Nicola Wallis

Practitioner Research Associate Collections and Early Childhood

Nicola’s interests are around arts and cultural education in the early years and its links to democratic engagement and social justice. She uses practitioner-led and participatory research methods to learn more about young children’s experiences in museums.

With Kate Noble, she has recently conducted a meta analysis of the early years practitioner research projects, which has led to the development of the Compass Model - a framework for supporting museum educators in their work with young children.

Previous work includes The Family Welcome Project with a local Child and Family Centre, which built on a collaborative pilot programme with Nesta and ArtFund, and multiple innovative participatory research residencies. She worked on the University of Cambridge Museums’ Nursery in Residence (2017) project in collaboration with Cambridge University Botanic Garden, which investigated young children’s meaning making through sustained engagement with a museum and garden. Thanks to an ESRC Impact Acceleration Award, the findings from this project were shared through a seminar series (Lines of Enquiry) which brought together academics, practitioners and stakeholders with an interest in early childhood and cultural learning. A follow up Playgroup in Residence: It’s Our Museum Too practitioner-led research project was carried out in 2019-2020 with support from the Cambridge Humanities Research Grant Scheme. A third early years residency: Readers in Residence, using picture books to support families' explorations of museums followed.

Following undergraduate studies in Modern and Medieval Languages at Cambridge University, Nicola trained as a primary school teacher, and then read for a post-graduate diploma in Museum Studies. She has specialised in Early Years Education since 2005, and began working in Museum Education in 2007. She has an MA in Early Childhood Studies and completed her PhD with the Centre for Research in Early Childhood focusing on very young children's engagement with museum objects and spaces in 2025.

She is involved as a trustee in a number of local organisations supporting children and families, and a steering committee member of the Early Years Museum Network and the Families in Museums Network. Nicola is a co-convenor of the European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Special Interest Group for Young Children’s Arts and Cultural Experiences.

Pronouns:

Email: nlw30@cam.ac.uk

Publications

Articles

Wallis, N., Bertram, T. and Pascal, C. (2025) ’Meet me at the museum: creative methodologies for understanding young children’s museum experiences’, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/1350293X.2025.2489043

Wallis, N (2024) '”For the increase of learning” - Enacting change through a University Art Museum and Child & Family Services Partnership’, Universities, Local Authorities and Culture-based Partnerships: Case studies, reflections and evidence from REF impact case studies, pp.52-57 https://ncace.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/NCACE_Essay_Local-Authorities-and-Culture-based-Partnerships.pdf

Wallis, N and Noble, K. (2023) The slow museum: the affordances of a university art museum as a nurturing and caring space for young children and their families, Museum Management and Curatorship https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2023.2269145

Wallis, N. and Noble, K. (2022) Leave only footprints: how children communicate a sense of ownership and belonging in an art gallery, European Early Childhood Education Research Journal https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1350293X.2022.2055100

Noble, K. and Wallis, N. (2022), "It's our museum too: co-producing research in a university museum through a nursery residency programme", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 22 No. 1, pp. 42-55. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-01-2021-0009

Bradbury, L., Noble, K. & Wallis, N. (eds) (2020) Museum and Gallery Learning in the Early Years, Special Issue-Journal for Education in Museums

Hackett, A., MacRae, C., McCall, K., Penfold, L., Wallis, N., Bates, E. and Cooke, L., (2018) 'Coda: posthumous conversations. A reading group to discuss the work of Dr Elee Kirk', Children’s Geographies 16 (5) 571-577

Wallis, N. (2018) 'Titian, tapestries and toilets; what do preschoolers and their families value in a museum visit?', Museum and Society 16 (3) 352-368

Book Chapters

Noble, K & Wallis N (2020) 'Leaving Room for Learning: University of Cambridge Museums Nursery in Residence' in Working with young children in museums; weaving theory and practice, Hackett, A., Holmes, R. & MacRae, C. (Routledge)

Wallis, N. (2020) ‘The power of objects: little things please little minds?’ in Working with young children in museums; weaving theory and practice, Hackett, A., Holmes, R. & MacRae, C. (Routledge)

Reports, Case Studies & Blog Posts

Fitzwilliam Museum Family Welcome – exploring inclusive museum experiences with young children and families (2025) https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14069/774.2

Drawing In the Museum – Drawing Out Ideas (2024) NSEAD https://www.nsead.org/publications/blog/drawing-in-the-museum-drawing-out-ideas/

Positioning families as co-researchers at the museum: How do we see and hear the voices of parents and children? (2024) Ethical Research Involving Children https://childethics.com/case-studies/positioning-families-as-co-researchers-at-the-museum-how-do-we-see-and-hear-the-voices-of-parents-and-children-by-nicola-wallis/

Young children in the museum – exercising agency through cultural engagement (2023) Centre for Research in Early Childhood https://www.crec.co.uk/becera-posts/young-children-in-the-museum-exercising-agency-through-cultural-engagement

Creative Families: Talking Together at the Fitzwilliam Museum, (2020) Group for Education in Museums Case Studies https://gem.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/0_GM157-Gem-Case-Studies-25_FINAL.pdf

Music in the Museum, engage Sharing Practice Early Years case studies (2018) https://engage.org/resources/early-years/music-in-the-museum/

Discovering the past, influencing the future - BRIC Case Study https://www.bricproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/BANNER-BRIC-2017-ENG-WEB-1.pdf

University of Cambridge Museums blog posts (2016-present) https://www.museums.cam.ac.uk/blog/author/nicola-wallis/