If you’re planning a school trip abroad, you’ll definitely need to do a risk assessment. We can’t do it for you (unfortunately), but we can guide you through the process.
What is a risk assessment?
In the context of school travel, a risk assessment is consistent with a group management plan.
In other words, it’s a written plan for how the group leader expects to lead their group on the trip, with the objective of arriving home safe and sound.
There are loads of different types of risk assessment, but they all essentially boil down to the following process:
- Identifying a hazard
- Recognising that someone is at risk of that hazard
- Making a judgement on how likely it is that the hazard will cause them harm – and how much
- Putting control measures in place to minimise the risk
Before you start your risk assessment, make sure you check out the ‘Generic Risk Assessments for School Educational Visits’ and ‘Demystifying Risk Assessments’ guides.
The ‘Demystifying Risk Assessments’ guide will explain in more detail what you need to do.
And the ‘Generic Risk Assessments for School Educational Visits’ gives you some examples and a framework to get you started.
What should a risk assessment include?
It’s really important you follow the guidelines for your particular school and Local Education Authority (LEA) – these will tell you exactly what your risk assessment needs to include.
But, basically, you just need to show that you’ve done your due diligence. You aren’t required to demonstrate an ability to see into the future.
Pro tip - when assessing visits, don’t get hung up on the fact that you’re risk assessing the Eiffel Tower (because that’s just going to overwhelm you). Boil it down to its essence – a monument that’s open to the public, could draw crowds and is high with lots of stairs.
Now you’ve simplified it, you can see that the Eiffel Tower really poses similar hazards to other public monuments, including kids getting lost, trips on stairs and petty theft.
And, as similar visits are going to pose similar risks, you can save this work as part of a Generic Risk Assessment, which can form the building blocks of future risk assessments.
Even the seemingly most complicated visits and activities can be broken down into building blocks that you can approach in this way, making identifying hazards (almost) a breeze.
And the good news is that once a framework’s been developed you can use it to speed up the risk assessment process next time.
You’ll need to concentrate on the most significant hazards posed. No-one expects you consider all the insignificant hazards (that’d be a second full-time job). Just as professional judgement is sufficient to deal with situations within school, the same is true for off-site visits.
However, you will need to consider some of the obvious ‘what ifs’ and have some ‘plan Bs’ in place. For example, could a visit be affected by weather? If it is, what will you do instead? And what about if a kid gets sick, or is injured? How will you make sure they’re looked after (and how could that affect the rest of your group)?
It’s worthwhile checking both your school or LEA’s emergency procedure and your tour operator’s emergency procedure to make sure they work together – that’s your ultimate ‘plan B’.
And remember, things don’t always happen as we expect them to, so you’re possibly going to need to make some on-the-spot decisions.
For most situations, the same group management skills you use in school are perfectly suitable for off-site visits and therefore are totally manageable for you and your colleagues. But you may need to seek expert help or advice in some situations, like a local instructor or guide (just let us know if this is the case).
It’s best practice to have a quick chat with your colleagues at the start of each day about plans and any possible changes that might happen.
And it’s a great idea to take a couple of minutes at the end of the day to just jot down any changes or decisions that had to be made on the management plan, so you can reflect on this and use it to guide your next management plan.
And, when you get back to school after the trip, make sure you take some time to debrief with your colleagues and reflect on the planning process and risk assessments – you’ll be pleased you did when it comes to putting together your next group management plan.
Do you have to do a risk assessment for all school trips abroad?
Yes, you do. Even if you’ve run the trip before.
That’s because a really important part of a risk assessment is considering the individuals in your group.
The group dynamic is unique to every trip – so that’s why you have to do a fresh risk assessment every time (even if you visit the same place every year and follow the same exact itinerary).
Let’s look at a practical example of this. Let’s say you’re taking a group to Disneyland® Paris.
This is a theme park with similar hazards to other theme parks you may have visited before (i.e. children getting lost, other members of the public, sickness, trips and other minor injuries and petty theft).
Now, if you were taking a group of younger children, you might decide that an appropriate control measure would be to divide your large group into smaller groups. Each member of staff would take control of a ‘mini-group’ who they would then lead around the theme park.
That would probably work really well for a group of younger kids. But what if you’re taking a group of older teenagers? What if one of the objectives for taking them to the theme park is to help educate them about taking responsibility for themselves and their own safety management?
If that’s the case, you’re going to need to come up with a more appropriate control measure for this older group. You’ll give pupils more instruction on what you expect of them while they’re on the visit. Maybe you’ll create a base for students to check in to regularly. Or perhaps you’ll have members of staff patrolling or stationed in various parts of the park.
But remember, the process of doing a risk assessment shows you’ve done your due diligence and also provides you and the colleagues accompanying you on the trip with a clear action plan to keep students safe, including some ‘plan Bs’. Being prepared will allow you to enjoy the trip in the confidence that you’ve got it covered.
Is there any way to reduce workload when doing risk assessments?
Yes – in fact, if you’ve booked with us, your risk assessment will already be much less work than if you’d arranged your trip yourself.
And there are two reasons for that.
Firstly, as an Assured Member of the School Travel Forum, we’ve got a substantial Safety Management System in place. This can form part of your risk assessment (and save you loads of time in areas like accommodation and travel).
Secondly, we hold a Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge. This means that you don’t need to spend time checking that we’re an appropriate organisation to use for your school trip – the LOtC has already checked and confirmed we are by awarding us this accreditation.
Plus, if you have any Generic Risk Assessments, you can use these as the basis for your risk assessment (because, as we mentioned, similar visits often pose similar risks) – but remember that you’ll have to assess the risk posed to the individuals in this group and so the appropriate control measures will be unique to this risk assessment.
If we can provide any information that will help you to complete your risk assessment, just get in touch. And you might also want to consider an inspection visit to complete your risk assessment on site using first-hand knowledge (again, just get in touch if you’re interested in doing that).
Can Halsbury Travel do the risk assessment for me?
In short, no.
When doing the risk assessment, you need to think about the specific needs of the individuals in your group. We don’t know these individuals, so we can’t accurately assess the risks posed to them. Only you can.
But as we mentioned above, our LOtC Quality Badge and Safety Management System will make the risk assessment process quicker and easier for you.
And if you need any information to complete the risk assessment, just get in touch and we’ll be really pleased to help.
Where can I get more advice?
Before you start your risk assessment, make sure you check out the ‘Generic Risk Assessments for School Educational Visits’ and ‘Demystifying Risk Assessments’ guides.
Just let us know if you need any information from us to complete your risk assessment.
And, if you haven’t already, make sure you check out the Outdoor Education Advisers’ Panel (OAEP) website for more information and guidance.