Educational Guided Tours for School Groups

The museum itself is located on the redeveloped site
of the former Valley Colliery in Hednesford, and is adjacent to the Hednesford Hills Nature Reserve, providing a valuable historical and environmental context for our tours. And there's plenty of recreation space in which your children can let off steam!

Children are encouraged to handle artefacts and go behind the gallery barriers with our costumed guides. All of our tours incorporate a full day of hands-on activities, such as role play, quizzes, dance and art, designed both to inform and entertain children.

Your tour will be led by a Museum Educator or Educators (the number of staff depends on size of group and varies between tours). All of our Museum Educators have CRB clearance within the past 3 years and have wide and varied experience of working in an education environment. Our museum education service has been operating for 15 years and staff are therefore fully au fait with the needs and requirements of visiting school groups. Our Educators will meet you on arrival and confirm any needs and requirements you have for the day. They will wear costume in keeping with the theme of the day and will look after you for the duration of your visit.

Interested in making a booking? Please see below for general information about what you might need to know before making a booking. For more information about the content of each tour please see other pages in this section.

Making a Booking

The museum has a Bookings Officer ready to deal with your enquiries and make your booking. She works from 10am - 1pm Monday to Thursday and 10am - 12noon on Fridays and can be contacted by phone or email. The Bookings Officer can discuss any queries you may have and confirm your requirements for the visit. After making a provisional booking, she will send you a booking pack which contains lots of information for your visit, including a timetable for the day, more information on the activities, a risk assessment, and a booking form for you to complete and return to us to confirm the visit.

The museum site and health & safety

The museum buildings are fully compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act. The education buildings have disabled access in the form of ramps, hearing loops and disabled toilets.

The main museum building has a ramp, lift, stair lift, one wheelchair for loan, Braille and large print guides, hearing loop in reception, disabled toilets and disabled parking.

A coach park is set aside especially for groups visiting in coaches and minibuses. We will provide a place to leave your coats, bags and lunches so that you don't have to worry about them throughout the day.

Should you wish to visit the museum before you bring your group, we suggest that arranging a pre-visit to the museum would help familiarise you with the site and provide the opportunity to discuss any issues relevant to the visit. Please contact the Bookings Officer between 10am and 1pm Mon-Thurs or 10am-12noon on Fridays if you wish to make an appointment.

Our tours are fully risk assessed and a copy of the risk assessment will be sent to your school. We recommend that you carry out your own assessment and if possible forward it to the museum.

For full day activities (all tours except Toys Outreach and Houses from History) children should bring a packed lunch. An indoor room will be provided for the children to eat in. We also have an outdoor picnic area available if the weather is fine.

We ask that you bring a minimum of 1 teacher or teaching assistant for every 10 children, but this may vary according to how your group is divided. You'll find more details on the timetable provided at the time of your booking. As we don't charge for teachers or adult helpers, we encourage you to bring as many as you can to enjoy the day.

Many of the tour activities at the museum take place in our dedicated education outbuildings. For this reason there may be a short walk between activities, so you may want to bring a coat in case of bad weather. All activities take place indoors, except for the heathland walk as part of the Habitat Discovery tour. Unless the weather is extremely wet, we will always go ahead with the walk as part of the visit so bring your waterproofs!

Many of our Educators are trained in Emergency First Aid. The museum also has fully qualified First Aiders on site in case of emergency. We understand that sometimes children on school visits may feel unwell, so we also have a crash bed for children to lie down should it be needed.

Timetable

Our full day tours start at 10am and finish at 2.30pm. Outreach visits last two hours and can be arranged for a mutually suitable slot during the day.

A timetable for your visit will be provided when you book. Please note that in the unlikely event of staff shortages due to circumstances beyond our control, the timetable may have to be modified but we will do our best to ensure you get the maximum from your visit.

Please also note that for activities taking place at the museum, a late arrival or early departure may result in a missed activity.

Special needs

If any of the children in your party have special needs of any kind, we ask you to give details confidentially on the special needs form that will be sent to you when you make a booking, so that we can make sure we can meet their individual needs. If you wish to discuss this with us before you visit (which may be advisable when children have severe special needs or where there are a number of children with special needs) please call the Bookings Officer to find out how we can help.

Gift shop/goody bags

We know that the highlight of the visit for many children is using the gift shop, but that this can sometimes be difficult for teachers to fit into the day! There is a gift shop in the main museum building that sells pocket money toys, souvenirs and items relating to the tours. Children need only bring £1 - £2 and will have plenty of items to choose from. Please note that the time available for shopping is limited and large groups in particular may find they do not have enough time during the lunch break to shop, so you may wish to allow a little time after the tour ends. Alternatively, we offer a goody bag service, which means you can pre-order items for collection on the day - please ask for more details when you book.

Cost and payment

Please see details of each tour for costs. When a booking has been made we will invoice your school for a deposit (£30 for Toys Outreach and Houses from History and £60 for all other tours). We ask that you pay the balance on the day, but we can arrange to invoice you for the balance instead - please state your preference when booking.

We will only charge you for the children who actually attend on the day, not the number of children you originally booked for, so if you have some pupils off school due to illness or some other reason, we will take that into account. We don't charge for adult helpers or teachers.

Please note that you should inform us prior to your visit if the number of children in your party differs from the number you originally stated on the booking form, as it may affect the timetable and the number of Museum Educators needed. If you do not inform us of any changes you may be subject to an extra charge, so please make sure you let us know.

Any Questions?

We're happy to answer them - please contact the booking officer during the times above or email the museum at museum@cannockchasedc.gov.uk

Museum of Cannock Chase, Valley Road, Hednesford, Staffordshire, WS12 1TD. Telephone 01543 877666.

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