1. Making your booking

Here is our school booking process:

Please complete our school visit enquiry form — this tells us everything we need to know, so be sure to complete this fully first. We cannot accept incomplete forms. 

Once we receive your school visit enquiry form, the Bookings team will check our session availability and look through your request.

A team member will email you with possible dates and times. Please note that session dates and times will be offered to other schools as well. Our onsite schools' programmes are highly in demand; therefore, we will work on a first-come, first-served basis.

We'll wait for you to select and agree to a date and session time. Then, once you can confirm you've completed the necessary risk assessments for your visit and have the recommended number of supervising adults, you will be sent a confirmation of booking.

Finally, you will be informed of our cancellation policy. This comes into effect as soon as you receive your confirmation of booking. Please ensure you have checked with your school office, made necessary travel arrangements, and that your finance team is aware of your visit before you confirm your school booking.

2. Cancellation policy

We have a strict 28-day cancellation period. If you need to amend your booking, cancel your session, reschedule, or bring a reduced number of students, please let us know in writing, by email to bookings@rmg.co.uk , at least 28 days before your visit. If you have already paid you will receive a full refund. If the booking was made less than 28 days before the visit date, the cancellation policy still applies.

Cancellations, alterations or reschedule requests made less than 28 days before your visit will incur a fee of the full cost of your booking. You will not be entitled to a refund if you have already paid. If you are yet to pay, an invoice will be sent to your school for the full cost of your booking.

National Maritime Museum - Free Greenwich school visits & KS3/4/5 - cancellations made less than 28 days before your visit will incur a fee of £75.00 per class per session or £150.00 per study day booking.

We cannot accept amendments or cancellations by phone or by voicemail. If you inform us of a cancellation or amendment by phone, your request will not register, and you will be asked to send notification of cancellation by email.

Royal Museums Greenwich booking cancellations

We reserve the right to cancel an education session under certain circumstances.

A full refund will be issued to the school if the cancellation relates to:

  • Illness, injury or death of a Royal Museums Greenwich employee or freelancer facilitator.
  • Government restrictions on social distancing that prevent the Royal Museums Greenwich from opening and delivering sessions or prevent schools from visiting the Royal Museums Greenwich. We will first offer a digital session as an alternative or rebook your onsite visit for a later date - a refund will be offered in the last instance.
  • Exceptional weather conditions that prevent RMG employees, freelancer facilitators or schools from travelling safely to our sites, e.g. National Rail or tube strike action.
  • Public sector strikes that prevent RMG employees, freelancer facilitators or schools from travelling safely to our sites.

No refund will be issued if the cancellation relates to:

  • Late arrival or inability to make the visit due to travel issues on the day. If you are running late, please give us a call on 0208312 6608. We will try to adapt the session for you as much as possible, although this may necessitate the time being reduced. We reserve the right not to run the session if we think the time is too short.
  • The behaviour of the group is deemed unacceptable or inappropriate by the staff member delivering the session.
  • The school is no longer able to meet the minimum requirements of supervising adults for the number of students attending the booked sessions:

EYFS (Nursery) - 1 adult per 3 students
EYFS (Reception) - 1 adult per 5 students
KS1 - 1 adult per 5 students
KS2 - 1 adult per 8 students
KS3 and KS4 - 1 adult per 10 students
Post-16 - 1 adult per 16 students

3. Next steps

A confirmation email will be sent to the lead teacher and school office. At this stage, your school booking is confirmed and now subject to our cancellation policy.

Receipt of your confirmation email indicates that you have understood and accepted the details of the services that we will be providing, the timescale to which we will work and that you accept the terms and conditions detailed in this document. The sessions booked on your behalf at Royal Museums Greenwich are part of an extensive Educational Programme that provides support to a great number of schools across the country. The funding of such a programme is heavily reliant on the fact that schools do attend the programme, and when agreed to do so, therefore, we expect schools to abide by our terms and conditions, including our cancellation policy.

4. Payment

We do not raise or send invoices.

Please make payment by debit/credit card by calling 020 8312 6608. You must pay for your sessions before your session begins. 

If you would prefer to make a bank transfer, please email bookings@rmg.co.uk and the team will send you the relevant information. We ask for all BACS payments to be made at least 14 days before the date of your session.

If payment cannot be made in advance, it must be done on arrival. We accept cash, card, and cheques at our admission desks. Cheques must be made payable to National Maritime Museum. We cannot accept posted cheques. If you intend to pay on the day, please let us know, so we can inform our teams to expect this upon arrival.

VAT is not applicable to your booking and is not charged.

Please be aware that your group will be unable to enter our sites and/or start their booked session until payment is made.

5. Free sessions

Charged sessions at the National Maritime Museum and the Queen's House are available to book free of charge to state schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Charged sessions at the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre are available to book free of charge to state schools in the boroughs of Royal Greenwich and Lewisham.

Charged self-guided visits to the Cutty Sark are available to book free of charge to state schools in the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Places are limited and subject to availability.

Please ensure you make the bookings team aware if your school qualifies for free sessions at point of booking.

6. Things to remember

We require that the correct number of supervising adults/teachers are present with pupils at all times during the onsite visit. Please note that if a group does not have the minimum number of adults, admission to the group's booked session/s is not guaranteed.

We recommend you carry out your own risk assessments for visiting our sites.

You can find risk assessments for visiting our sites here.

Read our schools code of conduct and share with all accompanying adults.

Your visit to Royal Museums Greenwich, including entry into our galleries and attendance at any taught sessions, is at all times subject to any notice to visitors that we post on our premises, the direction, supervision and guidance of our staff and your compliance with our Visitor regulations.

You must pay for your sessions before your sessions begin. To facilitate this, we recommend payment in advance or, if this cannot be done, arriving earlier to make payment at one of our admission desks. (Sites open at 10:00.)

To avoid any cancellation fees, please remember to contact Bookings@rmg.co.uk at least 28 days in advance of your visit if you need to amend your booking, cancel your session, or reschedule.

Contact the Bookings team on 020 8312 6608 if you are running late; latecomers are admitted at our discretion and changes to your programme may not be feasible. You will be charged (if applicable) for any part of your programme that you miss.

The contact data you provide to us is processed by us according to the Data Protection Act 2018 on the legal basis of 'for the performance of contract'. We shall not share this data with anyone outside RMG, it shall be stored securely and shall be deleted according to our disposal policy of 2 years. If you have a question about the way we handle your personal information, please, in the first instance, contact the Governance and Museum Records Manager, Royal Museums Greenwich.