Schools workshops

Woodhorn Museum is a unique and inspiring place for young learners to explore Northumberland's rich social, cultural and industrial heritage.

Our Learning Team are happy to discuss the right choice of workshops for your group. We also offer school groups a lunch space, access to our play area, accessible toilets, plenty of free parking and a dedicated coach park. From September 2025 school workshops start at £85 for an hour long workshop, or £210 for a full day (up to 3 workshops)

Explore the options below and contact the team for more information at learningnld@northeastmuseums.org.uk

Get dressed for a day of hard work down the pit. Experience the darkness and cramped conditions as you crawl through a tunnel. Discover the tools that miners used to work and stay safe underground. Find out what it was really like digging for coal at Woodhorn Colliery.

Working down the pit is a great introduction to coal mining for KS1 and KS2 pupils. 

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

Time to roll up your sleeves and put on your pinny. Have a go at washing clothes and making proggy mats in our 1930s kitchen. Open the doors and drawers to find treasures from the past. Discover how life in the home was different from today.

Home Life offers KS1 pupils a hands-on learning experience about how we used to live.

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

This is your chance to 'dig deeper' at Woodhorn Museum and explore our Victorian colliery buildings. Learn about the coal industry which once fuelled the nation. Find out about the engineering which made it possible to sink the shafts deep into the ground, to provide ventilation to miners working underground and to turn the iconic pit wheels.

A must-do Colliery Tour experience for learners of all ages. 

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

Woodhorn Museum is proud to house ‘The Ashington Group Collection’- one of the North East’s most important art collections. Discover the incredible story of Ashington’s Pitmen Painters and find out about more about their lives, work and art through their paintings. Try your hand at art techniques used by the Pitmen Painters themselves as you create your own artworks in these inspirational art workshops.

Our Pitmen Painters art workshops can be tailored to the interests and experience of KS1, KS2 or KS3 pupils.

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

Investigate past mining disasters by studying historical source material including documents, images, maps and letters. Explore the controversy surrounding the causes and consequences of the Hartley Pit Disaster in 1862.

‘Death, Danger and Disasters’ offers KS2 (year 4 and older) and KS3 pupils the chance to consider the darker side of our industrial heritage. 

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

Students work in teams to design and build a model transport system to move coal up and down a mine shaft in our D&T linked workshop. They will test and modify their designs before demonstrating them to the class. During your visit find out how this was done in real life at Woodhorn Colliery.

Suitable for KS2 pupils. 

£100 per 1hour 15min workshop, with a maximum capacity of 32.

Discover the contribution of Northumbrians in the First World War. Use historical documents to follow the footsteps of a Northumbrian Soldier from signing up, to training and fighting on the battlefields and take part in some object handling to discover the kit soldiers would have carried. This workshop contains reference to war and death and may be upsetting to some individuals. 

Suitable for KS2 and KS3. 

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity 32. 

Available throughout March as celebration for British Science Week. 

Find out why scientists are using a salt mine in Whitby in their space research, then use our Earl floor robots to try out some simple coding and create your own 'Mission to Mars' using the robot, Mars themed floor mats and obstacles. 

Suitable for KS1 and KS2. 

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity 32. 

Learn to identify a selection of rocks, why coal is important to our site at Woodhorn and how it got under the ground. Handle real life fossils and and make your own fossil impressions in clay to take home

Suitable for KS2.

£85 per 1 hour workshop, with a maximum capacity 32.