Taking a trip to enhance your classroom learning experience is a proven way of getting your students more engaged in learning. The reality is that the cost of this can limit or sometimes put these types of learning experiences out of reach for some classes.
As budgets are stagnating or being cut, in some areas pupil premium is being used more and more as a source of funding for staffing and teaching assistants. If your class has a pupil premium of over 50% then you can help to pay for your trip in full through the company we are proudly supporting called M7E. Here is a link to hear a bit more about them and how they can help your school.
According to Ofsted’s 2012 report, 1/3rd of schools used Pupil Premium to subsidise or fully pay for educational visits and residential trips. Data is lacking in more recent years but in a recent study by the National Audit Office they asked a group of over 1,000 students what activities best helped them learn outside the classroom; 89% felt very positive about their learning outcomes from an educational visit.
There are still things teachers and schools can do to keep the cost of a school trip down. There are quite a few organisations that offer free school trips for schools, meaning the only cost would come from transport to and from the venue.
Sometimes there are grants and bursaries direct from venues. The YHA operates ‘Breaks for Kids’, which can offer financial support for children who would not otherwise be able to afford to take part in a school trip. To find out more about that have a look here.
Here at Funding 4 Education we’re all about helping schools and provide advice where we can, but our speciality ends with equipment procurement and budget management. This is why we’ve teamed up with Plan My School Trip for this article. Plan My School Trip provide a completely free service to schools and are currently helping over 12,000 teachers every year to plan and arrange their school trips! They’re the UK’s leading school trip planning service and teachers can use the Plan My School Trip website to find inspiration and planning advice for their next trip outside of the classroom 🙂
