But don’t worry. We’ve been helping busy teachers (just like you) to arrange school trips abroad for nearly 40 years. So, we know what works when it comes to seeking approval for trips.
Let’s get stuck in.
What questions will you face when seeking approval for your school trip?
- What's the value of the trip?
- How will you keep the students safe?
- How reliable is the tour operator?
What's the value of the trip?
As you know, when taking students abroad, you’re not just taking them off timetable, you’re also taking several members of staff, who’ll all need cover arranging.
So, when you’re seeking approval for your school trip, you’ll need to prove the value of it. You’ll need to show that your trip offers enough educational value for students that it justifies both them being off-timetable for their other subjects and the cover costs for the accompanying staff members.
Obviously, you’ll have picked a destination and activities that are going to support your curriculum and meet your learning objectives.
For example, if you’re a French teacher and you’re planning on taking your students to a language school in the South of France, the educational value of that trip is pretty easy to explain.
Similarly, if you’re a history teacher and you’re planning to take students to Berlin and Krakow to learn more about the Nazis and the Holocaust - the educational value is obvious.
So, explaining where you’re going, what you’re doing and why should do most of the legwork with regards to proving the educational value.
But don’t just leave it there.
Make a point of explaining the other benefits that school trips abroad offer students. Like more independence and responsibility, and greater intercultural understanding.
If you haven’t got time to list out all the incredible benefits of school trips, don’t worry – just show them this video.
And this PowerPoint presentation neatly sums these benefits up.
How will you keep students safe?
Now everyone’s on board with why you want to run the trip, you need to reassure them that you’ve thought about health and safety on the trip.
And this means performing a risk assessment.
Although we’d love to, we can’t do this for you, as only you know your group’s requirements.
But you’ll significantly reduce your workload by booking with us.
We’re an Assured Member of the School Travel Forum with our own Safety Management System – and referring to this will save you crucial time in areas such as transport and accommodation (and reduce the amount of External Provider paperwork you’ll need to do).
And for more information on health and safety, please check out our guide.
How reliable is the tour operator?
Assuming you’re booking with a tour operator (like us), you’ll need to show that you’ve picked a reliable partner for your school trip.
If you’ve chosen Halsbury (and we’ll assume that you have, as you’re reading this), then this handout should explain who we are and why your school can trust us with your trip.
Our Accreditations
On the handout, you’ll find more information about our accreditations.
These are your (and your school’s) reassurance that your trip is in safe hands.
We're an ABTA member, which means we are obliged to maintain a high standard of service to you by ABTA’s Code of Conduct.
Our flight packages are ATOL-protected and our ATOL number is ATOL 5079.
We're also an ABTOT-protected travel company. ABTOT cover provides for a refund in the event you have not yet travelled or repatriation if transportation was included in your package. Please note that bookings made outside the UK are only protected by ABTOT when purchased directly with Halsbury Travel. You can find out more about ABTOT here: https://www.abtot.com/
We're also an Assured Member of the School Travel Forum and have taken responsibility for putting together our own Safety Management System, demonstrating our commitment to prioritising the health and safety of our groups.
And we've received the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge, which demonstrates that we offer activities that are safe and beneficial to learning.
Plus, we’ve been helping teachers to arrange school trips for nearly 40 years, so we’ve got plenty of experience of what works (and what doesn’t).
We hope this will help you to get your school trip approved
If you need any more advice or information, please get in touch.