What's in store for families and schools
While the Museum in Covent Garden and the Museum Depot in Acton were closed, lots has been happening behind the scenes to sustain the Museum’s social impact. We’ve worked with young people all over London delivering employability programmes, supporting people into apprenticeships and other work and offering mentoring and training. We have distributed activity packs via children’s centres, hospitals and libraries to families in the Acton area and we have developed small scale projects to support local Acton community groups over the coming year. We’ve also kept families engaged at home with a range of fun activities to download or do online.
Now that our Covent Garden doors are open once again, the next step is getting the Museum Depot open for a fun packed family programme this May half term, on 29-30 May and from 2-6 June 2021. There will be a trail exploring vintage buses and Tube trains and friendly costumed characters who will tell you stories of bygone eras. We’ll be inviting families to work together to create a board game inspired by the collection. And of course, the ever-popular London Transport Miniature Railway will be open for rides.
Families visiting the Museum in Covent Garden during May half term can also create their unique boardgame by ‘collecting’ vehicles, objects, challenges and characters found in our galleries. Plus, they’ll be able to enjoy our refreshed All Aboard play zones, where little transport fans aged 0 to 7 can have a go at driving their own bus, fixing a Tube train or sailing aboard a Thamesclipper. Older children will enjoy the new Smooth Operator challenge in our Untangling the Tracks exhibition, where they can test their reactions against a train computer.
The Museum has a large schools engagement programme and, pre-pandemic, over 25,000 children and teachers visited our sites in Covent Garden and Acton every year. Onsite visits to museums are likely to be a challenge for schools for some time to come, so we’ve been busy creating virtual experiences that can be delivered live into the classroom. An important focus for our work with schools is the climate crisis and exploring the role engineering and transport can play in reducing carbon emissions and creating a greener future.
Through our new virtual schools offer (which launches in June 2021), primary school children can investigate the impact of transport on our cities’ air quality and the role of engineering in designing sustainable transport for the future. Secondary school students can take on an interactive challenge to design a city centre, exploring the challenges and opportunities presented by building a sustainable city of the future that meets community needs and doesn’t break the budget.
As we head into Autumn and towards COP 26, look out for more events and activities for all audiences exploring environmental sustainability and the role of transport in a green future. In the meantime, book your tickets to visit the Museum and Depot in May. We can’t wait to see you!