Planning Your Visit

Free Teacher Preview Visits

Teachers and group leaders are welcome and encouraged to carry out a free planning visit to see how we can meet the aims of your visit and assess the site.

We aim to tailor each experience for groups, please ensure you send through areas of your curriculum focus, topic and vocabulary to support in a tailored experience for the group.

Our Learning team can arrange a personal planning meeting whenever convenient. Please enquire via email in the first instance – [email protected].

Booking a Workshop

Please note that all group visits must be booked in advance, we need at least three weeks notice of your visit. We refuse the right to refuse admission to groups who arrive without a booking.

To make a booking please use our booking enquiry form (linking to Learning page) and fill out all the relevant details. All other enquiries can be made to [email protected]. Please allow a week for response to learning enquiries.

Once you have been in contact with the learning team and your booking has been arranged you will receive a booking confirmation form via email. This will detail the itinerary for your day, costings, access and travel information. Please ensure the details are correct upon receipt. If you have not received written confirmation of your booking within three weeks, please contact us.

Timings and amendments must be made in writing to [email protected] with at least 2 weeks’ notice.

Group Size

Please note we are only able to accommodate two classes of up to 36 students per class at a time due to the size of our museum venues and education space for a full day and half day experience. Exceptions can be made for particular offers such as sketch crawls or we can provide staggered visits for groups of 4 throughout the day.

The Health and Safety Executive do not prescribe adult to pupil school trip ratios in law, however, we recommend the following ratio of adults to students:

• 1:3 for Early years groups of children
• 1:5 for children of seven years and under
• 1:10 for children of eight years and above

Most schools have up to 8 adult helpers and staff per day. Bring as many adult helpers as you need but please note we only have seating capacity for 40 in our education space.

Access

All of our workshops can be adapted to suit the needs of your group.

We can offer specially tailored sessions for pupils with a wide range of SENDs, and we can discuss your individual requirements if you contact us directly.

Port Sunlight Museum and SoapWorks are accessible for people with disabilities or limited mobility with ramped entrances. There are accessible toilets on ground floor levels of Port Sunlight Museum and SoapWorks.

Please note that unfortunately due to the nature of the Workers Cottage building it is only accessible downstairs, a digital tour can be provided for individuals with limited mobility to view the upstairs spaces.

Additionally due to the age of the village and trees surrounding paved areas, some areas may be uneven and slippery when wet, caution is advised and suitable clothing and footwear recommended on your visit.

The learning centre has a portable ramp that can be used for wheelchair users, accessible toilets are located across the road in SoapWorks.

Quiet days with no access to the public can also be booked to support access needs.

Please contact us to discuss your needs and any additional support we may be able to provide.

Lunch

Where possible, schools are encouraged to make use of the green spaces in the village for lunch time.

Port Sunlight Village Trust will collect and dispose of the rubbish for the class after lunch, but we kindly ask to use the waste and recycling bins as appropriate.

If the weather is particularly bad, the group can eat inside the Learning Space and the school staff and helpers will be left a brush and hoover to make the space ready for any activity in the space after lunch.

Travel (School bus drop off)

You are encouraged to travel to the village by train for both cost and sustainability reasons.

We are a well-connected village with two train stations (Port Sunlight & Bebington) and both in easy walking distance of all village attractions. Please note Port Sunlight Train Station is unfortunately not accessible, please use Bebington Station if access is required.

If you intend to travel by coach, you can arrange to be dropped off and collected outside our venues, please ask the driver to turn the engine off whilst waiting for your class.

Coach drop off is located on point 12 of the map outside of the Lyceum building with a short walk to our education space on point 13, all relevant travel information will also be included in your booking confirmation form:

Late Fee

We know things don’t always go to plan and lateness may occur, we try our best to adjust our day itinerary however timings may be reduce to accommodate this. If you wish to keep original timings a cost may be incurred to cover additional staff time.

Cancellation Fee

If you cancel a booking more than 10 working days before the date of the session, there will be no cancellation fee and we will release the date for other schools.

If you cancel a booking less than 10 working days before the date of the session, the school will be invoiced for the full cost of the visit unless there are exceptional circumstances.

If the learning team must cancel the workshop, you will be informed as soon as possible and invited to re-book at a discounted rate, but the museum cannot take responsibility for travel or other costs.

Risk Assessments

We have tailored risk assessments to all experiences, workshops and activities in our learning programme.