Over the years Life has gone above and beyond in their proactive approach to working in partnership and seeking our feedback to make the centre a welcome space for deaf children and their families.

It’s the first time that we have given out a Gold Plus award, and it is hugely deserved because the Life Science Centre have been so proactive and impressive in taking the message of autism acceptance to the next level. They’ve embedded accessibility and inclusion across their organisation, and their work is now regarded internationally as exemplars of best practice.

There’s a uniqueness to this approach which makes Life stand out amongst many of the providers community partners work with. Critical to this is Life’s positioning of itself as learners rather than experts.

The feedback from the recent Space Spotlight Day has been fantastic, from children with additional needs having fun and learning in a safe and accessible environment, to families connecting to bond over shared experiences.

I just wanted to say I’ve been using Life’s Accessibility pages as an inspiration to try to make the National Railway Museum better, so thank you.

I met you today and we spoke about the sensory bags and the visual stories with your visitor. I just wanted to say, the bag was a huge success – my daughter Ellie said it made her visit 10/10, making it a better experience. She walked around with her fidget toys (the variety was brilliant) and the ear defenders came in very handy when we went into the planetarium. Thank you for talking to us, we had a lovely visit.

Hi I just wanted to thank one of your staff today. I was supporting an autistic 9-year-old boy who became very dysregulated when in the centre and was very upset outside. The staff offered me sensory items or anything that could help. When I said he wanted something from the shop but couldn’t go back in as to dysregulated, she asked what he liked. I said dinosaurs and she brought a selection of toys from the gift shop for him to choose from. He chose sticky dinosaurs and regulated and was happy. This was such a lovely thing for her to do as so many just looked on. Would you say thank you from me. I didn’t catch her name.

This is a remarkable project that has touched our hearts as well as our heads. We were particularly impressed by the huge personal impact that the Life project has made for participants. It has a strong stable foundations and a legacy going forward.

Being a single parent who is lucky enough to get all the holidays off from work, I struggle to entertain the children everyday. Knowing we could attend on a much cheaper rate (universal credit) made it so much better as I struggle to afford to pay regular prices for myself and 2 children. This is a fantastic offer which helps parents like myself give our children a great experience and day out here.

Your vision has not only helped the Centre for Life, its staff and the general public gain a better understanding of what our children go through on daily. You have taught me more and more about my son. He has rarely stuck with anything but with this he has! He has truly adored every moment.

People at school were not so nice. Here, I met more people like me. And they didn’t take the heck over. They didn’t drain my battery so much