We want to hear from you whether you work for a heritage organisation in the UK or beyond, for another sector support organisation or as a freelancer. We’re aiming to learn more about your perceptions and experiences of Kids in Museums, how we can best support you and what you would like from our future programmes.

As a thank you, we are offering everyone who completes the survey the opportunity to enter a prize draw to win a pair of museum exhibition tickets up to the value of £50. The survey will take about 30 minutes to complete and closes on Monday 12 February 2024, 5pm.

Fill in our Sector Survey.

Family Friendly Museum Award

You can nominate a museum, gallery, historic house or heritage site for the Family Friendly Museum Award 2024 from Tuesday 19 March.

  • 19 March to 3 June: Nominations open.
  • Late June: Shortlist announced.
  • October: Winners announced.

The full Award Guidelines will be published ahead of the nominations opening, however we expect the process to remain similar to last year.

The award categories will be:

  • Best Small Museum
  • Best Medium Museum
  • Best Large Museum
  • Best Accessible Museum
  • NEW: Best Museum Youth Group
    This new award category will celebrate museum staff and young people working together in a long-term, meaningful and impactful way, such as through youth panels or forums, young volunteer schemes, and history or art clubs. We want to hear about how you are supporting young people to engage with heritage, have an impact on your site, develop their skills and have fun. Your group must have run for a minimum of six months (since at least October 2023). The category will be open to museum applications only and judged by an expert panel.

Find out more about the Family Friendly Museum Award.

Takeover Day

  • Friday 22 November: Takeover Day

Our national Takeover Day theme in 2024 is Careers. We are bringing Takeover Day back to its roots and highlighting how it can support young people of all ages to learn about different jobs in museums and develop their skills, both in the sector and beyond.

The date also coincides with Discover Creative Careers Week. If you are based in a Priority Area, they may be able to support you to find a local school to work with.

We will not be holding a separate Digital Takeover Day in 2024, but you can still hold a digital-focused event in November. Alternatively you can hold a Takeover Day whenever suits you throughout the year – just remember to register your event on our website.

Find out more about Takeover Day.

Training and Consultancy

Our latest training webinars are now open for bookings.

You can attend live or book a recording ticket to have access to a recording of the session for six months after the live event – or do both. Training events are open to museum staff of all levels in the UK and internationally.

  • 15 January,10am-12.30pm: Engaging families with under 5s in museums (Wales)
  • 6 March, 10am-12.30pm: Making your Museum Accessible to Low Income Families, in partnership with Children North East
  • 20 March, 10am-12.30pm: Working with Children and Young People to Respond to the Climate and Ecological Emergency

Recordings are currently still available to purchase for our webinars from autumn 2023: Welcoming autistic families, Developing inclusive activities for families with SEND and Engaging families with under 5s with museums.

If you have budget to use up in the last quarter of the financial year, you might also like to consider commissioning our bespoke training or a Family Friendly Museum Audit.

Find out more and book your tickets on our Training and Consultancy web page.

 

We have many more exciting things to share with you in the first quarter of this year, including announcing a new programme, the findings from our Youth Panel’s Museum Youth Summit in October 2023 and the second cohort of successful applicants for our Family Café Standard.

We will also be continuing to publish a range of free online resources to support your work.

To get all our latest updates straight to your inbox, sign up to our Museum and Training Mailing Lists.

If you have a question about anything in this article, please get in touch with us directly by email: [email protected]

We look forward to working with you this year!