As we progress along the government’s roadmap out of lockdown, it is now possible to start thinking about the future and start planning ahead.
Your students have missed out on so much, so you may be thinking about arranging a school music tour in 2022. But how can you get your tour approved right now?
Here are our top tips:
Remember to highlight the benefits your tour offers students
Remind students, parents, and SLT what your tour offers students that cannot be replicated back in school.
This may include diverse performance opportunities and the chance to explore another culture through music. It may even include the opportunity to reward students for their hard work, or to give them something to work towards throughout the year.
And although there are many music-specific benefits to your music tour, make sure you don’t forget the other benefits your tour will offer students in terms of their personal development.
They may be travelling abroad for the first time without their families. This offers them the chance to take more responsibility for themselves and become more independent. And this will be a welcome boost to their self-confidence too!
Plus, of course, a school music tour abroad will be a bonding experience for your group and can help them to work better as a team which is, of course, fantastic for a young ensemble.
Outline the financial protection your tour operator offers
While we still live in some uncertainty, we strongly recommend that you book your school music tour with a fully-accredited tour operator, like Halsbury.
You will need to make sure that they are ABTA and ATOL protected, to ensure that your tour is then financially protected.
It would then be worth checking to see if there are any enhanced booking guarantees being offered.
For example, our Covid Guarantee means that you can secure your tour with a reduced deposit and you’ll receive a full refund if you need to cancel within 30 days of departure because Covid restrictions will affect your tour. And you’ll also have the option to postpone too.
That means that you can book your music tour and still comply with the DfE’s advice not to enter into any new financial or contractual commitments right now.
For further information and to see the full terms and conditions, please see our Covid Guarantee. And if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Explain the health and safety procedures and systems in place
Health and safety are always a priority when arranging a school music tour. But that’s especially true as we emerge from the pandemic. Parents will need to know that all relevant precautions are being taken to protect their children and themselves.
And your school leadership team will also want to know that adequate procedures and systems are in place to protect the students and to protect staff, who are more directly at risk from Covid-19.
That’s why we have appointed a dedicated health and safety committee who have been working closely with our suppliers to ensure that every precaution is taken to keep your group safe.
As an example, for hotel and accommodation suppliers, this means adhering to School Travel Forum (STF) guidance, which places a focus on infection surveillance. As an assured member of the STF, it is now a requirement for all our accommodation suppliers to adhere to this.
We can provide details on procedures and systems put in place by suppliers on request.
And, if needed, we will adjust your itinerary slightly to accommodate any regulations in force in your destination – and we’ll make sure you have the most up-to-date information on those before you travel.
Get students excited about your tour
When we surveyed customers at the end of last summer to ask them about the challenges they would face in getting school trips going again, a key concern was the reception from parents and students.
What we’re actually finding is that the trips that have been launched by our groups so far have generated so much interest from students that some have had to book additional coaches. One has even arranged a separate trip to accommodate demand!
This enthusiasm to travel with school may cause a different issue, however. Competition from other trips within the school has long been one of the major roadblocks for school music tours. This is another reason to use our Covid Guarantee to allow you to start planning your tour now, so that you can ensure students aren’t already committed to another trip.
When you do launch your tour, you’ll need to promote it to students – we’ve got a number of resources to help you with that.
Ask your tour operator for support
Your tour operator is there to support you, so please do ask us for help if and when you need it. We’ll be with you every step of the way, throughout the process.
We can attend virtual parents’ evenings if you’d like us to assist you in fielding questions from parents – all you need to do is ask!
We have lots of tour planning resources on our website, so please do feel free to use anything that you find helpful. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, please do contact us.
Ready to start planning your 2022 school music tour?
Please don’t hesitate to contact us for further information or to request your tailor-made quote.