The Migration Museum’s Learning team has won the award for Education and Training at the Charity Awards 2024, the longest-running and most prestigious awards scheme in the charity sector.

Оur award-winning learning team runs in-person and online workshops and creates resources to facilitate informed conversations around migration among primary and secondary school children (Year 7 and up). It also trains teachers in how to approach teaching about migration and how to integrate it into various curriculum subjects, and promotes individual migration stories that emphasise lived experience.

Since 2020, we have engaged around 17,500 students and 1,300 teachers through our learning programme. 84% of students said they found the workshops highly educational, 76% of students found their visit engaging and 81% said that they had a better understanding of migration after participating in museum activities. Feedback also shows that 100% of teachers were satisfied with the content and relevance of the workshops.

We have a partnership with the Teach First Summer Project to engage in co-production of learning materials and to help in its understanding of the support needed by teachers. We also share best practice through its Migration Network, which includes hundreds of people from institutions within museums, galleries, and the charity and education sectors.

Pelham Primary School visit to the Migration Museum (Photo: Pelham Primary School) and Migration Museum stall at Windrush75 Tilbury Celebrations (Photo: Migration Museum)

Judges praised the Migration Musuem’s Learning Programme for its innovative approach to teaching migration. The training of teachers ensures sustainability, allowing future students to engage with the topic. Service-user involvement is emphasised through storytelling, integrating people with lived experiences into the project.

Charity Awards judge Karin Woodley, chief executive of Cambridge House, said the Migration Museum’s learning programme was innovative in approaching the subject of migration in terms of the population and development of the UK as a whole, rather than focusing on individual migrant communities. It was a “difficult and potentially contentious area of work with excellent knowledge-sharing and outcomes,” she said.

“The other thing that’s unusual, and very hard to do in schools, is the cross-curriculum approach – training teachers to understand migrant history across all areas of the curriculum.”

Judge André Clarke, director of charity development at Lloyds Bank Foundation, added that the Migration Museum’s use of storytelling is both simple and powerful, and highlighted the importance of the project “in the context of the current toxic and inflammatory conversation about migration”.

Liberty Melly, Head of Learning at the Migration Museum, said: “Thank you! We’re so proud of everything we’ve achieved. Young people continue to inspire us, making us believe in a better future, where tolerance, understanding and empathy are core. Engaging young people in important conversations and taking the stigma and polarisation out of the topic of migration which is so often used to divide us. Migration goes to the heart of who we are as individuals, communities, and as nations.” 

Learning Team at The Charity Awards 2024 (Photos: Migration Museum)

A special thank you goes to our trustees and education committee for their ongoing support and commitment. We are also grateful to our amazing volunteers and placement students for their help with facilitating and delivering sessions. As well as our Teach First summer placements, exam board, and teacher training partners for their invaluable contributions.This achievement is a testament to the hard work and collaboration of everyone involved. We appreciate your ongoing support!

If you’d like to find out more about our learning programmes, get in touch with our Head of Learning, Liberty liberty@migrationmuseum.org

Visit our donate page If you’d like to support our work.