The Great North Museum: Hancock shortlisted for national Family Friendly Museum Award

The team at the Great North Museum: Hancock are delighted to be shortlisted for the fifth time

A small child wearing cat ears stands in a museum. They are holding hands with a parent and looking up at them smiling and laughing.

The Great North Museum: Hancock has been shortlisted for the Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award, it was announced today. 

Charity Kids in Museums has run a prestigious annual award since 2004, recognising the most family friendly heritage sites in the UK. It is the only museum award to be judged by families. 

From February to late April, families across the UK voted for their favourite heritage attraction on the Kids in Museums website. A panel of museum experts, children and young people then whittled down hundreds of nominations to a shortlist of 18 heritage attractions. 

The Great North Museum is vying against three other museums in the Best Medium Museum category. 

Malavika Anderson, Museum Manager at the Great North Museum: Hancock said: "At the Great North Museum: Hancock, we put children and young people at the heart of everything we do. We are absolutely delighted to be shortlisted for the Family Friendly Museum Award for the fifth time, having won the award in 2019. It is such a great privilege to be recognised as a welcoming, inspiring, innovative and fun space for families". 

The museum brings together internationally important collections from the cultural world, natural world, and the ancient world. It incorporates collections from the original Hancock Museum, Newcastle University's former Museum of Antiquities and the Shefton Museum. 

Over the summer holidays, the museum will be visited by undercover family judges who will assess the shortlisted museums against the Kids in Museums Manifesto, a set of guidelines on what makes the museum great for all ages. Their experiences will decide a winner for each award category and an overall winner of the Family Friendly Museum Award 2025. The winners will be announced at an awards ceremony in October. 

Follow the Family Friendly Museum Award on social media by following @kidsinmuseums and #FamilyFriendlyMuseum.

The Family Friendly Museum Award has been made possible by funding from Arts Council England. 

A banner with an illustration of an elephant and crowds of people looking up at it. The words read Shortlisted 2025 Kids in Museums Family Friendly Museum Award


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