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What makes a child friendly museum

During 2023-2024, a team of five MA students: Alana Surowiec, Alannah Gilmour, Andrea Yang, Freya Kehoe, and Grace Gui worked with the 27 pupils in Yew Class. They carried out research at the Grant and Petrie museums to produce a series of recommendations for the UCL Museums team on what makes a museum child friendly. For their research they interviewed visitors, handled 3d printed replica objects and analysed labels, displays and lighting in the museums.  

Watch the film

A Child Friendly Museum: Yew Classes perspective on two UCL museums, the Petrie Museum of Egyptian and Sudanese Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology

 

Yew Class’s recommendations

  • Make the labels clearer
  • Put more lights in the museum so you can see the objects clearly
  • More stuff for kids like a playground or a soft play area
  • Change how the objects are presented, have them on different levels for different people
  • Children to be able to touch similar/fake objects to compare (with the original)
  • Have some definitions for big words
  • Have more (family friendly) tours of the museums
  • Give people more information
  • Make the labels bigger so people can see clearly
  • Discuss whether we should display (a human) skeleton in museum
  • Ask people to make the necklaces (inspired by those in the Petrie Museum) and wear them 

Yew Class recommendations on museum visit

Yew Class recommendations on museum visit