Heritage - Taking Part Survey 2019/20
Published 16 September 2020
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2020
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/taking-part-201920-annual-child-release/heritage-taking-part-survey-201920
The Taking Part survey asks questions on whether respondents have engaged with the heritage sector. The survey questions for 5-10 year olds are completed by an adult on behalf of the child and ask about activities done outside of school only. The interview for 11-15 year olds is conducted with the young person themselves and the questions cover engagement done both in school lessons and outside of school.
In 2019/20, 66% of all children (aged 5-15) had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months, a similar proportion to 2018/19 (69%).
Figure 2.1: Heritage engagement in the last 12 months by age group 2008/09 to 2019/20
1. 5-10 year olds
In 2019/20, 66% of children aged 5-10 had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months. This is a similar proportion to 2018/19 (71%).
In 2019/20, a similar proportion of boys (67%) and girls (66%) aged 5-10 had visited a heritage site outside of school in the last 12 months. This is similar to 2018/19 for both boys and girls (70% and 71% respectively).
2. 11-15 year olds
There was no change in the proportion of children aged 11-15 who had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months in 2019/20 (67%) compared to 2018/19 (67%).
In 2019/20, a similar proportion of boys (64%) and girls (69%) aged 11-15 had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months. This is a similar level to 2018/19 for both boys and girls (67% and 68% respectively).
2.1 Type of heritage site visited
Children aged 11-15 who had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months were also asked which types of heritage sites they had visited:
- 46% had visited a historic building, garden or landscape open to the public
- 34% had visited a historic monument or site of archaeological interest
- 46% had visited a city or town with historic character
- 22% had visited an important modern building or public space
There were no significant changes in the percentage of children aged 11-15 who had visited any of the above sites since 2018/19.
Figure 2.2: Proportion of children aged 11-15 years old who had visited different types of heritage sites in the last 12 months, 2017/18 and 2018/19
2.2 In and out of school engagement
Children aged 11-15 were more likely to have visited heritage sites outside of school only than with school only, as was the case in 2018/19. In 2019/20, • 42% of 11-15 year olds visited a heritage site outside of school only • 8% visited in school only • 16% visited both with and outside of school
Figure 2.3: Proportion of 11-15 year olds that had visited a heritage site in the last 12 months split by in school and outside school engagement, 2017/18 and 2018/19
