Home education groups at Royal Museums Greenwich

Home Education Day: Sea and Space Explorers 

This event is now at capacity, and we aren't accepting any more booking enquiries.

An exciting new cross-curricular day of activities, exclusively for home educators, on 4 September 2026. 

This is a free pilot of our new home educator programming.

What's included?

Object Handling - explore handling objects connected to both Tudor and polar explorers, learn all about them and ask all your history questions of our experts! These sessions will be based in our Polar Worlds and Tudor and Stuarts galleries. 

Planetary Adventure - presented live by one of our astronomers, a planetarium show all about the planets in our Solar System, and the spacecraft that explore them! 

Astronomers Take Over - Royal Observatory Greenwich is undergoing an astronomical transformation. While this is happening, the astronomers who work there have packed up and moved into the National Maritime Museum. This is your chance to meet the astronomers and ask them all the things you have always wanted to know about space. Be careful, though – the crates contain mysteries to uncover. You never know what you might find... 

Astronomers Take Over is split into zones where you can meet the team, ask your questions and try your hand at some science demonstrations.

Astronomy Lego Brick Club - Make builds inspired by astronomy – from star stories and constellation tales to rockets and time balls. 

Each session will have prompts based on our themes at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, including space, time and navigation. You and your little ones can build together or compete against each other to make the best LEGO creations! 

Sessions at the National Maritime Museum, the Queen’s House, Cutty Sark and Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre

Home education groups are welcome to book any facilitated learning session for schools. Onsite sessions are charged at the same rates as those advertised for schools, with a maximum number of 30 learners (excluding accompanying adults and siblings) per session. The minimum group size is 15 people.

Facilitated sessions are pitched at the level of the majority of learners in the group.

Due to the capacity of certain galleries and facilitation spaces, the maximum group size is 36 for National Maritime Museum sessions and 40 for Queen's House sessions (this is inclusive of learners, siblings, adults and carers). In the circumstance of a full cohort, learners, required supervising adults, and any adults providing 1:1 support should be prioritised over additional parents.

Please ensure there are enough adults to cover our supervision ratios (adults acting in a 1:1 capacity are not counted as adults fulfilling the supervising ratio).

The general supervision ratios are listed below, but due to the range of ages of students in some Home education groups, the discretion of the Bookings and Learning teams will be used.

Self-guided visits to Cutty Sark are available to home education groups at the reduced rates of: 

• £90 for a group of up to 30 people (including all accompanying adults and siblings)
• £45 for a group of up to 15 people (including all accompanying adults and siblings)
• £22.50 for a group of up to 7 people (including all adults and siblings

Entry to the Royal Observatory and the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition is included in the above prices.

Browse the onsite session pages below and, when you are ready to book, please complete the booking enquiry form.

Sessions at the Royal Observatory Greenwich

The Home Education programme at the Royal Observatory is currently on pause due to our exciting upcoming site regeneration project.

During the first phase of this regeneration project the South Building and the Peter Harrison Planetarium are closed, though the historic Royal Observatory site remains open.

The Astronomy team are now temporarily based at the National Maritime Museum. We're piloting a new form of home education content, which you can read about at the top of the page. You can also learn all about the general Astronomy schools programme, which home educated groups are very welcome to join, on this page:

Schools programme information

If you would like to visit the historic site of the Royal Observatory, you can enquire about this via our enquiry form. Trails are available for children to complete during their visit.