Our school has a proud history of supporting students to experience a range of cultures and environments. Thankfully, the majority of these trips run smoothly from conception to completion. Occasionally, things do go wrong with everything from a lost passport to illness, missed flights to accommodation issues to contend with. For this term's Inside Story, we asked one of our Area Leaders (Dr Watts in Geography) to outline what it is like to organise and run a residential visit.

Initial ideas and planning

As part of my role leading the Geography team at Prince Henry’s, I am responsible for most of our GCSE and A-Level day trips (of which there are five) as well as our Year 11 residential trip to Iceland. I also ran the cross-curricular Ski Trip to Folgarida this year and am currently in the process of organising both of these residential trips for the 2024-25 academic year. Organising residential trips is a lot of work, most of which takes place late at night or over the weekend as there isn’t time during normal working hours, but for me it is certainly one of the most rewarding aspects of my role. The excitement of the students seeing a frozen waterfall or the northern lights in Iceland for the first time or progressing from the nursery slopes up to the red runs on the ski trip, makes me easily forget the work involved.

With both the Iceland and Ski trips the planning starts well over a year in advance when we start to work with the travel agents involved to plan out and cost the itinerary. Some of the trips at Prince Henry’s are booked independently, but for these two trips we rely on specialist travel agents for their local knowledge and their relationships with the wide range of providers who contribute to the trips. This was particularly useful with the recent Iceland trip where, with only a few weeks’ notice, we had to change a significant proportion of the itinerary due to the volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula. In the end the trip was a huge success, but if it had not been for the travel agent knowing the best alternative sites and routes, the trip would have not run as smoothly. At this initial stage the travel agent will usually give us a rough quotation based on a certain number of students and a broad date range (i.e. 50+ students, early March).

We negotiate with a range of agents to try to bring the price as low as possible and work with reliable local coach companies that we have built good relationships with to get quotes for airport transfers from school far in advance. These are added to the travel agent’s quote to calculate the final trip price. Both residential trips are very expensive, and will, by their very nature, not be affordable for all students. However, in both cases we are able to offer excellent value compared to a traditional holiday, and by arranging the trips this far in advance it is possible for parents/carers to spread the costs over a year, and this helps make these experiences available to as many students as possible. In addition, the school sets aside funds to provide a small amount of financial assistance to students in receipt of free school meals.

At this early stage we also need to get the trip cleared to work within the school calendar, this can be very challenging as there are lots of other events going on including exams, and of course, so many other trips! The weeklong Ski Trip takes place during the holiday, so that is much easier. Once this is worked out, we calculate a payment schedule, write the letters, let our Finance Team know which students the trip is open to and then we’re ready to launch.

Finding the Students

Now finally, after at least a month or two of back and forth, it’s time to see if there are any students who want to go on the trip! We advertise the Ski Trip via form tutors and emails to all students and parents/carers, and the Geography trip to Iceland is advertised in GCSE Geography lessons. In my experience, both trips are always extremely oversubscribed which is great, but also leads to new challenges.

In the case of the Ski Trip, we’re usually quite limited in terms of our options. We work on a 1:10 staff-student ratio and there are lots of logistical limitations on the trips so we negotiate with the agent to secure as many extra places as we can without increasing the cost. However, usually there isn’t very much flexibility - last year we were able to arrange 6 additional places, which meant most students were able to take part, but, unfortunately, some had to miss out and would need to apply next year, if still interested. We randomly select students to go on the trip from those who paid the deposit. Then we send out letters letting the successful students know and the students who were not picked are sent letters informing them they are on the reserve list.

In the case of the Iceland trip, the travel agent is usually able to offer more flexibility and, if necessary, we can look to put on multiple trips, where possible, in order to limit disappointment. In 2023 we ran two trips and in 2025 we will again be taking 90 students to Iceland over two trips. When we run multiple trips, we are effectively stepping back to the start of the article and arranging a second, new trip from the beginning! The travel agent will need to start a second quote and rebook accommodation and the activities, we will need to book coaches and check the dates etc. From this point forward the work for the trip effectively doubles as all the following steps need to be done twice! Doubling up the trip is no small undertaking, but it is worth it as students get such a fantastic experience in Iceland - a place which most of them would not be able to visit otherwise. Unlike the Ski Trip, the Iceland trip is only open to Year 11 Geography students (launched in Year 10), so there is no opportunity to apply again next year.

Getting the details right

For the next few months, the school’s brilliant Finance Team take over much of the day to day admin of the trips, chasing any missed payments, paying invoices and passing to me details of any students who decide to drop out so I can see if a replacement can be found (to avoid parents losing the money which they have already paid). This makes running trips much more manageable for teachers as it means that my attention can be focused on finalising the itinerary with the travel agent and collecting students’ passport details. We send out online forms to collect the passport details via email. Usually, we get most in straight away, but there are always a few students who are waiting on a replacement or whose parents didn’t see the email. Once these details are collected, they need to be sent the travel agent and passed on to the airline. Often, a few students will be traveling on a foreign passport, which may require additional checks to make sure they are able to check in with everyone else.

During this time, we also collect dietary and medical information. Of course, the school already has this, but we need to know that we have the most up to date information, so we collect it and cross reference with the details we have on file to make sure we’re not missing anything.

Two to three months before departure, the last invoice is due to the travel company and the final payments have been paid by parents/carer. We move into the final, most exciting stages of the trip organisation.

A month or so before departure

We use the ‘Evolve’ online health and safety platform to complete and process all our risk assessments. Once we have all students’ medical information and the full itinerary, we’re able to identify risks and mitigations for the trip. This risk assessment is signed off by me, as the trip leader, and then read by all staff members on the trip. Once this has been approved, we arrange the information evening for the students and parents/carers where we go through the itinerary, discuss kit lists/packing and logistics and students and parents/carers sign a variety of documents relating to medical issues and expected conduct on the trip. We put students in travel groups, each assigned a member of staff to help us track the students through security and make sure that staff all have access to the specific needs of the students on the trip. In the case of the Ski Trip, we also put students into groups based on their skiing ability.

About a week before the trips, we are given rooming details from the hotel and we arrange with the students at a separate meeting who the students are staying with. Then, finally, well over a year after we started, we’re ready to depart!

Throughout the entire process the key is communication. Thankfully, email makes this extremely easy and for the vast majority the organisation of trips is straightforward and as easy as it can be. However, every trip is unique and brings about its own challenges - whether that’s having to re-plan your trip because of an unexpected volcano, or a replacement passport taking six weeks longer than expected and only just arriving it time…. and that’s before we even set off!

Please note that some of the specific information in this blog pertains to the Ski Trip / Geography Trip to Iceland in particular. Different arrangements may apply to some aspects of the organisation of other residential trips.