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Take Flight – When It Comes To Planning A School Trip, Don’t Be Afraid To Be Bold

The world can be a scary place, but it's still full of brilliant learning opportunities for your students says Elaine Skates – so don't let fear clip their wings…

Elaine Skates
by Elaine Skates

Stories in the media can have a big impact on our perceptions of risk, so it’s understandable that the threat of terrorism has now been added to the list of concerns parents, students and teachers must address when planning educational visits abroad.

In Easter of this year I took my family on a long awaited trip to Paris, two days after the Brussels airport attacks. Of course, the incident gave me pause for thought. None of us would put our own children, or other young people in our care, into harm’s way for the sake of a fun holiday, and such shocking events cannot fail to have an impact on our perceptions of safety when travelling outside the UK.

Waiting at the station for our train, a fellow traveller confided that she had similarly weighed up the risks and benefits of her trip to the London museums with her two young daughters that day – but concluded,as I had, that rationally the chances of being caught up in a terrorist attack were highly remote and certainly no greater than the risks of a road accident en route to the Cotswolds for an alternative day out in the English countryside.

Teachers organising educational visits have the added pressure and responsibility of keeping a large group of other peoples’ children safe – and reassuring anxious parents to boot. However, teachers also have a responsibility to prepare young people for life and work.

Most of us have a thirst for exploration, and in our rapidly shrinking world, many young people will likely travel alone at some point for work opportunities or when taking a holiday. For some teenagers, that point may only only be a year or two away.

As they stretch their wings, they’ll need skills at negotiating foreign cities, to show diligence in unfamiliar environments and possess the resourcefulness required to overcome any cultural or language barriers they might encounter. The reality is that with a competent visit leader and careful planning, there is no safer context than an educational visit in which pupils can experience overseas travel and gain the skills they will need in later life.

Adventures and opportunities

The teaching of the curriculum can be enormously enriched by studying geographical and historical characteristics that can’t be seen in the UK, immersing students in a language or culture, or understanding other people’s lives and beliefs thorough first-hand experience.

There is a wealth of research demonstrating that residential learning (be it in the UK or overseas) can improve pupils’ resilience, raise attainment, increase engagement in learning and improve relationships. As Learning Away’s Peter Carne explains, “It offers an opportunity for pupils to improve relationships with their peers and with staff, increase resilience and experience a new environment. If young people don’t get a residential experience, they miss out.”

When making decisions about whether to run educational visits overseas, it is helpful to balance the potential risks against the benefits for students. Educational visits should be planned with clear learning objectives in mind, in order to meet students’ specific learning needs and to embed and reinforce learning back in school.

Once it’s been established that a trip can be justified through risk benefit analysis, the visit leader should plan sensible and proportionate measures to minimise any risks identified. If the benefits do not outweigh the risks, then clearly the visit should not be signed off!

“Well-planned educational visits are very safe,” says David Scourfield, Chair of the Outdoor Education Advisers’ Panel, before going onto explain the importance of having the right people involved.

“The Visit Leader should be experienced and competent in this type of trip. Typically, he or she will have served an ‘apprenticeship’ under a more experienced member of staff. It is also important to ensure that the staffing includes someone who can communicate effectively in the country being visited, and who understands the local culture.”

Schools can gain assurance by choosing a provider holding the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge. This national accreditation helps schools identify organisations offering good quality and safe educational experiences.

“By booking through an LOtC Quality Badged provider, the school can be assured that the operator will constantly review up to date information in the particular area and country which the group is travelling to,’ explains Gill Harvey, of the School Travel Forum. ‘Their suppliers in these locations will be up to date with any changes locally. The tour operator will also be planning and running numerous groups and have experience and insightful knowledge to help keep their customers safe when travelling through ports and to overseas destinations.

“If anything should ever go wrong, the tour operator will be able to support the group through their local relationships and through their teams back in the office. This is a great bonus when group leaders have to deal with the unexpected.”

10 top tips for planning educational visits overseas

The following checklist has been put together in consultation with the Outdoor Education Advisers Panel and the School Travel Forum

1) Ensure you have an experienced Visit Leader. The Visit Leader should ensure that robust emergency procedures in place, and these are shared with the staff team. Remember that mobile phones are not always reliable and ensure that contingency funds can be accessed in an emergency.

2) Consult the Foreign Commonwealth Office Travel Advice for the country you intend to visit at an early stage of planning for the trip, as well as closer to the departure date in case of any late security changes to the country being visited.

3) Work out how many staff are needed to run the visit, and then consider adding another staff member to the staff team for contingency purposes.

4) Ensure that all those travelling have adequate travel insurance. Check that medical repatriation and specific or unusual activities are covered as well as cancellation in the event of Foreign Office advice not to travel. If the trip is in Europe, ensure that all those travelling have valid European Health Insurance Cards – you can apply for these online ahead of time.

5) Check passport and visa requirements well in advance. Ensure that everyone has a valid passport and that the passports have adequate time left on them before they expire (some countries require passports to have at least six months left on them from the date of planned departure). If visas are required, leave sufficient time to make the necessary applications.

6) Designate and brief a contact back at school who can be available 24/7 to coordinate all communications in an emergency. Ensure they have access to all of the visit planning and details, including the contact details for the families of all those travelling with you.

7) If a student requires medication, ensure that they bring an adequate supply, along with a photocopy of the prescription so they can show it at the airport if required, or use it to get re-supplied should their baggage be lost.

8) Encourage young people to be aware of their surroundings and avoid using mobile devices whilst moving through public areas.

9) Save the contact details for the relevant British embassy or consulate in advance and keep them to hand at all times.

10) Consider using providers holding the LOtC Quality Badge wherever possible to ensure quality, safety and effective support in an emergency.

Further guidance for those involved in planning and leading foreign visits is available from the Outdoor Education Advisers Panel and Learning Away

Elaine Skates is chief executive of the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom; for more information, visit www.lotc.org.uk or follow @clotc

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