall handed over its social media channels to young people from

St Clement’s Catholic Primary School in Ewell, as part of a national Kids in Museums Digital Takeover Day event.  

Supported by Arts Council England, the Kids in Museums charity aims to empower young people and help them learn digital marketing skills, as well as support museums to engage younger audiences. 

The charity has held an annual digital takeover since 2014, where young people take over the social accounts of museums, galleries, historic homes, archives and heritage sites across the UK. Last year, over 50 museums were taken over and the hashtag #TakeoverDay has even trended on Twitter. 

Bourne Hall welcomed a group of year 2 students to its Museum to become cultural detectives for the morning. Focusing on five specific themes: Space, Nature, Local History, Holidays and Textiles, children highlighted their favourite items, which were then photographed and placed alongside their own caption, to go out on Bourne Hall’s social media. 

As well as the digital takeover, the children also created some brilliant visual responses to their visit, these artworks will be turned into an exhibition at Bourne Hall – watch this space for the launch date! 

The children had some insightful comments to make about the objects in the museum. One commented about some 1950s card games: 

“Amazing, incredible, really fun! The cards were colourful and rainbowy and reminded us of holidays.” 

Thinking about working in the role of a Curator, another child added:

“I’m thinking about the security in our museum – and how we keep everything safe. I’m also thinking about how I would make sure that everyone had a great time when they come to visit our museum.” 

Speaking of the recent event, Councillor Clive Woodbridge, Chair of Epsom & Ewell Borough Council’s Community and Wellbeing Committee, said, 

“This was a great event that brought our fantastic museum to life for some of our borough’s young people. It was a highly engaging experience for the children and they also gave us valuable feedback on what they loved in the museum and what they’d like to see more of. I am really looking forward to seeing the children’s artwork when it is displayed in Bourne Hall’s foyer.” 

You can follow the conversation on social media by looking at the hashtag #TakeoverDay and following @KidsInMuseums.

• Kids in Museums are a charity dedicated to making museums open and welcoming to all children, young people and families.  They support and champion family friendly organisations through wide-ranging initiatives, including the Family Friendly Museum Award and Takeover Day.  They invite heritage organisations to sign up to their Manifesto, which sets out simple guidelines for making museums easy to reach for all ages. Find out more about the charity and Digital Takeover Day at www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk or on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.