FEATURE: SCHOOLS TRIPS
Social skills development: School trips provide an ideal setting for students to develop their social skills. Whether working in groups, interacting with teachers outside of the classroom, or meeting new people during field visits, students learn how to communicate, collaborate, and navigate social dynamics. These experiences promote teamwork, leadership, and respect for others, all of which are essential qualities for future success in both professional and personal life.
Improved confidence and independence: Being away from the familiar environment of school and home can be a challenge for many students, but it can also be an opportunity for growth. School trips give pupils a chance to take responsibility for themselves in a new environment, fostering independence and self-confidence. This is especially true for residential trips, where students may be away from home for extended periods and have to manage their time, belongings, and behaviour independently.
Health and well-being: Certain types of school trips, such as outdoor education and physical activity-based excursions, can promote physical health and well-being. Trips that involve outdoor activities like hiking, cycling, or rock climbing provide an opportunity for students to stay active while exploring the natural world. Such experiences have been shown to improve mental health by reducing stress, enhancing mood, and increasing physical fitness, which is crucial for overall development.
School trips serve as a vital extension of classroom learning. They allow students to engage with subjects in a practical, real-world context, reinforcing concepts that may otherwise seem abstract or theoretical, making them more tangible, more relevant - more real. Pupils gain the opportunity to see, touch, and experience the subject matter firsthand, often leading to greater retention of information and a deeper understanding of the material. Beyond this, school trips can be a powerful tool in promoting critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. By entering new environments, students are faced with situations that require them to think, to adapt, to use their initiative. And they inevitably pick up life skills along the way. It could be something as simple as becoming more familiar with public transport on a day-trip to London. They will carry their new-found sense of confidence and independence into their adult lives.
In ensuring we find ways to preserve and protect the school trip, we are
also taking action to protect enhanced and experiential learning for pupils, while helping them to develop essential skills for the future. There are organisations which recognise the immense value of school trips, and are dedicated to making sure young people continue to benefit from them. One example is Curious Minds, a charity that collaborates with creative professionals, educators, and youth workers to tackle unequal access to creative and cultural experiences for children and young people. The charity is on hand for schools who are wanting to, but struggling to deliver, school trips. Through its Curious Citizens programme, Curious Minds has helped to deliver 4,000 cultural trips, and it also delivers training courses for schools and educators seeking inspiration when it comes to planning and delivering inspiring school trips, no matter the budget. However, Kelly Allen, Curious Minds’ Deputy Chief Executive, states: “Changing the current trajectory of decline hinges on support from both educators and those with influence over education policy. We call on policymakers to prioritise culture within public education policy and expenditure, to secure the role of school trips and experiences in inspiring future generations of creative thinkers and curious cultural citizens.” Similar sentiments were recently echoed by the Field Studies Council, which argues that the negative impact of the decline in school trips is being felt across the science sphere, and argues that fieldwork must become core to the new national curriculum to remedy this.
Jo Harris, Education Manager at the Field Studies Council, says: “Students need to get hands-on, learn to use equipment, understand how to collect data and learn how to work as part of a team. And they need dedicated and quality time away from the classroom to do that.
“At a time when we desperately need more ecologists, conservationists and habitat restoration experts, we’re seeing the very experiences that spark interest in these careers being hollowed out of education.” The curriculum review is underway, having been launched by the Labour government in 2024, and recommendations for reform are expected to be published later this year.
Professor Becky Francis, who is leading the review, has spoken of stripping back “less vital” areas of the curriculum while also giving schools “more flex” to make the curriculum “more bespoke for the local community and local needs”.
What this could mean for school trips - if anything - remains to be seen.
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www.education-today.co.uk
January 2025
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