The Food Museum School Trip

Stowmarket Suffolk IP14 1SL

We’re highly experienced in designing visits that educate, engage and entertain, in a way that really brings a subject to life. From tailor-made museum-led learning sessions to hands-on experiences, we really get down to the roots of a subject and serve up something special.

The Food Museum is a place where your pupils and students can enjoy informative and fun learning experiences that will help them understand the role that food has played in shaping our history and culture.

We offer pre-booked free visits that allow you and your pupils to explore the Museum and our wider 75-acre site. Alternatively, we have bookable Learning Sessions that are led by experienced and knowledgeable members of our Learning Team. These Learning Sessions have been developed to further enrich classroom learning. We use our landscape, buildings, and our collections to bring a range of subjects to life. Our food-based sessions allow your pupils and students to get more hands-on with how food is grown, produced, cooked, and eaten.

NEW FOR 2025 School Dinners Exhibition

Semolina, sponge pudding and custard, turkey twizzlers… What are your memories of school dinners?

Explore our exhibition to discover how school dinners came about, the importance of nutrition in planning what to put on the menu and how school food has changed over time. Share your memories of school food and help to design a school dinner of the future.

Pupils will have the opportunity to handle objects, interrogate photographic and written resources and explore the exhibition to gather information that will help them create their own school dinner.

Teacher Checklist

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What activities are available during educational visits?

Our museum-led sessions are the best way to enhance your educational visit. These fun and interactive events are run by expert members of our team, and really get children (and adults!) engaging with the subject at hand.

These sessions work on a first come, first served basis so booking is essential. If you don’t see a suitable session for your group please get in touch and we will try to accommodate your requests. Tailor-made sessions may incur a further charge depending on the time and resources required to create them, so we’ll need a minimum of two weeks’ notice to arrange things.

Which curriculum topics do we cater for?

Food School Trip

Where food comes from

Click to read full text Pupils will gain understanding of how wheat grows, how wheat plants are processed into grain and then flour. Students will undertake a bread-making activity that culminates in their bread being baked on our wood fired oven.

The learning session begins with your students making dough from freshly milled flour. Whilst the dough is proving, a member of our learning team will lead a short interactive presentation on how wheat grows and how it is milled into flour. This part can be tailored depending on Key Stage, Subject and desired learning outcomes. After a short break, the students then shape their dough before taking it over to the wood-fired oven to be baked. This ends the learning session. However, we recommend that you and your group follow our bread trail to discover our GROW area, watermill, and much more.

Farm School Trip

Click to read full text Explore the Heritage Farm with a guided tour of the animals. Meet the animals, discover what they eat, learn about the different breeds and why they have been bred to look the way they do.

Learning Objectives:

Identify and name a variety of different animals.
Find out what different animals eat and what their needs are.
Find out about different breeds of animals.
Be excited, inspired and engaged; have fun!
It will be a positive and inclusive outdoor experience in a museum.
Be actively involved; have the opportunity to be ‘hands-on’, ask questions and have discussions, they will contribute to the session.

Victorian School Trip

Childhood and Schools

Enrich your pupils’ understanding of the Victorian era with this Farm Labourer Learning Session. This session will explore the roles that children had in rural life. The session starts with a fun question and answer session about Victorian era objects from our handling-collection. Then, a member of our Learning Team will lead your class in a carousel of the hands-on jobs that children in the Victorian era undertook.

What size groups do we cater for?

Any

On-site classroom facilities?

Yes We do have the ability to provide a classroom-like environment. You can tell us your group size and any specific requirements in the form below.

Is there first aid on site?

Yes

Access for visitors with disabilities

Yes Please let us know more about your group and we will get back to you with more details about the suitability of what we offer.

Visitors with Special Educational Needs (SEN)

Yes We certainly can. Please use the form below to let us know your group's specific SEN requirements and we will get back to you with more information on how we can tailor our learning experience for your children.

Who are The Food Museum?

We are the UK’s Food Museum, located in East Anglia, ‘Britain’s Breadbasket’. Our mission is to connect people with where our food comes from and the impact of our choices: past, present and future.

We all eat. Food is culture and is an avenue for everyday creativity. Our collection is rooted in East Anglia and we use it to tell broad and inclusive stories.

From cheese-making to brewing, historic breads to seasonal eating, we are here to engage audiences with the heritage of food and the communities who grow and make it. We aim to explore themes connected by food – social, historical, technological, industrial, environmental – and to give visitors hands-on experiences which bring processes alive, teach skills and share memories.