New funding launched to revive educational visits to cultural venues

Research conducted by Teacher Tapp for the Clore Duffield Foundation, reveals a drop in educational visits to UK cultural venues, which the charity believes is limiting children’s cultural capital.

The survey, conducted in March 2026 asked teachers about day trips to cultural venues. Unsurprisingly, cost was named as a significant barrier: almost 80% of maintained primary schools said that budget stops them from running more day visits.

According to the research*:

• Day trips to cultural venues have declined since the pandemic, with 79% of state-funded primary schools saying budget stops them running more trips.

• State funded schools report the biggest drop in visits: 46% of primary state funded schools will go on 2 or fewer trips per year compared to 22% of private primary schools.

• Just 34% of state funded schools go on 3 or more visits per year – this varies across the UK with the Midlands the lowest at just 30%, while in London over half (53%) will go on 3 or more visits.

The Clore Duffield Foundation, which supports UK charities working in the arts, education, social welfare and health used the findings to launch its Clore Schools Connect programme designed to empower learning spaces in museums, theatres and heritage sites across the UK to work with schools with low cultural engagement.

Over the last 25 years, 80 Clore Learning Spaces have received grants of up to £2.5m. The latest round of funding offers grants of up to £50,000 a year for three years to cultural venues.

The grant will enable participating organisations to:

• Develop new and innovative approaches to schools engagement

• Build confidence and capacity among teachers and school leaders to engage with cultural organisations

• Share learning through a structured cohort model

• Contribute to sector-wide understanding of best practice

Dame Vivien Duffield from Clore Duffield Foundation says

 “Many young people particularly those in state schools and outside London are not getting the cultural capital they deserve. School visits have dropped off dramatically particularly in rural areas. This is why we are launching the Clore Schools Connect programme to support a cohort of Clore Learning Spaces to work with schools with low cultural engagement.”

Applications are open until 29 April with programme delivery from October 2026-2029. Find out more here.

*Research conducted in March 2026 by Teacher Tapp on behalf of the Clore Duffield Foundation. 9,722 teachers responded to the survey.