The Decline of School Museum Visits: Can Attractions Bring Back School Trips?
Talk to adults about school trips and you’re likely to spark both memories and nostalgia. Many of us will recall coach rides of classmates singing along to songs, the inevitability of at least one child getting travel sick and all trailing around a grand building in high-vis jackets and backpacks with feelings of awe. As well as a small secret fear of losing the group, being left behind and getting locked in the museum after dark.
I grew up on a farm in Somerset, and my primary school used to come on visits to our farm. Helping educate children and indeed adults to understand the journey from field to fork is a subject that sits close to my heart.
Yet, children at school today are far less likely to experience any of this. A Sutton Trust Report that came out in April 2023 revealed that 50% of teachers were cutting school trips, compared with a 21% reduction in trips in 2022. In fact, they found there had been high increases in cuts to staffing and extra-curricular activities.
Of course, it comes as no surprise that school budgets are stretched. Most are still in recovery post-pandemic, struggling to help children catch up on missed learning. Teacher strikes have not just been about pay increases but also claim to be about the lack of resources that make delivering education to the standards required extremely challenging. So, it was inevitable really that school museum visits, outings to heritage sites, gardens, zoos, nature reserves and other trips would be some of the added learning experiences to face reduction.
If schools are unable to fund school trips and other extra-curricular activities then it often falls to the parents and, with a cost of living crisis, many are unable to do so. Fear that many children will not be able to attend, due to financial restrictions, leads many schools to either cancel or simply not plan school trips at all.
In more positive news, Hyundai motor company have stepped in with the launch of their programme, ‘The Great British School Trip’. This initiative aims to provide free school trips to 25,000 children aged 7-14 years in 2023. Schools may apply to receive a bursary to cover some or all costs and enable them to take their pupils on these essential educational excursions.
This is especially good news for children in lower-income areas as the Sutton Trust report also found that whilst an average of 44% of school leaders were making cuts to trips and outings, in more deprived areas, this rose to 68%. As a result, it is those children typically less able to visit museums through other means who are also more likely to miss out on the opportunity to do so as part of their education.
Why Are School Museum Visits Important?
With school budgets under pressure and support staff cutbacks being made, we might ask if reducing school trips is really that big of an issue. So, let’s consider the benefits of school trips.
Before Hyundai launched their scheme to restore school trips to pupils in the UK, they conducted some research. They found that 46% of parents with school-aged children cite school trips as their most treasured memories from school years. A further 32% said that their future career path had even been influenced by school trips – Now, I love attractions and place enormous value on them, and yet I still find that remarkable.
Context cannot be underestimated in education. Anyone can study books and make their way through written activities and exercises, but for many, we don’t fully understand something until context is applied. Museums, heritage sites, nature reserves and other attractions enable this. Exhibits, displays, demonstrations and re-creations provide real-life visuals that support learning and deepen the connection to the subject or topic. For example, although children may read about Ancient Egypt in the classroom and be able to relay some information for perhaps a few years, they’ll probably retain the experience of seeing the Egyptian Antiquities display at The British Museum in their memory into adulthood. Similarly, seeing the scale of art in a gallery up close can spark the imagination in a way that seeing a picture in a textbox cannot.
I wonder how many children ended up in a career related to animals after a memorable school visit to a farm, zoo or aquarium? Or endeavoured to live a more sustainable lifestyle after visiting The Eden Project or an RSPB reserve?
Soft skills are also developed through school trips. They can be quite daunting which is why the first school trip is traditionally an exciting and somewhat nervous experience for pupils (and their parents). Going on class trips helps children to realise that education can be experienced outside of the classroom. Furthermore, they learn to feel welcome in places which often large, lavish and could easily feel intimidating.
Not all children will have these experiences outside of school-organised visits. No doubt, some will venture to museums and other attractions outside of school with their families, but not all – and isn’t education meant to give future generations more equal opportunities regardless of their background? If school trips become a thing of the past, only afforded to those in high-income areas or born to parents who place a high value on such institutions, then we are depriving too many young people of the opportunity to deepen their learning, spark curiosity, fuel imagination and immerse themselves in history, creativity, art, culture and science.
How Can Attractions Provide Value For School Trips?
Funding struggles do not make school trips unfeasible. It creates an obstacle. Since every school is given a budget and every family is running a budget, prioritising what is essential becomes key. Therefore, museums, heritage sites, zoos, nature reserves, planetariums, gardens, farms and other attractions need to be asking themselves about the value they’re providing.
Many museums and attractions are free entry for school visits, so long as they are self-led tours. However, one of the biggest costs incurred in school trips is travel. School leaders claim that the rising cost of coach travel to attractions has made even visiting free attractions impossible. Train travel can work for some attractions but for this, you need additional staff to manage child-to-adult ratios and ensure the safety of all pupils.
There is little that attractions can do in terms of travel unless, of course, they can negotiate special rates with transport operators which could increase their appeal and accessibility for school trips. However, they can motivate schools and/or parents to accept reasonable costs if they can assure them that class trips, including school museum visits, hold enough educational value to make the expense worthwhile.
Guided School Tours vs. Self-Led Tours
Whilst self-led tours may seem like the answer to reducing costs for schools, they also reduce the educational value. With circa 30 children on a tour, led by teachers and teaching assistants who are unlikely to have any expertise in what they’re viewing, children may not reap the educational benefits museum trips have to offer.
Attractions that offer workshops and guided tours are better able to provide an educational experience that will enhance learning and further inspire pupils. So, if museums can provide these at a reasonable cost, then schools and/or parents may be more inclined to prioritise this in their budget.
Reducing Costs And Increasing Educational Value
Many museums, heritage sites and other school trip destinations offer free entry to teachers accompanying children. Since regulations require a certain adult-to-child ratio, which varies depending on the age of pupils, there must be a certain number of adults supervising to make school trips possible. Taking this overhead out of the equation relieves pressure on schools but it also helps museums to provide a better educational experience because they’ll have the support of teachers, TAs and volunteer parents at workshops and during tours. School staff can focus on safety and behaviours whilst tour guides can ensure they are delivering an educational event that will keep schools returning year after year.
Planning visits for teachers can also aid in a positive experience. If a teacher has never visited the attraction or has not attended in a teaching capacity, it can be difficult to plan a trip that will maximise learning opportunities. Most school trips are planned to align with the curriculum and/or specific topics the key stage groups are covering, therefore a pre-visit to the attraction can be essential to putting together a productive plan for the school trip.
Again, some museums and other school trip destinations offer this already but it may also be worth considering appointing a guide to aid the teacher on this planning visit. They will be better able to direct them towards the exhibits and displays that may be most popular with the children and share insights to explore with their pupils that may increase engagement. Especially for school museum visits if they are to be self-led tours. After all, attraction staff and managers are the experts and are generally the most passionate and knowledgeable regarding their collections. So if museums wish to fuel this passion in the children who visit on school trips, it must first be shared with school leaders.
On this note, attractions should remember that teachers have a huge influence over which school trips get planned. They are the ones who will report back to the Headteachers and those who can influence where the budget is spent, based on which attractions have previously provided the best educational experience. Therefore, it’s important to welcome and engage with teachers as soon as a school visit is booked and, if possible, arrange a planning visit that includes some expert guidance and support.
Making Booking Easy for Teachers
Over the years many attractions have tailored their schools’ offerings so much that in many cases they have become unwieldy and difficult for ticketing/booking systems to support.
By keeping their offering standardised and looking for best practices across the sector, attractions can reap many benefits. Not only can software partners better support the booking experience, through a more intuitive user journey, but it paves the way to self-service.
For many, self-service in terms of booking means that they can book at a time that suits them. Rather than waiting for booking enquiry emails to be returned from the attraction or, worse still, using limited breaks in classes to call attractions and make enquiries.
If teachers do have an enquiry that requires more explanation and isn’t available through an easy-to-navigate online journey, make it easy for the teachers to speak to someone.
Let’s make everyone’s life simpler with the limited time teachers have for these types of activities.
Interactive Experiences For School Trips
Some of the most appealing attractions for school visits are those that offer interactive experiences. Or any experiences that are designed to appeal to younger people.
The V&A museum has recently undergone a refurbishment of their Museum of Childhood, now known as The Young V&A. Designed with the help of children, to harness and learn from their young minds, the space was created to spark imagination and inspire future generations. With sensory experiences for the very young and interactive activities for older children, this may become one of the most modern child-focused museum settings in the UK. Certainly, experiences such as Young V&A will be on the list for schools considering class excursions.
However, child-focused museum areas will still need to consider how they can ensure their offering underpins the national curriculum because school leaders will have to justify expenditure in regard to this.
When I led the Museum and Stadium Tours at Chelsea FC, I worked with Chelsea’s Football in Community to launch ‘School Key Stage Learning Tours’. Something which is now common practice amongst other football clubs.
Silverstone Museum in Northamptonshire offers fantastic opportunities for children to learn about science, technology, engineering and even history in a largely interactive way. With an incredible amount on display, much of which children can touch and explore, as well as interactive videos and activities that promote learning and fuel inspiration, this is a tour that is exceptionally designed for children – and big kids too.
Silverstone Museum demonstrates how museums can evolve to create displays and interactive activities more geared towards minds that need to touch, explore and experience for themselves to gain a more all-around learning experience.
Other museums and attractions are also embracing digitalisation and immersive experiences as a way to enhance the experience and bring audiences closer to the subject matter. This works particularly well with children.
Making School Museum Visits More Appealing
Whilst there is little attractions can do to improve budgets for schools, there are many ways museums, heritage sites, farms, zoos, gardens and other trip destinations can ensure that there is real educational value in school trips.
Primarily, curators and staff must be enabled to pass on their passion to future generations through school visits and we must ensure that teachers and staff are supported in ensuring that school trips enhance curriculum-based learning. This way, we can safeguard not only the well-rounded inclusive that education children deserve, but we can inspire the next generation of museum-passionate adults who will go on to support and protect these valuable institutions.
