Education Business

Traditionally school trips were organised by teachers who were motivated by the desire to widen their charges’ horizons. By booking cheap accommodation, hiring coaches and minibuses and generally doing everything themselves, prices were kept low. Fond memories of cold tents, spartan hostels and dodgy coaches remain for those of us old enough to have experienced them.
    
As teachers’ horizons widened a new breed of travel companies and purpose built activity centres came along, often founded by the very teachers who organised tours themselves, specialising in providing tailor-made school trips.
    
Today, how does DIY compare to tailor-made and what implications do they have for teachers and their employers?

Learning outcomes
The entire reason for school trips is for the pupils to undertake some form of learning experience, and the movement away from simple ‘holidays’ is consistent and supported by the majority. This doesn’t mean the old-style benefits are lost, learning objectives can legitimately be measured against the curriculum or in terms of social and personal achievement.
    
It may sound obvious, but enabling learning is what teachers do and they are best to do it. It’s a common complaint about how many tasks and duties take teachers away from it. School trips are no exception, because the organisation of the ‘nuts and bolts’ of a trip takes somebody’s time. DIY comes second best to tailor-made in ensuring leaders can concentrate on what they do best and what is most important.

Liability
Unnecessary worries about a teacher’s liability are diminishing following work and support by many stakeholders, the recent Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto continues that support. However, for this comparison it is worth restating who is responsible for what.
    
When teachers organise a tour, they or their employers are responsible. Where an employee is following their employer’s guidelines they are protected by vicarious liability, which means their employers are responsible for their actions.
    
The individual suppliers of the components of the tour (hotel, transport etc) are of course responsible for the delivery of what is in the contract, but one has to be realistic, particularly if travelling outside the UK, about the degree of protection this provides.
    
UK law, however, works to the consumer’s benefit when they contract a package from one company. The Package Travel Regulations 1992 mean companies that provide a package are fully responsible and liable in UK courts for the contents of what they supply, including the performance and health and safety of any individual suppliers, including those outside the UK.
    
Schools still need to be duly diligent in their choice of travel company, but it does mean it’s possible to delegate a substantial amount of responsibility and manage liability better with the tailor-made option.

Health & safety management
When a trip is organised, somebody has the responsibility of assessing how well hotels, transport and excursions match current good safety practice and meet the needs of school groups. Given that worldwide, and even throughout Europe, there are no consistent sets of safety standards and no guarantees that local standards are being met, this is not an inconsequential consideration.
    
Recent research in the United States showed one in eight hotels had a fire at some time last year, confirming the need to properly consider safety management.
    
On DIY tours this responsibility lies with the teacher or school, if tailor-made your travel company has to do them.

Financial security
One of the inescapable considerations is to protect the, often considerable, amounts of pupils’ money paid out as deposits. Services booked direct, such as flights or accommodation may not include any financial protection and there is no causal link, which means if one part cancels or fails, the organiser is left to sort out the mess.
    
The same Package Travel Regulations require travel companies offering a package to have a means in place to protect clients’ deposits. Unfortunately, the application of this regulation is fraught with difficulty and it is failing to deliver the complete consumer protection intended. However, one long-standing means of financial protection has an excellent record. Where companies are bonded or licensed, for example under the ABTA or ATOL schemes, consumers can have confidence that their moneys are protected.
    
Importantly, it is a travel company’s responsibility to sort out any difficulties caused by an individual supplier failure. Again the DIY approach comes out second best to delegating this to tailor-made.

Cost to parents
Historically, school trips were sometimes a substitute for family holidays and the first thing on a school’s mind was keeping the cost down, a consideration that led in part to subsidised Local Authority provision at outdoor centres. Times change and school trips change, whilst the LA centres still provide a valuable service, for that to be the only choice is limiting.
    
Price is now much less of an issue and, for the majority, family holidays are a matter of course. In tandem parents and pupils have become more demanding of school trips, particularly as the pupils moves up through the school years. Better quality, more widespread experiences and high safety management is being demanded. Cheap and cheerful still has its place, but the growth of school trips to once exotic destinations, such as the USA, China, Russia and South America, is evidence that it is value not price that’s important.
    
In DIY tours, we should remember that much of the organisational costs and background checks (such as those discussed in previous sections) are effectively subsidised by schools in terms of time spent, or worryingly not done. This cost is therefore hidden and DIY may offer the cheapest headline price. However, it is questionable if DIY tours are best value in a world where cash rich/time poor is the real situation.

Choice
Teachers naturally want their tour meet their objectives, travel during their time constraints and match their individual group’s needs. It is tempting to think that such specific needs cannot be found off the shelf. However, with the significant experience that now exists in third party suppliers, which are highly attuned to the needs of their school clients, it is highly unlikely that even the most specialist or demanding itinerary cannot be contracted out at least in part. The range of provision is comprehensive and imaginative. Tailor-made doesn’t mean having to constrict the trip to an off the shelf package.
    
Despite the conclusion from the discussion, DIY tours are not dead, far from it. The latest work currently being undertaken by Price Waterhouse Coopers for the DCSF to develop the Manifesto commitment for safety and quality badges, enabling simple identification of reputable suppliers, two ‘routes’ have been identified:

• Route 1 – low risk visits: museums, galleries, concerts etc. These typically are where authority to travel is already held within the school.
• Route 2 – higher risk: adventurous activities, residentials, trips abroad, expeditions etc, which already need escalating to Local Authorities for permission.    
  

The former is seen suitable for DIY tours and the work is to make organisation as simple and effective as possible. For the latter, this is where the additional expertise of contracting in outside experts really starts to provide benefits and the badge scheme will look to verify providers of packages, maximising the ease of organisation and delegating appropriate responsibilities.
    
In advance of the Route 2 badge schemes being announced (September/October 2008) and rolled out (January 2009), teachers and schools can have the confidence that existing well known schemes, such as the School Travel Forum Assured Membership, have formed the backbone of the development work, meaning you can save time, manage responsibilities and tailor – make your school trip with confidence.

Ian Pearson
Ian Pearson is the Development Officer for the School Travel Forum. He is a qualified Health & Safety Manager with over 15 years’ experience in school travel and has been closely involved in pioneering safety management systems for educational travel companies.
   
His emphasis is on identifying simple practical steps that can be taken to ensure everybody can follow good practice.

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