Eureka! bucks trend on educational trips
THE CHILDREN’S museum Eureka! is working with more school groups than ever before after conducting a review, despite a general decline in educational trips.
The Halifax-based attraction recently announced that 2019 was its busiest 12 months in 20 years with almost 314,000 visitors to the site and the team also saw a two per cent increase in the number of school and group trips, equating to 35,000 individual visitors.
Florence Symington, Eureka!’s head of marketing and brand, said: “Schools increasingly find it hard to justify disrupting the timetable for school trips. But we did some extensive work recently and decided that we should make it easier for teachers.
“To that end, we devised a series of programmes which directly link to the science elements of the national curriculum.
“The children really benefit from the hands on science shows that we can organise and we can make the subject exciting in a way it’s often not possible to in the classroom.”
In 2017, only 31 per cent of teachers surveyed by the Sutton Trust said they had made cutbacks to “trips and outings”.
However, by last year the figure had risen to 43 per cent and many fear that children are missing out on vital characterbuilding experiences as headteachers struggle to meet budget targets.
However, Eureka! says one of the reasons it has been able to buck the trend is down to its focus on digital technology, which feels more relevant to schools and students.
Ms Symington added: “We have recently created a new space where we can put on creative and industry-leading digital art exhibitions along with our regular programme of events that help children to learn through fun.
“Most of them might have access to smartphones and tablets at home, but to see them immersed in a floor-to-ceiling projection is something really special.”