Hello,

Last year NEMS & Northumbria Tourist Board worked together on a regional
(North East England) survey of school visits to historic attractions and
museums with the aim of mapping current school visitor patterns,
understanding why schools visit (or don't) and the issues they face when
arranging a trip out.

This is our first attempt to carry out such survey & we recognise the need
in future years to modify the methodology, for instance all the schools
surveyed were Primary Schools and the time of the year (early summer)
affected the outcomes. However, with this evidence to hand, we are now able
to see which curriculum areas schools are most interested in (e.g. Science
comes out very high) and also what the major concerns of teachers are. The
results will hopefully be of interest to list members & it wd be good to
hear if similar studies are being carried out in other regions & whether
there's a need for a UK-wide approach (with the guidance of GEM or ETB?). We
are currently looking at the 2001/02 survey and would appreciate your
comments on improving our approach.

The results of this survey are now available via Northumbria Tourist Board's
new Business to Business Extranet www.e-northumbria.net  - follow "What is
NTB?" tab at top of screen, through departments to R&D where there are
links. You can also be got at through "Tourism Industry" then "Facts and
Figures", again links. They are pdf files and patience is a virtue when
waiting for them to download.

but what's the use of a survey? Well, in response we hold twice yearly
meetings of a new group called the Northumbria Education Forum to discuss
ways of reacting to the issues in the survey and which Forum members raise.
We share good practice, for example, we've recently discussed working
'creatively' with private transport providers and the idea of business
sponsorship for school/ museum activities. The group is made up of marketing
officers, education officers, EBPs (Education Business Partnerships),
tourism officers, the National Park, leisure attractions & Head Teachers.
Our next meeting will be looking at recent UK-wide research into
non-visitors.

The group has also issued a report, ''Attracting School Visitors to Museums
& Historic Attractions'', which is full of ideas pinched from a variety of
sources, including responses to the request via these mailbases last year
(thanks to all those who responded). This document will be available on the
NEMS website - www.northeastmuseums.co.uk - from next week or by post (small
charge for P&P), and again your feedback would be welcome.

Hope this is useful - I will be able to offer summaries of our findings for
Newsletters soon.
bye
ian

> Ian Blackwell
> Audience Development Officer
>
> North East Museums
> House of Recovery
> Bath Lane
> Newcastle upon Tyne
> NE4  5SQ
> tel:   0191 222 1661
> fax:  0191 261 4725
>
> www.northeastmuseums.co.uk