PRIMARY

Let’s start at the very beginning, as Maria von Trapp once wisely suggested: the coach. At its worst, we’re talking about hours stuck inside a metal box with no air conditioning, endlessly reminding children not to lean out of their seats as they sing Pharrell Williams’ Happy for the 95th time.

The key is to pick your battles. Anything unsafe, then, of course, you have to intervene. Anything that counters school rules on bullying or conduct, again, you need to get the teacher voice ready. But if the children are safely strapped in, you just have to steel yourself against other minor transgressions. If nothing else, the school coach sing-along is a time-honoured cliché and at least the coach itself has the advantage of being a containable environment, unlike your destination. You can deal with those minor issues later; a quiet word will usually suffice. Dealing with them on the move is a logistical nightmare and, frankly, not worth it.

Once you arrive, you have to cope with the moment your children come face to face with the wider public. Will that stern elderly couple survive contact with your “spirited” 10-year-olds? Will you be able to maintain your calm and dignified teacher persona in the face of activity leaders who make children’s TV presenters look depressed and withdrawn? And how many times can you ask Ryan not to bang into the increasingly angry woman in front of him in the queue?

Act as mediator

The best thing you can do in such scenarios is to lead from the front. Remind the kids to be polite to elderly visitors, withhold judgement on overly excited activity leaders and apologise repeatedly to the woman in front of Ryan. Your job is to act as mediator to ensure that your class and the public can coexist peacefully.

Adapt your sanctions

If a pupil’s behaviour is worthy of a sanction, you should maintain the school standards. However, being away from school may necessitate some adaptations to the school behaviour policy. Rather than sending a child to see the headteacher or keeping them in at break, it may be that they instead get the pleasure of having to be within 3ft of you for the duration of the trip. That tends to be enough of a deterrent to keep even the most wayward child on the right path.

When on a residential, similar rules apply, but you need to accept that you will spend the first few hours of any overnight stay shushing crossly. It’s a rite of passage so be firm but understanding. It is easy to grow frustrated with the 24/7 nature of residentials but remember that you are, first and foremost, in loco parentis. I sometimes wonder how colleagues with children manage to be endlessly patient and caring at school and then go home to do the same with their own children, but as a hardened veteran of many a school residential I do occasionally have flashes of the way it might work. As with the coach journey, as long as your students are safe and happy, there’s little point in worrying about the fact that they are still whispering to each other at 5am. Let it go.

Let them shine

My final piece of advice is really a plea. There is nothing more likely to reveal a different side to the children you teach than an environment far beyond the classroom. I’ve come to believe that the most important aspect of behaviour management on trips is to make space for children’s behaviour to change. I have seen sullen, impossible-to-interest children blossom when taken to a castle or an art gallery for the first time, and practically heard the “click” in their brain as they discover what may become a life-long passion. Similarly, it’s far easier to appreciate the class clown’s sense of humour when you’re not trying to get her to sit still in assembly and, often, children will talk to you far more openly away from school. It’s OK to suspend normal rules (with some notable exceptions regarding running across busy roads) for a while, and it can be eye-opening and humbling to see different sides to children who are sometimes rendered one dimensional by the daily grind of tests and attainment that modern education insists upon.

Kate Townshend is a teacher and freelance journalist from Gloucestershire

SECONDARY

Organising and running a school trip is, for me, one of the most rewarding aspects of teaching. However, it is only rewarding if the behaviour is good. Managing behaviour outside of the classroom can be difficult as students are able to spread out, be louder and think that they can “get away with” more as the normal school procedures are not physically there.

It is also more challenging for you as your responsibilities extend to being in loco parentis. This means that if (when) a child is sick from eating too many Haribos on the coach before you have even got there, you are going to be the one cleaning it up.

To prevent problems, it is worth, just as you would in school, setting up the expectations before the trip even begins. Oh, also, pack wet wipes. Lots of them. So here’s my guide to secondary school trip behaviour management.

Give clear and firm instructions

Before you leave school, hold a meeting with students and their parents/carers during which you reiterate the rules of the trip (these should be the same as the rules in school, plus any required amendments, such as what time students will be expected to go to bed/wake up etc). Also, reinforce what will happen should a student choose to break one of the rules. In my school, the first step is a warning, followed by removal from an activity and, for a severe offence, parents or carers would be required to either retrieve or pay for the retrieval of their child.

It is worth sending a letter home with this information to ensure that everyone is on the same page. It is rare that a student would have to be sent home but, in that event, you are probably going to encounter an angry parent - especially if they did not know the financial expectations of them in advance.

Divide up responsibilities for staff

Off-site behaviour management will be easier if each staff member has a separate responsibility and a satellite group of students to be accountable for. Share this information with the whole group so that they know who they should be reporting to. This also makes people management much speedier. To date, I have not yet lost a student, but I have gained one: a child from a younger year who got swept up with a crowd going to see Macbeth and inadvertently joined our trip.

Maintain communication

Make sure that everyone has all the necessary phone numbers and a prearranged “phone tree” is in place. If you are going to do remote supervision, ensure the meeting place is obvious and that students are given clear boundaries for how far they can roam. Advise them to stay in mixed gender groups and stay together. Talk to them about appropriate use of souvenir money. I once had to phone a parent to advise them that their child had purchased a heavy metal, sharp and pointy sword. This obviously had to be returned before it caused injury on the coach home.

My students are rural, so can be naive about how to behave in the city. So before I take them into the Big Smoke, I explain that they need to keep their belongings hidden and that, because they are a large group and take up a lot of space, they need to stay in single file where possible. It is the simplest things that catch you out, though. It did not occur to me (until I had to buy 35 new travel cards) that children who haven’t travelled on the Tube before do not know that when you go through the barrier you have to retrieve your ticket for use all day.

Be creative with what you have got

In the absence of your usual time-out room, you may need to use the empty coach or a quiet corner of a museum as an “isolation” space for any student who may require it. When you arrive at your destination, make sure that, as well as explaining the itinerary and fire safety procedures to the students, you and the other staff agree a designated “naughty step”.

Placate the public

In my experience, the public are usually understanding about the challenges of manoeuvring large groups of teenagers around but, should you encounter problems, the best policy is always one of de-escalation. Try to resolve the situation and leave in peace.

Katie White is an English teacher at Kingsbridge Community College, Devon