Learning Away

The Learning Away website is packed with resources, case studies and advocacy materials to support the provision and uptake of “brilliant residentials” – high-quality residential experiences for children and young people in a range of settings, including museums and other cultural venues.

At first glance this site looks as if it’s squarely aimed at teachers and schools but do look past that, there’s a huge amount of advice and information for providers too. If you hadn’t thought about offering overnight programmes at your venue before, you will once you’ve had a look at Learning Away.

Chatham Historic Dockyard’s case study is inspirational and a great place to start exploring the case studies.

It isn’t all about offering sleepovers – there’s a strong case for a more integrated offer between residential centres and cultural venues, weaving heritage education into a trip away in partnership with schools, for example, Teacher-led, progressive and inclusive residentials at Kirk Ella Primary School.

Learning Away began as a Paul Hamlyn Foundation action research project (in which GEM partnered) over six years and the results of this make persuasive advocacy material for residential experiences.