Child visits down by 6%
Number of visits by under-16s to DCMS-sponsored museums fell to 7.5 million last year, although there are signs that numbers will bounce back this year. Rob Sharp reports
England suffered significant falls in child (under-16s) visits in 2016-17, according to performance indicators released by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) in November.
The figures reveal a 6% year-on-year decline in child visits to museums sponsored by the DCMS to 7.5 million. This follows a drop of nearly 2% from 2014-15 to 2015-16.
Total child visits are now lower than their 2008-09 total of 8.4 million. The number reached a peak of 9.4 million in 2013-14 and has fallen since.
The Science Museum Group experienced a 9% decline in child visits in 2016-17 compared with 2015-16. But with 1.6 million across its five sites, it still had the most child visits of the 16 DCMS-sponsored museums.
A Science Museum Group spokesman says: “Our museums also hosted more children on educational visits than other UK museums.
“After record-breaking visitor numbers in 2015-16, the total number of visitors to Science Museum Group museums fell by 6% in 2016-17 to 5.2 million, which is the main cause of the drop in visits by children.
“The good news so far this year [2017-18] is that visitor numbers are higher than they were in 2016-17 in four of our five museums, most notably at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, where visitors are up by more than a third.”
General decline
London’s Natural History Museum suffered a 17% fall in child visits in 2016-17 to 1.1 million. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s two sites in London recorded 486,700 child visits – a decline of 12%.
However, Tate, which has four sites, posted a 33% year-on-year increase in child visits to 591,000, fuelled by the opening of the Tate Modern extension in June 2016.
At Imperial War Museums (IWM), child visits dropped by 3% to 513,000. IWM also suffered a big decrease in the number of under-18s who participated in on-site activities. The total dropped 59% to 81,000, but the organisation said the decline was due to a pause in most of its learning activities during its 2016-17 learning review.
Susie Thornberry, the assistant director of public engagement learning at IWM, says learning is at the heart of everything the museum does, and the learning programme was paused to allow staff to participate in the review.
She says a restructured public engagement and learning department was launched in January 2017 to “encourage young people to think critically, as global citizens, about the world around them, and the human impact of conflict”.
New IWM learning programmes use documentary, theatre and immersive gaming to explore the displays at the museum. “These programmes are in their infancy, and will take time to develop new audiences, but our feedback speaks for itself,” adds Thornberry.
The Science Museum Group had the highest number of instances where visitors under the age of 18 participated in on-site events (813,000), although this was a 2% decrease on 2015-16.
Fewer school trips
Dea Birkett, the creative director of charity Kids in Museums, which works to make institutions family friendly, says children often stop visiting museums after they join secondary school.
“The problem starts when they stop going on school visits and go to secondary school,” she says. “The gap between those young people who go with their families compared to those that go with their schools is significant. Those who don’t go with their families are far more diverse. Once they stop going with their school, that’s when the challenges begin.”
Birkett says the type of young people who go to museums is also significant.
“Why are disabled, black, Asian and minority ethnic, and less sociologically advantaged people not accessing museums to the same extent as their more privileged peers?” she says. “It’s not only how many young people – it’s who they are.”
Under-16 visitor figures for DCMS-sponsored museums
2015-16 2016-17
British Museum, London 1,030,082 797,391
Geffrye Museum, London 17,724 18,078
Imperial War Museums (five sites) 528,196 513,000
National Gallery, London 390,507 400,000
National Museums Liverpool (seven sites) 458,525 518,682
National Portrait Gallery, London 153,400 156,000
Natural History Museum (two sites) 1,328,000 1,099,000
Royal Armouries (three sites) 560,664 540,631
Royal Museums Greenwich (four sites) 538,349 537,022
Science Museum Group (five sites) 1,748,000 1,598,000
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 3,497 6,075
Tate (four sites) 442,760 590,598
Victoria and Albert Museum (two sites) 550,327 486,700
Wallace Collection, London 22,569 21,687
The figures reveal a 6% year-on-year decline in child visits to museums sponsored by the DCMS to 7.5 million. This follows a drop of nearly 2% from 2014-15 to 2015-16.
Total child visits are now lower than their 2008-09 total of 8.4 million. The number reached a peak of 9.4 million in 2013-14 and has fallen since.
The Science Museum Group experienced a 9% decline in child visits in 2016-17 compared with 2015-16. But with 1.6 million across its five sites, it still had the most child visits of the 16 DCMS-sponsored museums.
A Science Museum Group spokesman says: “Our museums also hosted more children on educational visits than other UK museums.
“After record-breaking visitor numbers in 2015-16, the total number of visitors to Science Museum Group museums fell by 6% in 2016-17 to 5.2 million, which is the main cause of the drop in visits by children.
“The good news so far this year [2017-18] is that visitor numbers are higher than they were in 2016-17 in four of our five museums, most notably at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, where visitors are up by more than a third.”
General decline
London’s Natural History Museum suffered a 17% fall in child visits in 2016-17 to 1.1 million. The Victoria and Albert Museum’s two sites in London recorded 486,700 child visits – a decline of 12%.
However, Tate, which has four sites, posted a 33% year-on-year increase in child visits to 591,000, fuelled by the opening of the Tate Modern extension in June 2016.
At Imperial War Museums (IWM), child visits dropped by 3% to 513,000. IWM also suffered a big decrease in the number of under-18s who participated in on-site activities. The total dropped 59% to 81,000, but the organisation said the decline was due to a pause in most of its learning activities during its 2016-17 learning review.
Susie Thornberry, the assistant director of public engagement learning at IWM, says learning is at the heart of everything the museum does, and the learning programme was paused to allow staff to participate in the review.
She says a restructured public engagement and learning department was launched in January 2017 to “encourage young people to think critically, as global citizens, about the world around them, and the human impact of conflict”.
New IWM learning programmes use documentary, theatre and immersive gaming to explore the displays at the museum. “These programmes are in their infancy, and will take time to develop new audiences, but our feedback speaks for itself,” adds Thornberry.
The Science Museum Group had the highest number of instances where visitors under the age of 18 participated in on-site events (813,000), although this was a 2% decrease on 2015-16.
Fewer school trips
Dea Birkett, the creative director of charity Kids in Museums, which works to make institutions family friendly, says children often stop visiting museums after they join secondary school.
“The problem starts when they stop going on school visits and go to secondary school,” she says. “The gap between those young people who go with their families compared to those that go with their schools is significant. Those who don’t go with their families are far more diverse. Once they stop going with their school, that’s when the challenges begin.”
Birkett says the type of young people who go to museums is also significant.
“Why are disabled, black, Asian and minority ethnic, and less sociologically advantaged people not accessing museums to the same extent as their more privileged peers?” she says. “It’s not only how many young people – it’s who they are.”
Under-16 visitor figures for DCMS-sponsored museums
2015-16 2016-17
British Museum, London 1,030,082 797,391
Geffrye Museum, London 17,724 18,078
Imperial War Museums (five sites) 528,196 513,000
National Gallery, London 390,507 400,000
National Museums Liverpool (seven sites) 458,525 518,682
National Portrait Gallery, London 153,400 156,000
Natural History Museum (two sites) 1,328,000 1,099,000
Royal Armouries (three sites) 560,664 540,631
Royal Museums Greenwich (four sites) 538,349 537,022
Science Museum Group (five sites) 1,748,000 1,598,000
Sir John Soane’s Museum, London 3,497 6,075
Tate (four sites) 442,760 590,598
Victoria and Albert Museum (two sites) 550,327 486,700
Wallace Collection, London 22,569 21,687