Planning a school trip can be an exciting adventure for a teacher and at the same time, can be a nightmare. School trips, by the fact of being trips, have a lot of moving parts. There are various challenges when a teacher embarks on this mission, but one of the biggest downsides is not meeting the objectives of a study trip. It ends up becoming just like a trip with colleagues or parents or a leisure trip
From our rich experience, we expound on how teachers can be able to overcome some of the known and unforeseen challenges.
Team
Successful school trips are as a result of efforts by diverse people. A teacher undertaking a trip all alone can lead to extensive burn-out, losing the spirit or the focus of their daily roles of being a teacher. When organising an academic trip, a great teacher should first constitute a team of three or four members. The members selected help reviewing the trip objectives and are also a resource in the planning of activities. Ahead of a Geography trip, the teacher can assign tasks to teachers in the group or even invite a study trips specialist onboard as early as possible to help in identifying the areas of study from the onset.
Identify the areas of study/objectives
It is a must for a teacher to realise a rewarding experience for his or her students. For example, when organising a history school trip, the teacher must decide on the subject of interest whether it’s archaeological sites, world war bunkers, museums, or even architectural places. This helps to identify the best time to visit, how advanced the booking should be done, or even the acceptability to visit. On a law study trip to the Hague, our partner school had identified the university they wanted to visit well in advance, helping us to secure lectures before summer break. This helped in saving time and accessing quality experts guides.
Communication with parents
A great partner is a blessing to a study trip. Parents are the number one key partners to the success of a trip. Communicating with them early enables them to free up their kids for any family event and also ask important questions early enough creating time to solve any underlying issues.
Planning a school trip early
One of the downsides of organising an international study trip is coming in very late. Later than six months is a guarantee of a challenging trip as all items will be rushed. This creates a potential risk of missing on the objectives, danger of costs overruns associated with travel logistics and potential cancellations. However, some trips do come in very late, such as an invitation to an international event e.g art Biennale or a science expo that a school does not want to miss. In this case, experienced study trip partners come in handy in putting up a trip liasing with the networks to create a school trip within the shortest time possible
Partners in planning and logistics
A study trip is not like a generic leisure trip. Most teachers run into the risk of relating the two as one. School trips have a lot of dynamics in place such as the academic component, time regulation(restricted nighttime travel) , the academic visits and even customised experience. Recently, a school teacher from a local international school approached ReadTrips after having failed to achieve the objective of an international trip. They had engaged another company, but they could not realise nor secure the right academic visits despite travelling very far. An experienced partner with right networks will help you secure visits to companies, institutions, private galleries and event startups, introducing your students to relatable areas of study and as well as connecting teachers to potential future partners.
Budgeting and trip selection
Engaging a study trip provider can help guide on the right destination for your school trip, as this helps in creating more options for every budget. An art school trip can take place in Casablanca, Morocco, or an art trip to Cape Town, a study trip to the Vatican or even a Swahili trip to Zanzibar. This helps in picking the best trip for your budget and minimising the risk of abandoning that endeavour.
Budgeting and fundraising helps in covering the expenses, creating payment plans, and marketing efforts.
Engaging students early
Students being engaged early helps in building a rapport as they have a sense of ownership in the trip and even explore ways to meet the costs. This comes in handy in fundraising ideas such as craft sales, boot sales, charity works and other CSRs to meet the cost of a trip.
This also builds on the psyche and excitement towards the experience. They are also proud to tell their friends and family, henceforth improving the memories as well as the ideas to be learned on a school trip.
Planning for the unexpected/contingency
Unexpected things happen before or during the trip. It is important to have contingency plans for both funds or trip options. Sudden border disputes can throw an upcoming school trip off balance, resulting in the risk of cancellation.Working with study trip planners would help those interested by substituting the educational trip with another suitable destination as soon as possible, reducing the risk of loss due to cancellations.
Study tips are exciting for teachers, students and parents as they are a positive energy to learning endeavours. Achieving great experiences requires the best of planning.
