School visits and outreach

We offer tailor made workshops for school groups from Key Stages 1 – 5 which are currently free of charge.  This year, we are able to offer these sessions as livestreams into classrooms at a time of your choosing.  Please contact [email protected] for further details.

During usual opening times, we offer bookable slots on Thursday and Friday mornings between 9.30 – 11.30 (sessions last one hour).  Sessions take place in the magical book-lined Outer Library which houses the majority of the Institution’s historic collection.    Our extensive collection is used to support and enrich the National Curriculum.

Popular sessions include:

Global Lives

Using postcolonial theory, we explore our collections and find the hidden histories within them –  suitable for KS3 -5.

Books of Wonder

Find out about evolution, natural history and Darwinism- suitable for KS1 – 3.

Exeter Home Front

Find out about wartime Exeter, the blitz and contemporary accounts – suitable for KS2-3.

Beautiful Experiments

Explore the Age of Enlightenment, celebrity scientists and the origins of physical and natural science – suitable for KS2-3.

Everyone is welcome but if you are unable to get to us, we offer an outreach service to schools and community groups in the Exeter area, including tailor made sessions for:

• Early years settings
• Children and young people with Special Educational Needs
• Older people with additional needs

“Thank you so much for today. The children have had a fantastic experience and have been buzzing about it all the way back to school  They absolutely loved the reading rooms and really wanted to be able to stay longer. Thank you so much for all the work you put into the day; it really is appreciated, and we hope to make use of your fantastic resource again and again in the future. You may well have inspired some new members today!”

“It was great to explore the reading rooms and they have definitely left a lasting impression on the children.  We spent the next 2 literacy lessons producing diaries as if the children were exploring a new continent for the first time and this idea was completely based on your brilliant day. Thank you so much again – what a great resource to have on our doorstep!  We really hope to visit again.”