Science Oxford Centre — Attraction in Oxford

Session Times:

10am-12pm

12.30-2.30pm

3pm-5pm

Aimed at age 3+

£6 per person, £20 for group of 4 (must include 1 adult), under 3s free

Ticket includes Exploration Zone and access to woodland

Watch water freeze, listen to music through your teeth, see what’s hot and what’s not with our thermal camera and much, much more when you visit the Science Oxford Centre. We’ve got scarf shooters, circuit challenges and microscopes plus a fun Guess Who game with fossils, amazing geological rocks and dinosaur poo!

We went to a Family Open Day here, which the centre hosts on Saturdays every couple of weeks. It was brilliant! The activities are superb and really caught the imagination of the whole family, especially our toddler. When it's busy (as it was for us), the staff open up a second room. This was also full of fun and engaging activities. The rooms may seem on the smaller size when you first arrive, but there's plenty to cram in.

We had also wanted to have a walk around the woodlands, but unfortunately they were closed due to strong winds. The woodlands are free to access and from what we could see look beautifully maintained. There are plenty of picnic tables on the decked area and packed lunches are welcome.

The facilities are great - very family friendly, clean and modern. There are plenty of lockers and coat hooks. There's also a spacious baby change, but it's a shame the cafe doesn't have any highchairs. We were concerned after reading reports that car parking has limited spaces (and may require us to park and ride to the centre) but there were plenty of parking spaces on the day we went. There's a bike store and electric vehicle charging...

I came yesterday with my three kids (10, 4 and nearly 1) and we had a fantastic time! We spent 4 hours at the centre. The main space is a single large room filled with interactive displays. A bit like a much easier to manage version of the london science museum. I felt that I could let my kids roam around the space without needing to worry about losing them (this obviously depends on your kids and whether they know to stay in the room). This meant that I was also able to enjoy the exhibits. Highlights were the suction tubes that you could put fabric and balls in and watch them whizz around and get unceremoniously shot out at one of the other ends; the spinning table which you could balance various wooden discs on; the electric circuit builders; the microscopes; and the vertical fan that you could test out how well your paper/cup creation flew on. We were in the main room for just over an hour. We played outside with the fantastic water tables for about an hour, a bit before our main session started and then again after we were done in the main room. We walked around the ponds and then did the long red route through the woods (not recommended for flipflops and buggies due to muddy parts and some fairly uneven ground - we managed with high spirits despite both! We bought lunch, snacks and coffee from the cafe (the coffee was a bit strong for me and needed a lot of sugar!). The food was good - sausage rolls, ham sarnies, cinnamon buns. We also borrowed an explorer pack, which had items such as binoculars, magnifying glass, identification wheels for trees and insects etc. I definitely want to...

Children aged 8 months, 8, 10 and 12 years old. We arrived at 10am and checked in. We received a map and activity tondo in the woods. We headed straight outdoors and the children were drawn to the water lab. They spent 1.5 hours there and even then I had to oull them away. The woodlands are not buggy friendly but we managed somehow. We has lunch on the covered benches outside as inside was very busy. The toilets were very clean and baby facilities were good too. A breastfeeding corner/space would make it amazing.

The exploration zone was amazing for both adults and children. I wonder how long it would be until the children would say they are bored or finished as even after 2 hours the children were still exploring. They went round once quickly and then went a.few more times looking and understand ding in detail. The magnetic poles were one of my children's favourite but they said they needed to wait a long time to play with it.

Overall, I was very happy with the day out. The kids fell asleep on the way home which is always a good sign.

Staff were very friendly, especially Max. So nice to see passionate people...