Ruhr Valley with your class
Groups explore the UNESCO-listed Zollverein colliery in Essen, marvel at giant art installations inside the Gasometer in Oberhausen, and experience the Landschaftspark Duisburg Nord — a disused ironworks turned urban adventure playground. It is a journey through industrial history, urban regeneration and contemporary art that suits creative, curious secondary groups.
The Ruhr is compact and easy to navigate, with excellent public transport between sites. On the Move manages the programme, accommodation and transport throughout.
Trip highlights
The UNESCO-listed Zollverein colliery complex in Essen is part industrial cathedral, part design museum. Groups tour the former coking plant — a world-class cultural venue — and explore a powerful exhibition on coal, steel and the industrial revolution that shaped modern Europe.
The 117-metre Gasometer is one of Europe's largest industrial structures — and one of its most unexpected art spaces. A changing installation fills the full interior: students stand inside a work of art at a scale that is simply impossible anywhere else.
A disused ironworks turned urban adventure playground: climbing walls on blast furnaces, a diving pool in a former gasometer, a rope course through decommissioned industrial structures. Landschaftspark makes the case that industrial heritage and outdoor adventure are the same thing.
The Ruhr was Europe's greatest industrial region; today it leads Europe's most ambitious post-industrial regeneration. Groups explore how cities reinvent themselves — the planning, the culture strategy, the community — and bring the geography curriculum to life in a landscape that is itself the lesson.
Curriculum links
In pictures
Cultural School Trips - your questions
History, art, civics, languages and religious studies all benefit. Bastogne suits primary P5 groups studying WWII; The Hague suits civics and international relations; Berlin, Aachen and Málaga are ideal for secondary history and arts groups.
Yes. We arrange expert local guides for museums, monuments and walking tours, in English or French as you prefer.
The Belgian Ardennes: Bastogne programme is specifically designed for P5 (ages 10–11), with content pitched carefully for that age. Other destinations in this category suit secondary groups.
Return travel, central accommodation, all entries and guided visits, supervision, insurance and your On the Move coordinator.