UK-Wide Campaign Launches to Fund Museum Visits for 100,000 Schoolchildren

  • Cost cited as the major barrier as 60% of UK teachers say they had not taken their class to a museum on a school trip in the last 12 months 
  • Charity ‘Art Explora’ to fund museum visits and school transport costs to tackle cultural inequality in the UK 
  • Groundbreaking digital interactive experience ‘Time Odyssey’ introduces school children to museum collections 
  • Launch partners to include The Yorkshire Museum (York), Royal Albert Memorial Museum (Exeter), The Great North Museum: Hancock (Newcastle upon Tyne), Manchester Museum, South Shields Museum & Art Gallery, and the British Museum (London) 

At the British Museum this morning, leading philanthropist Frédéric Jousset has launched a major campaign to tackle cultural inequality in the UK by bringing over a hundred thousand children on school trips to museums across the country.  His foundation, Art Explora, teamed up with the British Museum to launch Time Odyssey – a new interactive learning experience for 7-11 year old schoolchildren which takes pupils on a quest through their local museum physically and virtually. 

  The launch of Art Explora’s Time Odyssey programme comes after new data, commissioned by the charity, shows that school visits have not picked up since the pandemic. Over 60% of teachers say they had not taken their class to a museum on a school trip in the last 12 months.   

  Despite 90% of teachers agreeing that every child should visit a museum on a school trip before leaving primary school, 14% of teachers have never taken their class. More than half of the teachers surveyed said that cost is the main barrier with a greater disparity of access for children from lower socio-economic backgrounds outside London.  

  Time Odyssey offers a completely free experience – both the museum visit and the school transport costs are covered by the charity – to ensure all schools can take part. Over three years, the programme expects to take over one hundred thousand children on school trips to museums across the country. 

  Frédéric Jousset, President and Founder of Art Explora says: “School trips offer enrichment that cannot be experienced in the classroom. This should be a fundamental right for young people, not be an optional extra. Time Odyssey levels the playing field, making sure that all children have access to culture, no matter what their background.”