Schools can now book visits to IWM London, IWM Duxford and IWM North for the 2025/26 academic year, with learning sessions and self-guided visits available.
Trips to the museums explore war through the eyes of the people who lived it and allow young people to get up close to stories and artefacts from conflict, ranging from World War One to Afghanistan.
Imperial War Museums’ collections hold 11 million photographs, 155,000 objects and over 33,000 audio recordings from 1914 to the present day, along with films, documents, art and publications all focused around conflict. The permanent galleries and displays can be explored by pupils on self-guided visits.
Visits can be enhanced with curriculum-focused learning sessions which are led by expert learning facilitators and are aimed at Key Stages 2-4. The museums provide opportunities to look at areas of conflict including focuses on the Holocaust, with specially designed sessions examining why it happened and its impact.
Learning sessions across IWM sites
Learning sessions at the IWM London include Artists & War: The Whole Picture, which looks at what art can tell us about conflict and how it influences art; Holocaust Learning looking at how and why the Holocaust happened with access to the museum’s Holocaust Galleries; Documentary Challenge which tasks pupils with telling important stories from the museum in their own words and an opportunity for pupils to meet veterans and eyewitnesses from conflict and to ask questions.
Located in Media City, Salford, IWM North takes visitors through a timeline of history from World War One to the present day. A selection of learning sessions are available to enhance school visits, including The Holocaust: Life in Germany 1919-1939, which helps pupils to gain insight into the experience of people living in Germany at that time, through the personal stories of men, women and children.
The museum is home to permanent exhibitions and galleries which can be explored during a visit. Big Picture Show is a 360-degree cinematic show which uses surround sound, projected digital moving images and photographs to tell stories from different conflicts, including the immediate effects of war and what happens when the guns stop firing.
Imperial War Museum Duxford in Cambridgeshire is a preserved airfield and buildings which houses iconic aircraft and their stories, ranging from the Battle of Britain to the American Air Museum permanent displays.
From September, Documentary Challenge sessions will take place at Imperial War Museum Duxford, looking into the stories of the American Air Museum. Suitable for Key Stages 2 and 3, the sessions will take students into the galleries to explore objects and tell stories. They will each be provided with a camera and tasked with making mini documentaries on the people and objects they feel the world needs to know about.
For more information about school visits to IWM London, IWM North and IWM Duxford, visit www.iwm.org.uk/learning.
