Schools visits to the National Museum of Rural Life

Schools bookings to the National Museum of Rural Life are now open. 

We have a variety of visits available: 

• Self-led visits to the museum are available on a Monday and Friday, these visits are free. They include a trip to the farm and an optional farm tour. 
• Additionally, our workshops are delivered by our learning team and cover topics such as butter making and farm to fork. These workshops are charged and are available Monday - Thursday. 
• We also have a specialist offer of an immersive workshop focusing on evacuees during the Second World War. This offer has extremely limited places! 

Your class can plan to spend a full day visiting the National Museum of Rural Life: 

• Visit our museum and discover how 300 years of farming and rural home life have shaped and altered Scotland’s countryside. Trails will be sent to you following booking, these trails can be printed out at school and are designed to improve learning within the museum.
• Take an interactive, larger-than-life look at plants and flowers and pick up tips to help you find out what lurks at the bottom of your garden in our interactive gallery, Garden Detectives.
• Jump aboard the farm tractor trailer to go to our working farm and get up close to our animals.
• See our large purpose-built museum housing tractors, combine harvests, threshers, and many other inventions. Find out how machines have increasingly replaced people in farming.
• Teachers can arrange to undertake a pre-visit to help plan ahead. 

You'll find lots more information on the visit planning section of the museum pages, and you can also book a pre-visit to help you plan your day.

To ensure your visit runs smoothly, all school visits to the National Museum of Rural Life must be booked in advance.

To book please complete our booking form, either for a self led visit or a visit with a facilitated workshop.

Pre-booked general school visits and downloadable resources are free of charge.

All other events, activities and workshops have a cost of £100.

Your school will be invoiced after your visit.

Please arrive at the time stated on your booking, this is usually 10am unless otherwise discussed.

We have a designated bus drop off location - the information on this can be found here.

After drop-off, buses can park in the coach park outside the museum the entrance of which is via the mini-roundabout. 

All school visitors have a designated lunch space and/or tubs designed to hold jackets and school bags. 

However, these items are not held securely so we advice keeping any valuable items on your person at all times.

On your booking confirmation we will assign you a lunch space should you require one. 

We also have an outdoor picnic area for those lucky enough to visit on a sunny day!

The museum galleries, including Garden Detectives, are fully accessible via lifts. 

We have accessible toilets on all levels, as well as at the farm. 

The tractor trailer has a wheelchair lift, making it accessible. 

There is an Adult Changing Places (U) toilet on the ground floor of the museum. 

You can also read our full accessibility information.

We are happy for you to take photographs, including flash photography, in the general museum and farm but not the farmhouse.

There is a Museum Shop left of the Orientation Area (please ensure there is a ratio of 1 adult to 10 children when in shop). 

There is a café to the right of the Orientation Area. Take-away tea/coffee/liquids are not permitted in the museum. 

You can download our guidelines for teachers to help you write your own risk assessment. Teachers can make a free pre-visit to carry out their own risk assessment.  

We have developed an agreement which sets out what we aim to offer during your visit, and in return what we ask from you. 

We ask that pupils visiting in school groups are accompanied at all times during their visit at a ratio of: 

1 adult: 5 pupils (under the age of 5) 

1 adult: 10 pupils (primary school pupils) 

1 adult: 15 pupils (secondary school pupils) 

Where pupils require support on a 1:1 ratio, this adult should be included over and above these ratios. 

We ask that pupils visiting in school groups are accompanied at all times during their visit at a ratio of: 

1 adult: 5 pupils (under the age of 5) 

1 adult: 10 pupils (primary school pupils) 

1 adult: 15 pupils (secondary school pupils) 

Where pupils require support on a 1:1 ratio, this adult should be included over and above these ratios. 

We will send you full safety guidelines, a booking checklist and our agreement with you with your booking confirmation. Please check them before your visit. In addition, please read, sign and follow any safety notices and instructions from Visitor Experience staff.