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Visit our Sessions page to view our full range of available Sessions and Activities. Each session or activity page has an Enquire form to allow you to submit your enquiry.
Alternatively, if you know which of our Venues you’d like to visit, go direct to their page and find out more information there.
Browse the Sessions and Activities we have available or use the filters to search for your specific criteria. Results are shown in alphabetical order.
This immersive and experiential session gives pupils the chance to be an active part of the events of 1066.
Local history, significant people and curious objects!
This interactive and immersive workshop replaces What Made Oldham the Biggest Cotton Spinning Town in the World?
Discover how our art collections are the products of science, technology and creativity with local visual artist and specialised printmaker, Julia Swarbrick. For KS1 and KS2 students.
A fun and interactive way to engage your pupils with historical enquiry and chronology!
Find out all you ever needed to know about building castles in our fun and interactive session. Discover why castles were built, what they were built out of, and why.
Pupils investigate and classify animals using observable features and a key then play interactive games to explore classification and food chains.
On Tuesday afternoon schools have exclusive access to the former Lancaster Prison’s ‘A’ Wing for an exciting and fully immersive ‘Crime Through Time’ session.
In this session the children get to handle a range of fossil animals and think about the environments the animals might have lived in.
This full day session is made up of four different activities.
This session is a gentle introduction to how people lived in the past.
The Tower house was a family home for some 500 years and pupils will have an interactive guided tour around the rooms in the Tower to learn about what life was like then.
Guided by a creative writing facilitator, pupils explore three pieces of art by Oldham artists which depict Ice and Fire then write and perform poetry inspired by the artwork.
Let Anne Haworth show you around her home and find out why she gives the house and grounds to the people of Accrington to be an art gallery, museum and park.
The children will spend half a day finding out about the inventors on their doorstep and how they changed their world.
Learn about the journey of Joseph Briggs, from third generation engraver in Accrington to Managing Director of the world famous company Louis C. Tiffany Studios in New York.
As well as viewing our mummy, your pupils will use objects from the collection and craft activities…
Find out about the lives of everyday people from Egypt.
All aboard! Discover more about life at sea in the great days of sail.
This session introduces the children to changes that happened locally, making Lancashire towns some of the most prosperous in the world
In this inspiring and hands-on session pupils will come face to face with Marcus – a Roman soldier.
Come and meet our costumed interpreters as we go back to Tudor times and experience how life was lived at Turton Tower.
Meet the Victorians – at work, at school, at home and at play
Take a guided walk beyond the mill gates to explore how the Industrial Revolution and the arrival of the mills changed the landscape.
In this exciting and immersive session pupils will be taught all the skills they need to become a SWORD Ranger. Pupils will discover the secret history of SWORD, how to identify different dragons, discover where they live, what they eat, their likes and dislikes and how to care for them.
An opportunity for your pupils to hone their historical enquiry skills through handling real objects from Victorian domestic and working life.
Using our natural history handling collection, pupils observe, identify and classify animals.
Pupils explore our exhibitions to discover what jobs people did in Victorian Oldham.
Pupils explore Oldham artist Helen Bradley’s painting, ‘A Summer Afternoon on the Sands at Blackpool’, to learn where and how Oldham people spent their Wakes Week off from work in the mills.
Pupils seek out the hidden shapes and patterns within our building and exhibitions in this artist-led printmaking workshop.
Explore a ghastlier side to Astley Hall.
What does a portrait tell us about the sitter? Your pupils will learn to unravel the clues that can be found in the picture of a person.
This half day workshop is a practical printmaking session, where the children will make their very own prints inspired by collections at the Museum.
Follow our free self-guided trail around the park under the guidance of magical explorer Professor Jigget
Take a journey through the Industrial Revolution, from the domestic woollen industry to the time when cotton was king.
Using the River Calder and the ponds around the hall, children learn about river systems and water habitats
Find out about the invertebrates and small animals living in the different habitats in the park in these outdoors sessions at Towneley.
What was it like to work in a mill? Discover a range of jobs and examine working conditions as you learn how cotton is turned into yarn in a cotton condenser spinning mill. Journey into the intriguingly named 'Devil Hole' and observe a machinery demonstration with our heritage spinning mules. NB - this session incurs an extra cost for the additional staff needed to operate heritage machinery. Costs on enquiry.
A fun workshop (with lots of hands-on activities) exploring how the Great Fire of London began, spread and was tackled.
Pupils will examine the mystery of prehistory in an interactive and engaging workshop centred on life in Britain before the Romans.
Our guided tour explores the administration of the law through the last 1000 years and experience what it meant to be imprisoned at the castle. Tours last approx. 60 mins and can be subject to the use of the Crown Court within the castle.
Take a trip through the pages of time at the Lancashire Archives as we examine the development of books, pens and writing in general in this interactive and immersive session.
Pupils are invited to visit our Viking settlement where they will be subject to Viking law and customs.
In this session children look at and play with a selection of old and new toys and explore the ways in which we can tell ‘old’ from ‘new’.
A half-day workshop to discover how Victorian children spent their days, which for some included house-hold chores and even work.
25 Nov - 29 Nov 2024 (Half day only - schools book for either 10am - 12noon OR 12.30pm - 2.30pm) Traditional games, cornucopia making,the smells of a Victorian kitchen at Christmas and of course.... Father Christmas and the festive traditions. Pupils take part in a round robin of four workshops. See Special Events Weeks page for full details of all special events.
An introduction to Victorian Fossil Hunters such as Mary Anning, this session is hands on, creative and involves some dressing up!
This session is divided into Victorian Seaside Boarding House and Victorian Object Handling - where you find out what it was like to go on holiday Victorian style and look at 100 household objects from the Victorian era.
Pupils will meet Victorian characters who worked at Turton Tower during the reign of Queen Victoria when the Kay family owned the Tower House. They will explore aspects of daily family life and enjoy a past times playtime with Victorian toys, some of which have adapted and are still played with today.
Study the magnificent portraits in Astley Hall and create your own artistic masterpiece.
In a thought-provoking and engaging session using archival material, artefacts and active participation, pupils will investigate, explore and piece together the lives of two WWI soldiers and brothers through their letters home.
Take a journey back in time and join our WW1 Recruitment Sergeants as they welcome you as ‘conscripts’ to the British Army in this fully interactive and inspirational learning experience set during WW1 in 1916.
In this fully immersive and hands-on session pupils will take a journey to the trenches of France!
The children will find out about the impact of WW2 on the people of Blackburn, the experiences of children and have the opportunity to handle a selection of objects from the period.
It’s time for you to do your part to help the war effort! Through object handling, active participation, role play and discovery, pupils will be brought closer to the home front than ever before.
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