Students from Stoke Damerel Community College in Plymouth have won a national award for re-modelling the city museum's rear entrance. Courtesy Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

An education project run by Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery has won a national award from the Commission for Architecture and Built Environment (CABE).

The Museum Access Project (MAP) involved 240 students from Stoke Damerel Community College who worked together last year to design a new easy-access entrance to the rear of the museum.

Pupils from Year 9 looked at ways to improve the entrance for visitors who find it difficult to use the steps at the front. The designs had to meet budget demands, the needs of the museum and most importantly be accessible for all visitors.

The finished entrance. Courtesy Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

"This project made the students feel valued and made the museum theirs," said Catrina Garrett, the school’s advanced skills teacher for citizenship. "It has opened them out to their community and to their city."

Students visited the museum and looked at ways to improve the entrance. The group then worked in eight departments – directors, architects, artists, exhibition managers, marketing, reporters, researchers and web designers – to produce a number of designs with signs and promotional leaflets.

The project was part of the school’s citizenship syllabus. Catrina commented, “they have learnt about real deadlines and real teamwork and gained many more skills that you don’t necessarily learn at school.”

The students had the job of researching, designing and even marketing the new entrance. Courtesy Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

Voted for by the rest of the school and the local community, the winning design – ‘Looking at the World Differently’ – was based on the idea that the museum allows visitors to see things they do not normally see.

The design turns the world upside down, with grass on the ceiling and sky on the floor, and features huge blinds with images of old maps of Plymouth.

MAP was run as part of Renaissance in the Regions, a national scheme to transform regional museums.

Before the students got their mitts on it... Courtesy Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery.

"The students were incredibly dedicated and imaginative and it has been an exciting project," explained Hannah Dempsey, Access and Outreach Officer at the museum.

"It’s fantastic that young people have been able to make such a worthwhile contribution to their community."

A spokesperson for CABE highlighted the project as "an outstanding example of citizenship education through imaginative engagement with the built environment" and said, "the judges were particularly impressed by the strong partnership working, excellent communications and the scale of the pupil involvement."

Rory Trust is the 24 Hour Museum Renaissance student journalist for the South West region. Renaissance is the groundbreaking initiative to transform England's regional museums, led by MLA, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council.