The School Travel Forum (STF), Outdoor Education Advisory Panel (OEAP) and Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) are authorities who offer a great amount of support and advice to us, their members and also directly to teachers interested in planning trips. Recently they have been working hard to provide new documentation to provide help and reassurance on future planning and travel and have also updated their documents and procedures where necessary.
The School Travel Forum have been working hard to inform and reinforce with the DfE and DCMS that they and us, their members, are doing everything we can to ensure schools can plan, book and travel with confidence.
Here you can learn more about what school trip organisation bodies are doing to support the relaunch of school trips safely. You can also access a range of support materials provided by the STF and the OEAP to help you in planning your school trips safely.
To help build confidence amongst teachers, ABTA now have a 'travelling with children' section on their website which includes information about school trips and directs people to the STF website for specific details. There are also now two questions in the FAQs section relating to school trips. This information will continue to change so we advise you keep checking this when planning your trip.
This recent report was produced by the STF and has been sent to the DfE to highlight the value of school trips, explain what they and members are doing to ensure trips will be planned safely and to demonstrate that their required safety management system for us members is 100% Covid-19 prepared for when future trips are allowed.
This document has been created to assist you in preparing for a school residential visit, providing guidance and documentation on risk assessments.
Below you will see some useful templates, as suggested in the toolkit, to help you complete your risk assessment.
The OEAP have revised a number of their national guidance documents recently. You’ll find new checklists for planning, information on PTR and a new Coronavirus guidance document.
The LOtC offers a useful range of resources from their members to bring outdoor learning into schools at a time when travel is restricted. You can follow Them on twitter @CLOtC and find out more or become a member at LOTC.
Guidance is changing regularly so we do advise you to refer back to this area and the websites of these associations for the most up to date guidance and information.
We know that you, your students and your parents & carers will have a lot of questions before deciding to travel post-Covid-19. By way of reassurance, when you are ready to book your tour this year, you will receive the safeguards outlined in our Plan & Book With Confidence Promise.