Already encapsulated in the statement above:

“WHY DOES IT MATTER?

18th, 19th and 20th century history was a transformational period which saw widespread social, scientific and technological change which shaped present day society. Young people relate more easily to this period, and it is well represented in most museum collections, providing a powerful and popular teaching resource that can be easily accessed by schools as a day visit.

By contrast earlier periods are less well represented and opportunities for out of classroom teaching will therefore be limited, effectively excluding children from high quality learning experiences.

Secondary school timetables and teaching systems reduce the number of out of classroom visits dramatically. Most visits are from primary school children. This age group is the most accessible and the most receptive to museum visits, making it likely that many children will simply not visit our wonderful museums and heritage sites at any stage during their schooling

Out of classroom teaching provides an invaluable learning experience. This has long been recognised by the Department of Education, DCMS and the teaching profession as stimulating the effectiveness and quality of learning.

Primary school children would be taught almost nothing that happened after the year 1688. This is a rigid and artificial cut off date.

There has in recent years been a massive public and lottery investment in developing learning resources in museums in response to the current Key Stage 2 curriculum needs of schools. The proposed changes would result in much of this investment being lost.”

Where I volunteer Primary School visits out number Secondary School visits by a ratio of 10 to 1 – an example of the investment comes from projects like this, which has only just started!

As far as funding goes, currently to secure Heritage Lottery funding a project has to have a significant education component to start ticking the right boxes; by taking out the high number of primary school visits it will become more difficult to secure HLF funding.

One point of note: this doesn’t just apply to aviation, World War I etc. it’s any history after the year 1688!