We’ve been helping busy teachers (like you) to arrange school trips for 40 years.
We’ve put this guide together to take you through all the key steps in planning your next trip (and we’ve included some useful hints and tips that we’ve picked up over the years).
We hope you find it useful. And don’t forget, we’re here to support you every step of the way (so just get in touch if you need us).
How to Organise a School Trip
Organising a school trip can seem overwhelming at first, but it becomes much more achievable once you break it down into a series of steps. In our experience, there are 13 steps between planning and departure:
- Think about your school trip
- Decide whether to use a tour operator
- Get your school trip approved
- Book the trip
- Get parents on board
- Launch your school trip
- Start your trip admin
- Plan the finer details
- Start your risk assessment
- Make the final arrangements
- Get ready for your school trip
- The journey begins...
In this guide, we cover each of these steps and more.
Step 1: Think about your trip
You should start thinking about your trip around 12-18 months before you intend to depart.
This allows you to start planning early. And early planning is our number one tip for teachers organising a school trip, especially if it's your first time.
Here’s why:
- You'll have a better chance of securing your preferred dates, transport, accommodation, etc.
- It'll make your trip more affordable for your students (by giving them longer to pay for it).
- It'll make your life much easier by giving you plenty of time to plan your trip (and collect all the information you need from students and their parents).
- You'll get a head start on the competition from other departments targeting the same pool of students for their trips.
Learn more about the benefits of early planning.
Next, you need to decide what you want from the trip.
- What are your learning objectives?
- What do you want pupils to get out of the trip?
- And what do you want them to remember about the trip?
Making sure you have really clear objectives can save time (and headaches) when planning the itinerary.
You also need to be clear on:
- Budget
- Dates and duration (and how flexible these are)
- Any specific requirements the group may have (e.g. how will their age affect the accommodation requirements?)
Finally, you’ll need to check the staff-to-student ratio required by your LEA or school. We usually base our quotes on the following free-place ratios (if you need a different ratio, just ask):
- 1:8 for coach trips
- 1:10 for trips by air
Step 2: Decide whether to use a tour operator
You could organise your trip yourself. But there are many reasons why it makes sense to use a specialist school tour operator (like us).
Make sure your group is protected.
Choosing a fully accredited school tour operator (like Halsbury Travel) means your group will be better protected if something goes wrong.
Of course, sometimes the unexpected does happen - but we’ve got a proven track record in quickly finding solutions, so you won’t be left to deal with it on your own.
And our ABTA and ATOL protection means that your trip is financially protected.
Avoid the trip taking over your life
Choose to work with a specialist school tour operator, and they’ll take on the bulk of the organisational tasks (like booking accommodation, travel, meals, entrance tickets, etc.).
We do this kind of stuff on a daily basis, so please do make use of us to make your life easier.
If your tour operator also happens to be a member of the School Travel Forum (like us), then they’ll have a Safety Management System in place and will hold a Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge.
Why does that matter? Well, it’ll drastically reduce the amount of paperwork you need to do and can form part of your risk assessment.
Plus, you won’t need to seek further assurance that they actually provide the quality of tour they advertise (the LOtC Quality Badge confirms they do), and you can be sure your group’s health and safety will be prioritised.
Nothing will get 'lost in translation'
We’re multilingual at Halsbury, so we can speak to suppliers in their own language and avoid any misunderstandings.
And we’ve worked hard to build good relationships with them, so we can get the best for our groups.
Feel supported every step of the way
We know how much responsibility it takes to take a group of kids abroad. So, perhaps the most important reason to choose a school tour operator is that you’ll be supported every step of the way.
Going with a tour operator?
You may need (or want) to get several quotes - the key thing to remember is to make sure you’re comparing like-for-like. Check out our top tips for comparing quotes.
Step 3: Get your school trip approved
Once you've decided on the basics of your trip, you'll need to get it signed off. We recommend aiming to do this at least 12 months before departure.
To get approval, you’ll need to answer a few key questions.
What’s the value of your trip?
If you’re travelling during term time, you’ll be taking students and staff off the timetable for a few days, and if you’re travelling during the holidays, you’ll be asking colleagues to give up precious time off. Either way, you’ll need to show your trip is worth it.
It should be fairly easy to explain the educational value of your trip (after all, you've chosen it to support your learning objectives). But don’t forget about the other benefits that school trips offer (like greater independence and responsibility, and deeper intercultural understanding).
We’ve created a video and a PowerPoint presentation to help get you started with this.
How will you keep students safe?
You'll need to show how you're going to ensure the health and safety of your group.
Part of this is performing a risk assessment (more on that later), but you can also demonstrate your commitment to health and safety by planning to work with a fully-accredited school tour operator (especially one that's a member of the School Travel Forum - like us).
How reliable is your chosen tour operator?
You’ll need to show your chosen tour operator is reputable, fully accredited and will prioritise the health and safety of students.
If you’ve chosen Halsbury Travel as your tour operator, you may find this handout useful.
See more of our top tips for getting your school trip approved.
Step 5: Book your trip
Once your trip's approved, you can go ahead and book it.
Provisional booking
If you're going with a tour operator, make sure you're booking with a reputable provider you can trust (after all, the whole point of booking with a tour operator is that it should make the process less stressful).
If you're booking with us, we'll start by making a provisional booking. This holds no obligation; it simply means we can hold the space for your group for up to 30 days, giving you time to promote the trip and collect deposits.
Check in with your finance department
Before launching the trip to parents and students, ask your school's finance department how and when they want parents to pay.
- Can they make payment by cash, cheque, card or via the school's online payment portal?
- If paying by cash or cheque, should they pass this to you or directly to the Finance Department?
- When will you need the deposits from parents to meet the payment deadlines set by your tour operator (because if you miss this deadline, you could lose your flights or accommodation, or may need a requote)?
Step 6: Get parents on board
To get students signed up for your trip, you’ll need to get their parents on board.
You’ll have to convince them of two main things - that the trip is worthwhile and their kids will be safe.
But first, you need to let them know the trip is happening. Here’s a sample school trip letter you can send home to parents.
And you’ll probably want to hold a parents’ evening too – here’s a PowerPoint template to help you with this.
Parents typically have the following questions:
- "Why should I send my child on this trip?" - Explain to parents the academic reasons you want to run the trip, but don’t forget the other benefits of school trips, too.
- "How has the trip been organised?" - Parents want to know that their money will be protected and (most importantly) that their children will be safe – and this means they’ll want to know about the tour operator you’re using. If you’re travelling with us, download our handout, which should help to reassure parents.
- "Will my child’s medical and dietary requirements be catered for?" - Of course, the answer is yes. But make sure you let parents know that they need to tell you about any medical or dietary requirements ASAP, so we can make sure that everyone who needs to be is aware of these.
- "How are we going to keep in touch?" - Will you be posting updates on social media? This can be a great way to reassure nervous parents. And let them know if kids can bring their phones on the trip (and any rules they’ll need to follow). Remind them to look into roaming charges and let them know that lost or damaged phones may not be covered by the insurance. Finally, make sure they know how to get hold of you in an emergency, and vice versa.
See more tips for getting parents on board
Step 7: Launch your trip
Around 10-12 months before departure, it’s time to launch and promote your trip to students. Your tour operator will have quoted based on the expected number of paying passengers. You need to get as close as possible to this (lower or higher numbers can affect the price).
Create a buzz around your trip
Put posters up around the school promoting your trip and make sure it’s mentioned on the school’s social media accounts too.
Run the trip before? Share pictures and videos from past trips, and invite students who've been to talk to your current group (or as part of a parents' evening).
Struggled to get numbers in the past?
Consider teaming up with another department to make the trip cross-curricular (opening it up to more students).
Plan fundraising activities
Get students fundraising for your trip – it’ll make it more affordable for parents and give students lots of opportunities for personal development. Activities such as bake sales, raffles, car washes, car boot sales, bag packing, and even crowdfunding can be great ways to raise funds for school trips.
Step 8: Start trip admin
Confirm your booking
You’ll now need to confirm your booking (hit the 'accept quote' button on your quote and follow the instructions).
Log in to My Trip Zone
My Trip Zone (Halsbury's customer portal) will allow you to collect passenger data (send one secure link to parents, and they input their child's details - they can even scan their passport with their smartphone).
If there are potential issues with expiry dates or visa requirements, the system will flag them at this point (so they have plenty of time to get this sorted).
You can then manage passenger and waiting lists, as well as see a tailored trip timeline with all the key dates.
Create a payment schedule for parents
We'll send you a final invoice with clear payment deadlines. You can use this to provide parents with a payment schedule that makes sure you're able to meet these deadlines (and giving them this information as early as possible will help them budget for the trip).
Step 9: Plan the finer details of your trip
About 6-8 months before departure is the perfect time to plan all the finer details of your trip.
Plan your itinerary
Your dedicated Itinerary Coordinator will work closely with you to plan your itinerary. They’ll make sure your trip includes activities that support your learning objectives and provide plenty of ‘wow’ moments.
Finalise your passenger list
You'll manage your passenger list in My Trip Zone, and the personalised timeline will let you know when you need to have it finalised.
Step 10: Start your risk assessment
You'll need to follow the guidelines provided by your school and LEA.
We can't do the risk assessment for you, because we don't know your group like you do.
But using a reputable tour operator like Halsbury Travel can significantly reduce your workload (for example, as an Assured Member of the School Travel Forum, we've got a Safety Management System that can form part of your risk assessment).
You'll still need to do a risk assessment if you've run the trip before, as the group you're taking will have different requirements (but you can use past risk assessments as a framework to speed up the process).
Check out our guide to risk assessments for more information (as well as downloadable templates).
Step 11: Make the final arrangements
Finalise your itinerary
It’s time to finalise the details of your itinerary (including menu selections for your meals).
Finish paying for your trip
Once your itinerary is finalised, the final balance payment will be due.
Host your final parents’ evening
Your final parents' evening will focus on making sure parents have all the information they need. This includes:
- The final itinerary
- Luggage restrictions (and what to pack)
- How to contact you in an emergency (and vice versa)
- Social media updates (if there will be any)
- Your mobile phone policy for students on the trip
Complete any remaining risk assessment requirements
If you need any information from us, please just get in touch with your Itinerary Coordinator.
Complete the rooming list
Pro tip - sort out your rooming list before you travel. It’ll save you so much time and hassle, and means everyone can just head to their rooms (to rest, refresh or just ditch their bags) on arrival.
Step 12: Get ready for your school trip
Get your Final Info Pack
Everything you need for your trip will be in your Final Info Pack, including 24-hour emergency contact numbers (so you know you can speak to us any time you need to).
Download the Vamoos app
Make sure you download the Vamoos app, if you haven't already – this will give you access to all your trip documents from your phone or tablet. As well as all your paperwork and itinerary, it also has maps and weather updates.
Make sure your students are easy to spot
If your students aren't going to be wearing their uniform, some easily identifiable item of clothing (e.g. hat, t-shirt, hoodie, lanyard or rucksack) will really help you to keep tabs on them (especially in busy areas).
Pack your bags
A couple of weeks before you travel, you'll be inundated with questions about what to pack from students (or, more likely, their parents). Save yourself time (and having to repeat yourself) by creating and sending out a packing checklist in advance (or just download ours to send to parents). Don't forget to remind them about the luggage allowance.
Step 13: The journey begins...
You’re now ready to start the journey and enjoy the experience you’ve worked hard to make a reality.
Travelling by coach?
Pack plenty of drinks and snacks (but check with the driver whether you can snack on the coach or need to wait for comfort breaks). Water’s the best drink for a long coach journey (and it’s a good idea to bring along some extra, in case of delays or hot weather). Avoid chocolate, crisps and sweets, which can be messy and will generally make students hyperactive or thirsty. Fruit and nuts (as long as no one is allergic) are much better options.
Make sure you'll be comfortable. Wear comfy clothes and go for layers (especially if travelling overnight when temperatures can drop quickly). Eye masks, earplugs and neck pillows are also great for helping you get some rest on a long journey.
Plan some activities to help the journey go a little quicker. That could be watching a film, a coach quiz or even a singalong (if you’re feeling brave).
And don’t forget the housekeeping. As any teacher who's ever taken a coach trip with students knows, always pack air freshener, bin bags, wet wipes and kitchen roll…
See more tips for coach trips.
Flying?
Have a copy of everyone’s boarding pass and passport. Leave a copy of everyone’s passport with the school office (just in case).
Arrive at the airport in plenty of time. It can take longer than you might think to herd a large group through an airport (especially at the check-in desks and security).
Remind students that customs and security at airports are taken very seriously and officers are unlikely to have the same sense of humour as teenagers.
Remind your group of the rules around hand luggage. And tell students to say they packed their own bag, even if mum did it (we’ve had students held up at security before for giving the ‘wrong’ answers).
Divide your group into smaller groups with a staff leader (it’s easier to navigate the airport this way). Designate a group base in departures for students to check in regularly if you plan on giving them some free time before boarding.
Create a WhatsApp group for staff to keep in touch at the airport (most airports offer free WiFi).
Avoid chaos at baggage reclaim – either send one ‘mini-group’ up at a time or pick a team of baggage pickers (this is much easier if you’ve tagged all your bags with something quickly recognisable, like a ribbon, strap or sticker).
Important note for everyone travelling to the Schengen Area. Make sure you read our guide to how EES will affect your trip.
Any other tips?
Money-saving tips
Choose transport carefully – travelling by coach is usually cheaper than flying and it’s better for the environment.
Pre-book meals at your accommodation rather than eating out (you could also book packed lunches, so you don't risk ending up in pricy tourist traps).
Be flexible about when you travel. Most things in the travel world run on a high and low-season basis (so, travelling during term-time between September and March usually works out cheapest).
Think about the day of the week that you travel. The most popular day of the week for travel is Friday (so it can be the most expensive day to travel).
Continue the learning back in the classroom
The end of your trip isn’t the end of the learning journey. Keep the momentum by getting your students to do some post-trip activities, like:
- Write a trip diary: Get them to think about why they went there and what they learned. You could even submit the best ones to the local newspaper (which would be great PR for the school).
- Create a short film or collage: A brilliant collaborative option if your students take lots of photos and videos on the trip.
- Give an assembly: Great public speaking practice for students (they could work together and create a slideshow of some of their photos).
- Build on their language skills: Ask them to write a trip diary or prepare a short presentation in the target language.
Check out more ideas for continuing the learning back in the classroom.
Ready to start organising a school trip?
We’re here to help. Speak to our team to get started or request a tailor-made quote.