The benefit of encouraging families to visit military museums

Visiting the Army Museums Ogilby Trust (AMOT) museums can be a fantastic way to spark children’s interest in history and the armed forces. Here are some ways we recommend encouraging children to visit your museums and perhaps inspire them to consider a future in the armed forces:

Interactive Exhibits: Interactive and engaging exhibits bring history to life. Many AMOT museums offer hands-on activities, re-enactments and multimedia displays that can captivate young minds. The themes need to be relevant, exciting and fun. We use characters, real and imagined, to bring stories to life. This is especially important to help children understand the importance of our armed forces, as well as timelines and why it matters that we remember conflicts, such as WWI and Remembrance Sunday for example.

Storytelling: Sharing stories of bravery, adventure and innovation in our exhibitions can inspire children. It’s easier to connect with a personal story of soldiers, their family and experiences. It’s easy to engage children with high quality resources, such as story books, story boards and comic strips which are visual and help to bring a story to life through pictures and graphics, rather than lots of adult focussed text.

Educational Programs: Educational programs and workshops help to provide a deeper understanding of historical events and the role of the armed forces. Brought to life with innovative and creative resources, such as memory cards, artefacts, standees and a variety of re-usable material, this solution is cost-effective for your museum and memorable for your family/school audiences.

Family Activities: Many museums offer family-friendly activities and events. They encourage participation, spending time together and making the visit fun and memorable. Families come in all shapes and sizes and have different needs, preferences and interests. They want to feel comfortable and confident in museums and a well-planned activity session will see a family more likely to return. Referrals from happy families means valuable income and a positive message spreading outwards from your museum.

If you’re planning an exhibition for families with children from a specific age group, it’s worth considering the age and ability of the children and how they are likely to engage. Remember that many family groups include siblings who may be at different developmental stages and adults from different generations too.

It’s also important to build accessibility into your family friendly exhibition too. Did you know that 11% of UK children are SEND and when you consider siblings too, it’s quite a lot to think about.

Choose creative partners who understand the demands of different ages and demographics, providing age-appropriate activities and inclusivity for all. A good resource will ‘layer’ different outcomes to suit the audience, whilst ensuring that no child feels excluded.

Inspiring a Future in the Armed Forces

AMOT Museums offer a wealth of opportunity to inspire families with children and they can be a force for good on many levels. Helping to inspire, educate and engage children is a rewarding experience for both visitor and museum staff. Here are some of the positive outcomes your museum can offer children and families:

Role Models: Introduce children to inspiring role models from the armed forces. This could include historical figures featured in the museum or current service members who can share their experiences.

Career Opportunities: Explain the diverse career opportunities available in the armed forces, from engineering and medicine to logistics and intelligence. Highlight how the skills and training provided can lead to a successful and fulfilling career, not to mention transferable skills on leaving the armed forces.

Adventure and Travel: Emphasise the opportunities for adventure and travel that come with a military career. Many children are excited by the prospect of exploring new places and experiencing different cultures.

Community and Camaraderie: Talk about the strong sense of community and lifelong friendships that are formed in the armed forces ‘family’. This can be a powerful motivator for children who value teamwork and belonging to a group or family.

Personal Development: Highlight the personal development aspects, such as leadership skills, discipline and resilience, that come with military training. These qualities are valuable in any career as well as in life.

By combining the educational and engaging experiences at AMOT museums with the inspiring aspects of a military career, you can help children see the armed forces as a rewarding and exciting career path.

Colour Heroes have over 20 years’ experience in learning what families expect from their day out. We will help you to create high-quality, educational and affordable children’s visitor resources to engage families during their visit to your museum or heritage site. We offer a complete service from original and fun concepts to exciting, colourful, printed resources, including activity packs, illustrated maps, engaging trails, history books, guides and tabletop activities.