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Ferris Wheels and Penny Farthings at our Victorian Fest!

On Thursday 22nd October, the Rumble Museum held its Victorian Festival at Cheney School which saw the arrival of the first ever Ferris Wheel into the centre of the school.

The festival welcomed hundreds of Cheney students and visitors across the three hours, and people of all ages were able to enjoy a range of Victorian-themed stalls and activities. These included blacksmithing demonstrations at a Victorian Forge (with Byron Robinson from Vitriol Historical), and Penny Farthings which people could have a go at riding under the expert guidance of Bill Pollard and Matt Richardson from the Penny Farthing Riders Club. There were also Victorian Magic Shows with Paul Longhurst featuring a beautiful white rabbit. Inside the main festival building, there were over 40 different stalls and activities.

The History of Science Museum brought a range of Victorian toys, the Bodleian brought a table printing press, Oxford Brookes History Department staff and students, and the Walking Forest ran activities themed on the suffragettes. Warneford 200 team ran a range of activities related to the history of the Warneford Hospital, the Museum of Oxford brought some fascinating Victorian artefacts including a beautiful accordion, and the History Archive Centre ran activities on marriage certificates! East Oxford Primary School students ran a fossil activity and introduced Mary Anning to visitors, and the Isis Lacemakers ran demonstrations on lacemaking. Esther Vaux created beautiful Victorian facepainting, and trained a team of Cheney students to facepaint too!

Alongside all these, Rumble Museum Council students ran a dazzling array of stalls and activities, including Victorian fiction, the evolution of Vampires, Steampunk, Terraria, Floriography, a Detective Mystery, Victorian Hats and Make-up, Dunce Caps, Victorian trains, a mega Victorian quiz, charades, Victorian mourning, and Victorian childhood.

National Lottery Grant for Sculptures Trail at the Rumble Museum

We are delighted to announce that The Rumble Museum has been awarded £11, 500 by the National Lottery Fund to create a new Sculpture Trail at Cheney featuring three sculptures previously on display at the Eden Project.

The sculptures originally formed part of a groundbreaking exhibition The Art of Cutting Carbon, which was curated by BBC Energy and Environment Analyst Roger Harrabin and artist Simon Bingle, at the Eden Project in Cornwall.

The series of striking sculptures highlights the large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the manufacture of everyday materials, including concrete, steel, plastic, paper/card and aluminium. They were inspired by the work of Julian Allwood, Professor of Engineering and the Environment at Cambridge University.

Simon Bingle and three other artists, Kedisha Coakley, Gina Czarnecki, and John Jostins made the sculptures from these materials for The Art of Cutting Carbon.

The project will involve working with both students and the wider community to install the sculptures, create a striking educational trail, and hold a launch event.

Gochang students explore the Rumble Museum

Yesterday afternoon, we were delighted to welcome students from Gochang in South Korea to explore the Rumble Museum, and to meet students from Cheney School's Museum Council and Korean Club.

The theme of the visit was "Stones through Time", and the visit started with Nadia Heer from Cheney delivering a presentation on Stone Henge. Students from Gochang then presented on the Dolmens, prehistoric monuments in Korea, and compared the two. After that, there was a fun quiz on Korean culture which students took part in in pairs of Cheney and Gochang teams!

Visiting teachers and staff from the Korean Education Centre kindly donated a range of cultural items to the Rumble Museum, which we shall be displaying very soon, including a board game, beautiful display of UNESCO sites, Harry Potter editions in Korean, and translated poetry. After this, students were taken on a tour of a few of the Rumble Museum's displays, where they saw some of our Natural History Collections and Classics Collections, and saw the amazing new green spaces at Cheney.

It was wonderful to share cultural knowledge with our Gochang visitors, and we are very grateful to everyone who took part.

Nature Late Festival & Bat Night

On Thursday 2nd July, the Rumble Museum held its second annual Nature Late Festival, celebrating the beauty and diversity of nature, and exploring the importance of protecting our environment, through a range of stalls, activities and events.

The festival began with an 'in conversation with' Roger Harrabin, journalist and former BBC Environment Analyst. Roger shared his experiences of entering journalism and how he became interested in the environment. He spoke about his frustrations with the recent lack of environmental reporting, his views on the importance of young people taking action by asking questions of politicians, and his fears about the current approach to the environment by powerful people.

After his talk, the main festival opened, with over thirty different stalls and activities. We were delighted to welcome RSPB Oxford and Oxford Ornithological Society, and Andy Godwin from Willow Coppice who brought willow for people to make beautiful willow fish. The Oxford Museum of Natural History and the Oxford Preservation Trust were there, as well as the Museum of Climate Hope and Friends of the Thames, who ran a water testing activity. Oxford Brookes brought microscopes for viewing tiny creatures up close, and Cheney's own Eco Club and Sixth Form Sustainability Committee both ran activity stalls about their work in school. Friends of Cheney ran refreshments and showcased their amazing Greening Cheney work. Sixth Form Enrichment students also ran facepainting, and Sixth form Musicians Oscar, Rachel and Kitty also played music both before and during the event.

Role of Religion in Public Life: Panel Discussion

On Thursday 16th April, we were privileged to welcome five distinguished panellists to take part in a Role of Religion in Public Life Panel Discussion at Cheney School in east Oxford. The Panel forms part of a regular series of discussions and talks exploring literature, languages, science, politics, environment and democracy, called the 'Agora'. The series is organised by Dr Lorna Robinson, director of The Iris Project, a charity devoted to bringing ancient languages and cultures to UK state schools and their wider communities.

Our panellists were journalist Shaista Aziz, Steven Croft, the Bishop of Oxford, author and broadcaster Maajid Nawaz, Youtuber and podcaster Alex O’Connor, and philosophy academic Dr Joshua Sijuwade. The panel was chaired by Mr David Gimson, head of higher attainment at Cheney School.

Each member of the panel introduced themselves, giving details about their background and personal journeys around religion and faith, and outlining their position on the role of religion in public life. This was followed by open floor questions where an audience of 170 sixth formers were able to put questions to the panel. Questions and discussion amongst the panellists explored the pressure of women to dress modestly and the extent of religion's involvement with this, women's roles in Christianity and Islam, what the scriptures said and how reliable they were as sources, whether science and scripture were compatible, and French, American and British models for engagement between religion and society.

There was broad consensus amongst the panel on the importance of a pluralistic society, and the problems which have arisen from both extreme religious and extreme secular approaches. There was respectful disagreement on the ordination of women and the interpretation of texts.

After the panel, students were able to ask questions informally of the speakers, and to explore in more detail some of the positions outlined in the discussion itself.

"It was a fascinating discussion at a time when there are many questions being asked about religion and public life in the UK, and we were very grateful to each of our panellists for giving their time to explore these issues, and to model respectful discussion as a mode for reaching greater understanding" commented Dr Lorna Robinson.

Student feedback on the panel has been very positive. One student said:"I really enjoyed the discussion style, having multiple people with different views and areas of expertise all able to share opinions and argue their side in a respectful way. This works really well and would be great to see how it would go with other subject matter'. Another commented as follows: "I really enjoyed this! I think the topic was brilliant as it is so applicable to everyone's lives. I know a lot of people found the discussion really interesting and it was so nice being able to talk to the speakers further afterwards. Thank you for getting such amazing speakers too!'

Tree Conference: The Science and Beauty of Trees

On Tuesday, the Rumble Museum at Cheney School organised a Tree Conference for 150 young people aged 16 to 17. Students started the day in woodland around the city, where they were encouraged to soak in the early morning atmosphere and sounds, and look around at the trees and the wildlife.

There was then an opening talk about Remarkable Trees by Professor Yadvinder Mahli CBE from the University of Oxford. Yadvinder spoke about how trees displayed intelligence in the sense of solving problems, though over a much longer timeframe than humans. He gave us a tour of some of his favourite trees, including a tree in the rainforests in Congo which produced a yellow fruit eaten by forest elephants.

For the rest of the day, students were in groups of their choice, taking part in a range of workshops delivered by experts. These workshops included identifying tree DNA with Henry Hung and exploring Dendrochronology with Jennice Singh, both from the University of Oxford. Students also explored Tree Medicine through artefacts from the History of Science Museum and Multaka volunteers, and trees and well-being with Dr Jess Fisher and Dr Gail Austen from the University of Kent’s Ecology Department.

From a creative angle, students wrote tree poems with local author Julia Golding, created wood and glass mosaics with Becky Paton, made tree prints on the Rumble Museum's Albion Press with Bodleian Library printmaker Richard Lawrence, and took part in rush weaving with Katrina Green. Students also created tree art with local artist Emma Coleman-Jones, and made a film about trees with Film Oxford.

On our own site, students explored moths and trees with Dr Liam Crowley (including discovering four species of moths on site overnight), and took part in a tree planting workshop with George, Stuart and Tom from the Tree Planting and Aftercare Council Services, which culminated in planting three new trees on the school site (a maple, a copper beech and a Scots pine). Two of the trees were kindly donated by "Rosara" at Nicholson’s, and the Scots pine was grown from seed by Paul Spicer in 2021.

It was a fascinating day exploring the science and beauty of trees, and we are very grateful indeed to our speaker, workshop runners, and everyone who took part in any way.

Warneford 200 Project

Year Eight Museum Council students had a fascinating visit to the Museum of Oxford on Tuesday afternoon to start a new project exploring the history of the Warneford Hospital.

The Warneford Hospital is celebrating its 200th year this year, and as part of this, an exhibition has been created to display the long and interesting history of the hospital, which includes patient and staff stories, artefacts of medical treatments used, and panels detailing the story of its development.

Year Eights were greeted by Zaiba Patel, Sally Frampton, both University of Oxford historians, and Molly, a researcher in psychiatry. They were asked about what they knew about the Warneford already, and explored some of the language used historically around mental illness.

They then looked at four different sources: a poem, and two letters by patients, all expressing very different perspectives and experiences, and a document with instructions to the "keepers" dating to the 1800s.

The students were also able to spend some time looking closely at the exhibition itself, and listening to the stories using headphones.

The group will be creating a new locker display with some of the sources they've encountered, which will also be used to create a new panel for the Warneford Exhibition, which will be touring the county later next month.

Arboretum Project continues with "Trees through Time" lecture

On Thursday 20th November, the Year Nine Museum Studies group were invited to attend a lecture by palaeobotanist Jennifer McElwain on "Trees Through Time". The group are very privileged to be working with the Arboretum this year on a project developing new signage, and the talk formed part of a series of visits and workshops which are developing their thinking and understanding of trees, arboreta, and public engagement.

The talk began with an exploration of what makes a tree - Jennifer explained the categories were not completely clear cut, but usually a tree would have a woody, self-supporting stem, be perennial, and have a crown. She also pointed out that a forest is not simply lots of trees together but a dynamic system, in which trees are the dominant part.

She explained how trees have evolved significantly over time, and we looked at the earliest fossils of trees from the Devonian Period, and the earliest known specimen, from Devon in the UK. Trees at this time reproduced with spores, and did not have leaves. As time went by, leaves and seeds appeared.

She looks in her research at "stomata" on leaves and how the numbers of these increases when carbon dioxide levels decrease, and vice versa, so it shows how trees are witnesses to climate change. She also spoke of the limitations of trees - how for example, in modern day Greenland, it is largely too cold for trees, just as in desert climates, it is too arid and hot.

We looked at a recreation of what Greenland was like in terms of forestation in Jurassic times, and how fossils and an artist's work helped to create illustrations of the forests which abounded there at the time.

Finally, she looked at trees now and how well they respond to pollutants. She found that evergreen trees seemed to be more resistant to pollution in the environment than deciduous trees which she dubbed as having a "live fast die young" strategy!

It was a fascinating talk, and we will really look forward to seeing what ideas it has planted in the minds and imaginations of our Year Nine group as we continue work with the Arboretum and Dr Lauren Baker this year!

Rumble Museum Takes Over City Centre Shop Windows!

The Rumble Museum at Cheney School has decorated an empty shop window at No 8 Broad Street in the Oxford City Centre with a range of its artefacts and exhibits.

The display, designed by the museum's director Dr Lorna Robinson and created with the help of Year Twelve students from Cheney School, consists of two windows. The first window showcases some of the museum's replica artefacts from the Minoan Civilisation, people who thrived on the island of Crete and surrounding areas in the second millennium BC. There is a replica snake goddess, Phaistos Disk and sistron, and the centrepiece is a mosaic featuring a Minoan woman gathering saffron, made by visitors and students at a community festival, under the guidance of local mosaicist Clare Goodall.

The second window exhibits the many nature projects the Rumble Museum organises, and includes dragonflies designed by St Andrew's Primary School and Bayards Hill Primary School, mosaics of two moths found in a student survey of moths on site at Cheney, and tree trunks from an Indian Bean tree which had to be cut down. It also includes a model of a tree made by Year 12 art student Felix Spier.

The displays provide an opportunity to show some of the exciting and wide-ranging projects the museum runs at Cheney and with the local community, and a chance to show some of the very large collection of original and replica items at the school.

The exhibitions will be in the windows for the next two months and maybe longer, depending on when the shop unit is sold.

"Making" Season and Conference

In March 2025, the Rumble Museum celebrated the history of Cheney School, and especially its legacy of making and crafting of all kinds. One of the schools which went on to form Cheney School was Cheney Technical School, founded by John Henry Brookes, a craftsmen and educator. You can find out more about the history of the school here.

This involved a project with sixth form museum council students digitising a vast array of school reports, photographs, magazines and other materials which have been donated to the Rumble Museum. One of many items donated to us has been this school report from 1960, which alumnus Bernard Stone has been kind enough to let us reproduce. As you can see, there is much that has changed about reports, as well as some things that remain the same! The report gives some idea of the technical, crafts-orientated education which took place at the Technical School.

As well as this project, the museum organised a sixth form conference on Tuesday 11th March which celebrated the technical school’s history and legacy, with a range of all day workshops, where students were able to make something - from mosaics, clay cities, jewellery and globes, to printing, songwriting, short storywriting, and more. We were very excited to see what our Year Twelves all produced!

Black Holes and Orreries at our Astrofest

We were very grateful to the many visitors who braved a rainy evening to attend our Astronomy Festival on Friday.

The event kicked off with Y12 songwriter Rachel Sophia performing some of her own songs inspired by the night skies, followed by a fascinating opening talk by Katie Savard from the University of Oxford which explored the science and wonder of black holes.

Between 6 and 8pm, visitors were able to explore a wide range of stalls, many of which were designed and run by our Museum Council students, ranging forms spectroscopy and moon cakes to constellations and designing planets! There was also Y12 facepainting and refreshments run by Cheney Friends.

We were very lucky to welcome external visitors too, including History of Science Museum who brought beautiful artefacts, Oxfordshire Polish Association, who informed visitors about Helvetius and the moon, Natty Mark Samuels who spoke of African folklore and the stars, and Oxford University Physics Department.

A range of visiting enthusiasts brought their telescopes for people to explore, and planetarium shows ran all evening.

We are so grateful to all our visitors, our speaker, our student volunteers and stallrunners for a stellar evening!

Photograph by Y10 Friday Scott Buck.

"THIS IS WHAT YOU GET": Rumble Museum project with new Ashmolean Radiohead Exhibition (2)

Museum Students in Year Eleven and Twelve at Cheney School in east Oxford were very excited to be taking part in a collaborative project involving the forthcoming exhibition "This is what you get" at the Ashmolean.

It is the first exhibition in a public gallery to bring together the visual work of Stanley Donwood and Radiohead's Thom Yorke. The Ashmolean state: More than 120 works will be on display, with many of the paintings, drawings and digital art specifically created for Thom Yorke’s internationally acclaimed band Radiohead, formed in Oxford in 1985.

The young people were invited to attend a session where the director of the exhibition presented ideas for the exhibition, and students were able to offer feedback and suggestions to be incorporated into the exhibition. Students were asked, before the visit, to choose a Radiohead album cover or song and prepare a creative response: this could be a poem, piece of artwork, or song. The Ashmolean was particularly keen on these responses being collaborative projects, since the exhibition itself is focused on a collaboration.

Students produced new songs, artwork, poems, voiceovers, and videos - all inspired by the cover art and music of Radiohead. The Ashmolean have created a special exhibition page for the students' work here

We are very grateful to have been able to collaborate with the Ashmolean on this first of its kind exhibition. Rumble Museum students had chosen Radiohead's OK Computer to feature in a permanent new Music Technology Exhibition at the school.

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