Residential School Trips

Outdoor pursuits activity centres

Residential outdoor education has numerous benefits for school children and young adults alike. Team bonding activities, individual skills development, confidence building outdoor pursuits, plus the experience of living together 24 hours a day, all combine to ensure each and every student will benefit from a residential activity school trip.

Away from home, perhaps for the first time, school residential trips form such an important part of growing up and are the perfect opportunity for a valuable learning experience. Make your school's annual residential as stress free as possible by getting help with risk assessments, lesson plans, free inspection visits and places for teachers.

Search residentials in South West, South East, East of England, The Midlands, North of England, Wales, Scotland or Ireland. Save money by taking your trip outside peak times. Looking for Historical Residentials? Group Accommodation? Towards the bottom of this page you will find our complete guide to choosing and planning your primary or secondary school's next residential activity holiday.

popular in July 2020 !

Sayers Croft

Sayers Croft is nestled at the foot of the Surrey Hills and provides outdoor experiences for 27,000 visitors each year for all ages and abilities through our bespoke residential and day visits, Duke of Edinburgh programme and family run events.

Sayers Croft has over 60 activities suitable for a variety of ages and abilities, from high ropes and an artificial caving experience to pond dipping, visiting the Celtic Roundhouse, looking at woodland food chains, compass trails and walks up into the Surrey Hills. Whether you have a particular focus or require a range we have the expertise to help you plan a visit that meets all your needs. Sayers Croft tailors your booking to ensure you have everything you need to bring your group away. You are allocated a host instructor who helps guide you through the planning and supports you during your stay. You have your own accommodation with a boys dorm, girls dorm and adult rooms all self contained, enabling easy group supervision. We have multiple sizes and types of accommodation, so...

Sayers Croft

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Primary School Groups

For many primary school children, the school residential may be their first time away from home. For such an important life experience, finding an activity centre that will give your pupils a challenging but safe experience is vital. Primary aged children will benefit most from lots of new activities and experiences, allowing them to grow in confidence and learn some new skills. A good residential activity centre will employ instructors who have the ability to work with primary school groups to make each activity session valuable for every child.

Secondary School Groups

Secondary school groups will have slightly different learning objectives when it comes to a residential activity holiday. Teachers may be looking to cement relationships within a new year group by allowing students to work together in teams, or the trip may be an opportunity to give soon to be school leavers some key skills before they enter the work place. Whatever the objective, a secondary school residential is a good way to mix curriculum linked learning with outdoor fun and adventure.

Residential Field Studies

If your school group are looking for an environmental field studies based residential trip then we can help with that too! We have a great choice of teacher led, accommodation only centres, as well as those that specialise in multi day fieldwork trips for all key stages of the curriculum. For geography or science based residential study trips, take a look at the following page: Field Studies

How to Choose a Residential Centre

Local authority managed Outdoor Education Centres have been providing outdoor learning experiences for school children since the 1950s. In recent years the number of council run centres has been in steep decline, as public spending is slashed and service provision is shifted to the private sector. Thankfully for schools wishing to book a residential activity week, there are still plenty of specialist centres available to offer adventurous activities to your students. With so many residential activity options for teachers to choose from, how do you choose between them and what is most important?

residential cost Cost - for the majority of schools who ask us to help them find a good residential activity centre, cost is a one of, and in many cases, the single most important factors. Schools cannot afford to pay the full cost of the trip, so will ask parents for a voluntary contribution. Clearly the lower the cost of the trip, the more children will be able to attend. Getting quotes from a number of activity centres is something every school should do. You can also look at additional sources of funding too. Think about how far ahead you book your trip - lots of schools leave organising their residential until the last minute. This can work in their favour if they are looking at off-peak times of the year, which centres are starting to offer discounted late availability, but for popular weeks, booking early is recommended if you want to get the best prices. While cost is important, we don't think it should always be the deciding factor.

residential safety Safety - safety is important for every year group. A well run, professional residential centre will have a number of industry standard badges, awards or certificates to show that their management practices, staff and safety procedures are up to scratch. Some examples of these include the LOtC, AALA, and Adventure Mark. The instructors will be responsible for the children's safety, though most activities will include tuition so that students can take some responsibility themselves.

residential planning Planning - organising your school residential holiday involves a fair bit of planning, but most activity centres know how to make the job easier by providing help in the form of kit lists, meal request sheets, and travel arrangements. General advice is to give yourself as much time as possible when booking your school residential, if nothing else it means the more popular venues are less likely to be already booked up for your preferred week.

residential inspection Inspection - An inspection visit will allow you to see the facilities on offer and make it much easier to judge whether the centre is a good fit for your school. Brochures and websites can give a good indication, but seeing first hand is always preferable if you can spare the time. While you are visiting, make sure you take a list of prepared questions that cover any issues or concerns you may have.

residential learning outcomes Outcomes - Learning outcomes is one of the biggest buzz words when it comes to school trips. Enjoyment of the experience itself is great, but ideally you want to be able to demonstrate that your students will benefit from participation, teamwork, physical and competitive achievements, learning new skills, and a whole host of other key benefits.

The Importance of Teaching Skills in the Outdoors

People of all ages like and want to learn. How is that made? How does that work? Why does that happen? These are all questions people think or ask at various points during their time at school, college, university or the workplace. So how are these questions answered? There are several ways in which teachers, lecturers and instructors can help... [read more]

For years, text books, pictures and models in a classroom environment, with the school teacher explaining, demonstrating, or describing the processes involved was always the classic way to teach and for children and adults to learn. These days classrooms are still used, though some books and models have been replaced by DVDs, PowerPoint presentations and the internet. These tools are all used to provide an interactive explanation of the subject, or as an answer to a question asked.

Getting outdoors

Growing up and going to school in Snowdonia, I was lucky enough to experience learning outside the classroom, long before any badge or award for its inclusion in an education establishment was heard of. Our Geography lessons would be enhanced by a visit to Cwm Idwal, the Ogwen Valley, or a location relevant to the subject in question. Taking our textbooks with us, our teacher would take us and show us in 'real life' what was shown in the pictures. Most of the time it was the actual geographical feature or area that was in the photos; for example the Cwm itself with its Hanging Valleys or the Gribin Ridge could be seen and the explanation of how it was formed would make sense. I know for a fact this accelerated my own growing interest in the outdoors and the thought of maybe one day working in this environment. I don't know if I would have felt the same about the subject, sat in a classroom learning this subject by looking at the same pictures in a book, and having the teacher explaining glaciers and how they moved and created these features.

I have been a learner and a teacher/trainer on many different subjects throughout my career. As a learner I have experienced different styles and methods of teaching; some have been bad, some have been good. What I have been able to do as a teacher is reflect on both the good and bad learning experiences I have received. This information helps me develop an effective learning plan, hopefully meeting the learning needs of my students when I teach.

When you think back to your own learning experiences, I'm sure that one or two teachers stick out as being different for both good and bad reasons. Which ones did you learn from? I would take a guess that it's the ones that did something different. Did they add comedy to the lesson? Was it a hands on / physical lesson that had you moving around or was there a dramatic visual demonstration as part of the lesson. These are all things we remember and hopefully learn from. Sometimes it is too easy for teachers to just sit or stand in front of a class and hit play on a PowerPoint presentation and expect people to learn. I appreciate that there are some subjects that require this form of teaching, but you can always add something to enthuse learners.

A Case Study

At Manor Adventure's activity centres we use the Great Outdoors as our classroom. During residential school trips, taking children outside to participate in activities is a great way of allowing them to learn new subjects and skills, sometimes without them even realising it. What my geography teacher did with us years ago is now happening on a daily basis, and personally I know what a positive effect this type of learning had on me.

Due to the nature of some of our activities ensuring a positive learning experience can be difficult to achieve when you are faced with peoples primary fears like heights or water. At Manor Adventure we believe in a "Safe Fun Learn" ethos. In simple terms, during activity sessions if learners feel safe or are in a safe environment, the addition of some fun to the session will allow them to learn from it.

It would be fair to say that many of our activities could not be run in a classroom environment, and I would be the first to agree. But over the years I have seen people teach subjects like map reading or nature in a classroom environment without stepping outside at all. I have observed people who get 100% in a classroom based map reading assessment, become lost and disorientated within minutes when they are taken outside and asked to do exactly what they did in the classroom.

Benfits of hands on learning

Learning new activities outside of the classroom as part of a residential trip gives many young people some new skills or challenges that many of us "oldies" take for granted. Some of the adventures or risks we took as children, building dens, exploring forests or climbing trees have been taken away in ‘real life', but they have been replaced by action / adventure games on consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. Experiencing the 'real' risk involved in climbing a tree as a child can be exciting, and if you make it up and down without falling you get a real sense of achievement which stays with you, well until you find your next bigger tree!! These days' children don't seem to get that same feeling of achievement from playing computer games. When climbing a tree on a computer game if you get it wrong you lose a life or restart the level without a sense of physical risk. Get it wrong in the real world and it's a sore arm, leg or head and maybe a trip to the hospital. But you will always remember it, and for some it will be a challenge that will not go away.

Carrying out new and challenging activities in a safe environment gives children the chance to experience and learn many new skills. Replacing the tree with a climbing wall, canoe or obstacle course gives the child a wide selection of safe situations in different environments for them to learn from. Each new activity will generate a set of skills; some of these skills will hopefully be remembered and taken to other activity sessions. Teamwork, effective communication and empathy can be learned on several of the activities we have. These skills can be learned at an early age and hopefully stay with you.

Everyone remembers the first time they climbed, canoed or rode a zip wire. What they also remember is the person that was there instructing or teaching them. This shows the importance of the instructor giving the participants a good positive activity session. Ensuring the participants remember the session for the right reasons rather than having a negative outcome that puts people off the subject or activity for ever.

I am a great believer in the Learning Outside the Classroom ethos, from an early age I have learned more from being outdoors and trying new things than I probably have from being sat in a classroom environment. It is a formula that works and I believe will continue to work.

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Article written for Plan my School Trip by Peter Griffiths, Head of Centre, Manor Adventure Wales. If you would like to contribute an article, please get in touch to discuss how we can work together.

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Residential School Trips

Outdoor pursuits activity centres

Sayers Croft

Sayers Croft

Map Search - your local activity centres

Short on time? We can help!

Filter Residential Trips

Primary School Groups

Secondary School Groups

Residential Field Studies

How to Choose a Residential Centre

The Importance of Teaching Skills in the Outdoors

Getting outdoors

A Case Study

Benfits of hands on learning

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Residential School Trips

Outdoor pursuits activity centres

Sayers Croft

Sayers Croft

Map Search - your local activity centres

Short on time? We can help!

Filter Residential Trips

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