After many years of teaching across Early Years and Key Stage 1 in Liverpool and Cheshire, and as a Deputy Head teacher, Naomi led Early Childhood and the Undergraduate and Postgraduate Early Years Teacher Education programme at Liverpool Hope University. Most recently Naomi is at Liverpool John Moores University teaching across Early Childhood and Education Studies and leading the MA in International Approaches to Early Childhood Education. Her doctorate focused on developing pedagogical participation for young children and Continued Professional Development for teachers and early years professionals across the sector. This continues to be a research interest evident in her published work and in the working partnerships she has developed with educators and creative professionals in the field of Early Years, creativity and participation. Naomi is currently working with Family curators at Tate Liverpool nurturing a sense of self through artwork as a provocation for philosophical enquiry. She also engaged in the initial stages of a collaborative comparative study involving 4 universities looking at the 'multiple identities of Early Childhood students for a quality workforce'. Denise Wright As a teacher, consultant and artist in residence in the Liverpool community for more than 15 years, Denise uses a range of creative approaches to engage children across a variety of settings, including residential settings for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, mental health services and more recently working with very young children and their parents in different early years settings. As part of her PhD, Denise has been working closely with Tate Liverpool, liaising with organisations and supporting nursery practitioners, children and families. In this role Denise has supported the gallery to better understand the needs of young children and families visiting the gallery, particularly children and families from marginalised communities. Recently Denise has been commissioned by Tate to develop and lead the Tate Family Collective, a new initiative for engaging families. Denise also lectures in Early Years and Inclusive Education at

In May 2017, a group of museum researchers and practitioners met to discuss the writing of Elee Kirk (1977-2016), whose pioneering doctoral study of young children visiting a natural history museum connects with our own work and practice in a number of different ways. Kirk (2015) advocates for research that views children's everyday museum visiting "beyond their potential for learning." (p.238). This paper offers edited transcripts of the discussion sparked by reading Kirk (2015), documenting the conversation under a number of themes that emerged during the discussion, and reflecting on how each are picked up in more detail by the papers in this Special Issue. In May 2017, a group of museum researchers and practitioners met to discuss the writing of Elee Kirk, whose pioneering doctoral study of young children visiting a natural history museum connects with our own work and practice in a number of different ways. Elee presented a keynote at the 'Research Methods for Exploring Children's Experiences in Museums' conference held in May 2016, one of the impetuses for this special issue. Although we did not know at the time, this would be amongst the last occasions Elee presented her research, as she sadly passed away on 1 st August 2016. Her untimely death, due to cancer, meant that she would not be able to personally write a contribution to this special issue, or be involved in its guest editing, both things we would very much have liked. Elee devoted energy in the last months of her life to disseminating her research, with the

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