How we use school trips to develop our staff

As an academy we encourage staff to take trips at key times of the academic year to bolster the curriculum. School trips not only benefit students and their educational and personal development, but they also have a positive impact on staff.

We find that staff who go on trips are better able to communicate academic concepts when back in the classroom as they have experienced it first-hand. This is especially so for the creative subjects.

Ultimately, trips reinvigorate staff subject knowledge and provides inspiration that they enthusiastically bring back to school. 

For example; this academic year our music department worked alongside English National Opera which saw staff invited to performances, immersing them in music and performance.

Our art department has visited Tate Modern, Hayward Gallery and the Design Museum which provides renewed inspiration with every visit, particularly with modern techniques which helps them to support students with coursework.

For those academic departments that visit museums and institutions of learning, staff stay up to date with the latest developments, learning and discoveries. This is especially true of the sciences and medical studies. Last year a group of our sixth form physicists travelled to CERN, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research, putting them directly in the location so often discussed in their lessons.

We find that staff who go on trips are better able to communicate academic concepts when back in the classroom as they have experienced it first-hand.

Trips also provide staff with a change of environment in which to teach as well as bounce ideas off colleagues. It provides opportunities for self-discovery and development too as much as it does for our students. Staff who take residential trips to the great outdoors like Outward Bound or abroad, share a sense of pride in seeing students develop in those moments.

Ultimately, trips reinvigorate staff subject knowledge and provides inspiration that they enthusiastically bring back to school. They have renewed passion that translates back in the classroom that improves teaching and learning.