GEM has teamed up with the Heritage Education Trust to deliver a practical session looking at the six guiding principles of the Sandford Award. These principles underpin the award assessment, providing a framework for improvement and development. The next round of applications for the 2025 award opens on Monday 2nd December 2024. Join this free session to learn more about the assessment criteria and hear from the current award recipients to enhance your application.

This free session will provide a number of case studies from current award recipients and top tips from Tracey Borman Chief Executive of the Heritage Education Trust, will provide an overview of the Sandford Award and recent developments, demonstrating how the award supports heritage professionals to be advocates for learning.

Claire Benjamin, Head of Learning and Participation at the National Museums Liverpool will talk about the benefits of applying to the Sandford Award from an applicant’s point of view.

Sandford Award assessors Alisa Bellingham (Museum Service Manager, The Museum of Cannock Chase), Stephen Billington (Head of Lifelong Learning, The Historic Dockyard Chatham) and Jan Pitman (Learning Manager, Norfolk Museum) will talk you through the Sandford Award criteria and will give you some useful application tips.

Over 500 organisations have received the Sandford quality assurance award since the scheme began in 1978, join this session to find out more about how you can use the Sandford award to chart the progress of your learning service in this lively interactive session.

Learn more about the Sandford Award