Keep a file
Keep a file with all the important information for your school trip. Your itinerary should be in here, as well as copies of any important forms (leave the original with your headteacher / EVC), any tickets or vouchers and a rooming list, as well as a summary of the kids’ skiing ability.
If you're travelling with us, we'll send your final information pack with all this before you travel. You'll also have access to Vamoos, our easy-to-use travel app, so you can access all your trip documents on your phone and tablet on the go.
Make copies of passports and GHICs
Collect passports and GHICs from the students before going, and make at least one copy of each one.
You might even want to keep hold of all the passports for the duration and put them in the hotel safe when you arrive, but please make sure you don’t forget to take them out before you leave the hotel (trust us, this does happen).
Take plastic wallets
Zip-up plastic wallets are your friend. For ease of counting (and so everything doesn’t fall on the party leader), divide your students into “teacher groups” before travelling.
Split the passports into teacher groups, have one zip-up wallet for each group and put a copy of each passport in the wallet along with the passports for that group.
If flying, you can then queue up for check-in in teacher groups or, if going on a coach, let them off the coach in teacher groups to go through passport control.
Don’t assign yourself a teacher group
Do not assign a teacher group to yourself as party leader.
You'll be too busy asking your colleagues whether their groups are all accounted for to also have to worry about your own.
Plus, if another teacher needs to do something else when kids need to be counted, you can step in. The kids will become accustomed to the yell of “teacher groups” very quickly, and they can be used before heading to the slopes, at the end of the day, etc.
Give each teacher a laminated card with their group on it to put in their pocket, phone case, etc.
Give specific roles to staff
The trips that become most stressful in our experience are the ones where the party leader tries to do everything themselves.
Some roles that can be distributed are banker (if you’re taking money off kids- we’ll come back to this later), first aid, entertainment/sports and social media/communications.
Prepare for the coach journey
If you’re travelling by coach, the journey there can sometimes seem daunting, but most of the time it’s actually a really fun part of the overall experience.
Encourage students to bring tablets, etc, to keep themselves occupied. The days of watching a DVD on the coach may be behind us, but your coach may have one, so it’s worth checking, as age-appropriate films can be a great way to get kids to fall asleep.
On the way out to the resort, make sure you have a vague seating plan and keep students in year groups on the coach. There are a few reasons for this, but mainly it’s for the kids who aren't with a friendship group, so that they can start making friends within their year group.
Also, in some European countries, you have to have an adult by emergency exits, so if you have some form of seating plan, it reduces the need to move kids about when you set off.
You could also use the much-favoured back seat as a prize for the best-kept rooms all week. You'd be surprised what a great incentive this can be.
Make sure you have your rep’s details
Make sure you have your rep's contact details and make contact with them before going. The best trips happen when communication is excellent.
Keep parents in the loop
Parents like to be kept informed. Some schools now have apps to do this, and other schools set up a social media account.
Make it clear to students that if anything happens on the trip, they shouldn't contact their parents, as they'll be contacted by staff to make sure the correct information is relayed to them.
Hold a parent's meeting before your trip (we can send a representative if you ask us in plenty of time), where you can provide students and parents with information about the trip, as well as spell out your expectations and rules.
If you have any children with medical needs, sit down with their parents and go through what's needed.
Make it clear that the emergency contact number is exactly that. Remind parents that “no news is good news” on ski trips, as their kids will be busy and may not have the time to be in contact.
This is where a social media account comes in handy, as you can assign a member of staff to be responsible for uploading updates (an important update is always about food…take pictures of meal times and kids eating so that parents are reassured that kids aren’t starving).
Make sure that any kids who do not have consent for their pictures to be shared are known to the member of staff sharing updates, and make sure you have read your school’s social media policy. Many schools now only want initials on social media.
Label everything
Any teacher will know that labelling is up there with “the file”, as labelling is also life.
Some ideas for this:
- Ski ties that have the names of your kids on them that they keep all week - these can be bought relatively cheaply on eBay.
- Cards for the kids that they keep in their jackets with the numbers of their individual kit on (boots, skis, helmet), so they can check each morning that they have the correct ones.
- A spreadsheet of these numbers that you give to the teachers (you could divide them into teacher groups).
- Labelling using waterproof tape and a marker (yes, by the end of the week it may fall off, but by this time the kids are used to working out whose equipment is whose. The first two days are the worst).
On the note of labelling, make sure in your parents’ meeting that you tell parents they need to label the kids’ ski kit. There are likely to be several pairs of Decathlon gloves or Aldi base layers, and if it’s labelled, it can be returned to its rightful owner.
Whether your ski kit is staying in the hotel, by the slopes or on the coach, make sure you have a system in place to allow the skis to be retrieved in an organised manner. Use your teacher groups or ski groups if easier.
Make laminated cards
Make a laminated card for each student with the hotel details, ski school and your contact number. These cards should go in their pocket with their ski pass and not leave that pocket for the week.
You could also make a laminated checklist for kids (and teachers) with what they need to remember daily, including:
- Sunscreen and lip balm
- Gloves/inner gloves
- A snack
- Mobile phone
- Ski pass and emergency contact card (although this should already be in their jacket)
- Goggles
- Helmet
- Hat
For the first couple of days, you could make this into a game before leaving for the slopes and get them to show you these items. By the end of the week, they usually get the idea.
Another laminated card idea…if you have anyone with food allergies / medical needs, etc., make them a laminated card with the details of the condition in the language of the place you're going.
Your hotel will be made aware of anything you tell them by the Halsbury office team, but if you are out and about on the mountain/in the resort, it's a handy thing to have just in case.
Identify GCSE PE students
Make sure you know if anyone needs skiing evidence for their GCSE PE. Assign a member of staff the responsibility of making sure that the evidence is gathered, give them the guide (and make sure they take a copy of the specification with them). You should also give a copy to the ski instructor.
Money matters
This is a tricky subject, as schools have different rules.
If you can, it's worth taking a school credit card, as some hospitals won’t treat people without a credit card.
Keep a log of everything spent so you can hand it to the school when you're back with receipts.
We mentioned earlier about having a banker. Some schools will say not to take money from students for safekeeping, as it takes the responsibility away from the child. Other schools prefer it.
If you are taking money off students, it's generally easier to have one member of staff assigned the role of banker and, again, use trusty plastic zip wallets.
Parents should provide the money in labelled envelopes, and you could have 3 zip-up plastic wallets - one for surnames A-G, one for H-N and one for O-Z. Note down on the envelope each time money is taken out.
Celebrate achievements
Many of our group leaders hand out certificates at the end of the week.
You could include certificates for things not linked to skiing and try to make sure that everyone gets at least one. Things like ‘wipeout of the week’, ‘king/queen of the slopes’, ‘bowling champion’, etc.
You could also take a few blank ones to add anything that I feel warrants celebration. Again, don’t do all this yourself - delegate certificates to the staff member with the nicest handwriting and get the kids involved in nominating.
Take time to reflect
Assign one tech-savvy member of staff the responsibility of creating a highlights reel each day. They can take videos or pictures throughout each day and use an app to put them together to create a ski trip movie or slideshow to be shown on the last night after the ski presentation.
On your way home, take some time to reflect. What worked really well? What do you think you need to improve on for the next year’s trip? Save these notes somewhere that you can come back to before the next trip.
Some schools like to gather student voices on the trip so they have quotes to sell the next trip. It can also help to have this to get your next trip approved by the governors.
You could even get the students to fill out an online survey at the end of the trip to gather some stats and quotes to help get the next trip off the ground.