The Guardian Family Friendly Awards are organised in conjunction with Kids in Museums. © Kids in Museums / Quentin Blake

Five shortlisted museums have been announced for this year’s Guardian Family Friendly Museum Award, which aim to encourage and guide UK museums and galleries to improve the experience of visiting families.

Set up by The Guardian newspaper in conjunction with the charity Kids in Museums, organisers are hailing this year’s shortlist as a departure from the dinosaur exhibitions and dressing up boxes traditionally held to be the main museum draws for kids and families.

The museums shortlisted - Dulwich Picture Gallery (London), Manchester Art Gallery, Shetland Museum, Weston Park Museum (Sheffield) and Wolverhampton Art Gallery – all have collections that at first glance don’t seem to be family friendly.

“It’s fabulous that there’s hardly a dinosaur bone to be seen at any museum on the shortlist,” said Dea Birkett, Director of Kids in Museums. “To be family friendly no longer means having to have plastic Viking helmets for kids to dress up in or rows of Egyptian mummies. We’ve made too many presumptions in the past about what kids like. They can appreciate fine art as well as finger painting.”

Weston Park Museum in Sheffield has a dedicated family area with the Arctic World exhibition space. © Sheffield Museums Trust

Judges were looking for answers to thorny questions such as: how do you make 17th century old masters appealing to toddlers? What can a teenager take away from a glass cabinet of 18th century silverware? The shortlisted museums were found to have taken on these challenges, transforming their collections so they’re exciting to everyone, of every age.

“Thankfully, museums are also recognising that families are of all ages – not just made up of kids,” added Dea. “It’s no good having an exhibition which enthrals two-year-olds but which bores their parents' pants off. It has to be layered so that everyone has a good time and says, “Wow! I didn’t realise that.”

At Wolverhampton Art Gallery their Age of Enlightenment painting collection exemplifies this sentiment – and it doesn’t immediately speak to seven-year-olds. “We put beautifully-made reproduction Georgian furniture pieces alongside the paintings,” says Corinne Miller, Head of Wolverhampton Arts and Museums.

“You can sit at a lady’s dressing table and find the tiny enamelled snuffboxes hidden away in the drawer. There’s still the written text, but the idea is there’s a whole range of sensations.”

Manchester Art Gallery has been refurbished around a 19th century civic art collection and it now appeals to all ages. © Manchester Art Gallery

The collection at Dulwich Picture Gallery is similarly challenging in terms of relating the collection to children and families. The museum is housed in Sir John Soane’s gallery purpose-built in 1811 and set in sedate grounds.

“It’s an environment that could be quite foreboding. The clue is making children feel welcome,” said Anra Kennedy, Head of Learning at Culture24 and a judge of the award. “It’s being tuned into children’s way of thinking. It’s valuing their questions. Dulwich doesn’t see children as a single strand, as some places do. Teenagers and toddlers aren’t one set. There are different subsets, across the age ranges.”

A similar approach can be found at the recently re-opened and refurbished Shetland Museum, which has been congratulated for its ability to appeal to all ages and for allowing its collection to be enjoyed by all ages. The achievement is all the more remarkable, as Shetland is one of the smaller museums on the shortlist.

“I’m thrilled that such a new venture has shone so early,” said Dea. “It’s a testament to the vision of the team who work in the museum that they managed to beat established, national institutions with extensive staff and big budgets. Being family friendly can be about the culture of an institution, rather than about resources and cost.”

At Weston Park Museum in Sheffield, they are proud of how the museum has managed to enthral all ages, in particular in the Arctic World gallery. Staff worked with an Inuit community in the Canadian Arctic – consulting them on how they would like their heritage displayed in England and a school in Sheffield was linked with a school in Nunavut, asking each other questions about their lives. These questions framed what was addressed in the gallery.

Despite its size, the newly opened Shetland Museum has made the shortlist for its commitment to families. © Shetland Museum

At Manchester Art Gallery there’s a Roger Fry-inspired giant jigsaw in the modern and contemporary gallery, a lift-the-flap who’s who of classical gods in the 18th century gallery, and illustrated labels by Tony Ross below the oil paintings. “It’s about embedding the family-ness of the gallery throughout,” said Kim Gowland, Head of Audience Development at the gallery.

Manchester also designs its exhibition programme to appeal ‘right across the board’. In 2006 they had Miffy and last year saw the Kylie exhibition pack in a wide range of visitors from young to old.

“Children are fascinated by just about anything if it’s presented in a way that sparks their curiosity,” added Culture24's Anra Kennedy, “Children can be absolutely enthralled by the magic that objects hold if they have them explained in the right way.”

The next stage for all the museums involved is for families to visit all the short-listed museums unannounced to road-test them against the Kids in Museums Manifesto. The winner will be announced in the Guardian newspaper on May 1 2008.

For more information on the Kids in Museums campaign see www.kidsinmuseums.org.uk/the-guardian-award