Planning Overseas School Tours

What factors should schools consider when deciding on where to take their school groups?

When planning a school overseas trip, teachers should first consider the primary learning outcomes and subject areas they want their students to benefit from. The companies we work with can help you choose the destination and school trip package that aligns with these goals and objectives. The key factors you should be thinking about include budget, travel dates, group size, and the age of students. The educational objectives and relevance come first - think about what you want your students to take away from the experience to help them with their classroom studies? Once your are clear on this point, you can begin to identify a choice of destinations that provide the best match for those objectives.

Budget considerations are crucial, especially for long-haul trips that are going to cost more due to longer flights. It's not something everyone things about, but spreading your funds wisely can really help turn a good school trip into an excellent one. You should prioritise meaningful experiences while you are overseas over flight costs, because this is what your students will remember. For example, a 'flying' week long trip to China may not provide much of a depth of experience, even though it is an amazing experience. Choosing instead a closer destination may well allow for a more immersive visit and therefore better value for money. It's not a case of don't travel far, but rather, think about your budget and how you can get the best return.

Another factor is climate and the dates you are planning to take your school trip. Nepal is an incredible destination, but a completely different place during our summer months, thanks to the monsoon season. If you think the UK is wet, the downpours of a Nepalese summer are something else, with travel becoming difficult and majestic views enveloped in cloud, which can be disappointing. Choosing destinations in South America, East Africa, or the Indian Himalayas during suitable seasons can make a big difference to the experience, so bear it in mind.

How much of the planning process do travel companies handle? And what additional planning, if any, is required from you as a teacher?

As a teacher, planning your school's overseas trip often ends up being a lot of responsibility with a lot of spinning plates, all on top of your existing workload. Thankfully most overseas companies will provide you with a dedicated point of contact who you can contact by phone or email to discuss anything relating to your trip.

Tour operators will offer to handle as much of the trip logistics as possible to take the pressure off. Despite needing your input, they will take care of booking all travel arrangements, accommodation, activities, and transportation. They may provide you with with helpful templates, step-by-step instructions, and ongoing guidance throughout the process. The are often also able to provide various marketing materials such as parent presentations, and information for students. Often little things that will help make the entire planning process feel more manageable for you as party leader. The parts they cannot help you with range from the internal paperwork such as consent forms, to providing pastoral care during the trip itself.

Risk assessments are a big part of overseas trip planning and with multiple venues being visited on a worldwide school trip, this can get quite difficult to organise. What kind of help is available?

While you want to be focused on making the trip memorable as an educational experience, risk assessments are a key step in planning, with the complexity increasing when multiple venues and international destinations are involved. For overseas trips, risk assessments are usually provided from the in country suppliers and handlers that the tour operator uses. These will help teachers complete the required safety paperwork. Some tour companies have a membership with the School Travel Forum (STF) who are an organisation focused on high safety standards for international school trips. This gives them access to a Safety Management System covering travel, accommodation, and excursions, as well as detailed risk assessments for many aspects of your trip. Making sure your risk assessments comply with safety regulations for your Local Education Authority (LEA), and follow Outdoor Education Advisers Panel (OEAP) guidelines is vital. This outside help is great, and anything that reduces the admin for you is a win, but you are still best positioned to assess the group you are taking. Identifying any group dynamics or issues among students and staff will ensure a safe and enjoyable trip.

What duration would you recommend to maximise learning on worldwide schools trips?

This is a bit of a how long is a piece of string question, but it often depends on the destination and your learning objectives. For a European trip, like a visit to France such as visits to France, Belgium, or Spain, a 3 to 4 day itinerary is popular, offering enough time for meaningful cultural and educational visits while keeping cost affordable. Shorter trips, like a 2 day battlefield tour in Northern France are also effective if the objectives are quite focused, more so for schools in south east counties like Kent, Surrey or Sussex. For more more far-flung international expeditions, such as trips to Morocco, Vietnam, or Tanzania, durations can range widely from 6 days to as much as a month! Longer trips for older students provide significant personal development opportunities.

When all said and done, the trip duration should be in step with your learning goals and how easy or difficult the destination is to explore. A compact city like Paris will allow you to pack in examples of Haussmann's redevelopments, visits to several Arrondissements to see different communities, and public spaces - a comprehensive human geography trip in the space of a few days. Other destinations involve more travel and time to pack everything in. Try to strike the ideal duration to get a balance between learning and enjoyment for your students.

What accommodation options are available for schools?

Once again, this answer is destination dependent, but wherever you go you will find a choice of accommodation types, often differentiated by budget. From camping to five star hotels, the choice is yours. Your travel company will guide you on what is on offer as they have worked with numerous schools in the past, they can help you find good quality, budget friendly places to sleep. Anything offered is likely to have been thoroughly check for health and safety standards, and its suitability for school groups. As much as the internal niceties are a consideration, so too is the location. Being able to get from your accommodation to your place of study can make a big difference to your experience. Or you may not wish to stay in once place but rather travel around to see more of the country. This can help make the experience even more of an adventure - sleeping on overnight trains through the Chinese countryside, homestays in Vietnam's Mekong Delta, or Costa Rican eco-lodges in the tropical rainforest. Basic or luxurious, the accommodation should be an exciting part of your school expedition.

How flexible are the school trip itineraries offered by travel companies, and can schools customise to suit their own plans?

Flexibility is very important and the vast majority of school tour operators recognise this. Itineraries are put together because the company has years of experience and knows what experiences school groups enjoy, and how to get the best learning experience from your time abroad. That said, they don't know your specific learning objectives and are more than happy to help you adapt their default offering to meet your school's wishes. Bespoke is an overused word, but it definitely fits here. Despite most singing from the same curriculum, every school is different, with different children and a degree of tailoring the experience is expected. Have a look at suggested itineraries but don't be shy about asking to incorporate particular venues or visit places that have cropped up in your coursework, such as museums, of famous monuments. View the itinerary as a starting point to be adapted to your specific educational goals.

For an overseas trip, is it best to focus on one subject, or can cross curricular trips be organised?

From our many years of helping schools organise overseas trips, we can confidently say that cross-curricular trips offer incredible value. Many of the trips we feature work across multiple subjects and allow your students to gain richer experiences as a result. Take the example of a trip with a religious studies focus in India. While you are there you could easily incorporate aspects of human geography, politics, climate change, without losing the original focus.

Combining subjects like science, maths, and humanities not only increases what your students are learning but can also reduce costs by accommodating larger groups. Any school taking an overseas trip would be wise to investigate combining two trips to the same destination rather than splitting into two separate experiences. Our website provides excellent resources for planning such cross subject trips.

While cross-curricular trips can be highly effective with good planning, some subjects more readily lend themselves to being combined. Try not to let your trip lose focus and ensure your students have clear learning objectives. Ask the travel company for their input if you are considering combining two groups, even if it is only a loose idea.

What one piece of advice would you give teachers currently planning their overseas school trip?

Easy. Planning and booking the trip as early as possible. You'll likely get a better price and it will give you more time for what can be a lot of planning. This not only reduces the stress for you but also for your colleagues, students and their parents. Getting buy-in from enough parents is the only way your trip is going to go ahead. Dropping a request for a thousand pounds due at short notice is much harder to swallow than if you give them enough time to plan. Booking far enough in advance is also going to give you more choice when it comes to accommodation availability and local visits, especially if you are travelling during peak dates when lots of other schools are also competing for availability. The other one that springs to mind is passports (OK that's two pieces of advice). Check everyone has one. Then check again. Then don't believe them and check once more. Last minute issues with passports are a party leader's worst nightmare and happen on more trips than not.