If there was a TripAdvisor for school educational visits, the comments from teachers who have organised one in the past would probably be along the lines of “Run screaming for the hills, do not stop to sing Edelweiss or avoid stepping in the cow pat - just keep going”.
Yet I believe the aggravation involved really is worth it. Students love them. They are a life-enhancing experience - one that should be available to all, regardless of background or income. And trips can be great for teachers, too: they’re often fun, rewarding and good for building relationships.
So why the perceived negativity among some teachers? Because if you are the poor fool in charge of organising a trip, the experience can be, well, challenging. When an idea for a school trip springs to my mind, the momentary excitement I experience is swiftly followed by a sinking feeling. I immediately have a mental image of the mountain of paperwork that will slowly suffocate the life out of the beautiful, original plan. I envision a future of evenings lost, tempers frayed and disappointments aplenty before the coach has even been booked.
If your experience is anything like mine, your options are as follows:
- Get an exciting organisation to come to your school instead. This will mean the paperwork is reduced and there’s no transport to arrange
- Get someone else to think the trip is their brilliant idea so that they have to organise it
- Persuade someone else that they need the “experience” of organising a trip to advance their career.
Frankly, though, if you take any of these options, you are wimping out. Your kids need you. The paperwork may be a killer on top of an already crushing workload, but it can be done. It will be painful but, as the hair advert says, they’re worth it.
Luckily, our school’s indomitable Iain Elsby has put together an “Idiot’s Guide to Running a School Trip”, which I will now shamelessly paraphrase to benefit us all. Follow this and let all your trip ambitions come to fruition.
Idea
Have one, and check that it’s a good’un by running it past a colleague or two.
Checklist
Research all the things you have to do before your trip can go ahead. There are shedloads. It’s off-putting, I’m not going to lie. But if you can still bear to continue, print off a list ready to tick triumphantly as you complete and approve each stage. You could imagine it like a platform game: Sonic the Triphog? Trip the Hedgehog? No? OK, there’s no fun to be had in form-filling.
Approval AKA Form No 1: the visit proposal form. Get it in to the headteacher early. Spontaneous trip ideas are unlikely to happen. Trips that are residential or international must be submitted particularly early as they may need approval from the local education authority (LEA). Include an outline of activities for off-site visits, stating what you intend to do and why.
Book your staff in early Once your trip is approved, putting together a top team is essential. This could be your mates or the people the students will be safest with. If you’re lucky, they may even be the same people. Allow one member of staff per 15 students for secondary. You’ll need a higher ratio for primary: one adult for every six pupils in Years 1-3; one adult for every 10-15 pupils in Years 4-6 .
More forms: the EV1 and the risk assessment
The paperwork requirements will differ, depending on whether you are an academy or a LEA school. Ask for help at this stage if needed: it will save time later when the form you may need to submit to the LEA outlining what you intend to do on your trip - known as the EV1 - gets returned 500 times with amendments.
You will also need to do risk assessments, which are a useful way of thinking through a range of disastrous scenarios from the minor to the apocalyptic. Use your school’s pro forma or a previous risk assessment from a similar trip as a guide and simply think through each stage of the journey and activities planned, for example, travelling to and from the venue. A trip with multiple activities will have multiple risk assessments.
As a parent used to imagining every kind of disaster befalling my offspring since birth, the process of filling in the risk assessment is almost cathartic for me. I also had to fill in incredibly detailed ones for my previous job in television, involving cherry pickers and pyrotechnics, so for me, by comparison, taking the London Underground to go to a museum doesn’t seem particularly fraught with danger.
But still, it’s important to think through every eventuality, from a student getting left behind on the platform to a terrorist attack. I’m not being flippant here: inside every risk assessment you must include what would happen during a major serious incident (MSI).
Amendments
If your experience is anything like mine, just as you think you’ve got it sorted and sent, the forms will be returned with amendments you’ll have to make (see my earlier point about asking for help before this happens).
Now you actually have to organise it Once it’s all signed off, the hard work truly begins. This is when I want a PA more than ever. You’ll have yet more paperwork: this time contacting parents and students (all letters to be proof-read by the school’s literacy tsar), sorting out transport bookings, costings etc.
Reply slips
These are the bane of my life. But no reply slips, no trip. Why parents can’t give permission electronically, I have no idea, but we are not yet on top of that one, even in the 21st century of omni-tech.
Final pack submission Get your top team confirmed so you have your mates - sorry, best staff - to share the highs and lows. Number the buses and tie each to a register of names and contact details. Registers must include illnesses requiring medication. Take first-aid kits with you on the trip as well.
Remember the checklist?
Ensure the criteria are all ticked off. Submit a hard copy of all paperwork to the senior leadership team at least three days in advance.
If it all seems too much, remember this: trips are such stuff as dreams are made on. If you bump into students years later in Tesco, they will remember the school trips ahead of your best lessons or even their exam results.
Stephanie Keenan is curriculum leader for English and literacy at Ruislip High School in London. She blogs at mskeenanlearns.wordpress.com and is on Twitter @stephanootis
