Teacher talk: a true champion of educational visits

What did it mean to be named School Trip Champion?

Winning the School Trip Champion award is a real honour. For me, it recognises something I’ve always believed in; that learning shouldn’t be confined to the classroom. Taking students out into the wider world, whether to a museum, a battlefield site, a theatre or for a STEM experience, gives them chances to grow in confidence, broaden their horizons and discover passions they didn’t know they had.

This award isn’t really about me; it’s about our students at LIFT Tendring. They’re the ones who turn every trip into something memorable with their curiosity, enthusiasm and sense of adventure. If anything, this recognition shines a light on their personal growth and achievements and reminds me how valuable these experiences are in shaping them as young people.

I could not have achieved so much in such a short space of time without the help of my colleague, Craig Pryer. I come up with a lot of the ideas, but he does a lot of the administrative work to put the trip together. He’s the unsung hero.

We are both incredibly proud of what we have created at the school and I’m excited to keep creating opportunities that help our students step beyond their comfort zones and see the world differently.

How long have you been working as a teacher and when did you start organising educational visits?

I’ve been a teacher for 13 or 14 years and I’m in my fifth year at LIFT Tendring. I had organised trips at my previous schools, including sports trips and ski trips, and when I came here just after the pandemic I realised there weren’t any trips at all because the pandemic had killed off the educational visits programme.

I wanted to change that and within a year we took a group of 65 pupils to Munich and Nuremberg and were able to demonstrate to the school and other teachers that you could travel safely. After that it really started to fly.

Could you give us a little flavour of some of the places you’re going this year?

We look for the widest variety of trips. We take a group of girls to Sizewell C where they are able to meet all female engineers and physicists. We have a STEM trip to Motor Valley in Bologna where the kids will visit Ferrari, Ducati and a couple of other auto companies. I am also taking a group to Auschwitz in November as part of our history curriculum. In July we take a group of 45 Year 7s to sleep in a nuclear bunker and on top of that they do a wild forestry course with high ropes and low ropes. We take groups of pupils to the West End twice a year and the number of kids that apply for tickets is phenomenal. There are 130 pupils going to watch Hamilton in June.

We have two members of staff looking to take a small group of students to the British Grand Prix this year. It’s the first time we’ve done this trip and it will tie in with the other motorsports trips like the Williams Engineering Centre.

How do you help other subject teachers? Are there any challenges that come with that?

There were staff who had been teaching for ten years but had never organised a trip themselves. Often, they don’t have the confidence. I begin by bringing them on trips with me, both day trips and UK residentials and that helps to build their confidence and they will then go on an overseas visit. I give them the responsibility of having a go at organising the trip for next year. I’ll sit with them through the entire process, including looking at all the paperwork and the documents.

They keep me in the loop and when I’m able to, I sit down and have a chat with them to see how they’re getting on. It is about passing on my knowledge and confidence to other staff.

“Plan, Plan, Plan! Put all your effort into the planning stage because if you do that right you will find that everything else falls into place.”

How did you develop your fully-funded trips and are they aimed at particular pupils?  

It has been a case of spending a lot of time looking for opportunities that cost very little or nothing at all. I looked up places that we can visit for free and the best example is the Williams Engineering Centre in Oxfordshire.

They offer fully-funded trips and that covers everything including transport, which means I can take the kids that wouldn’t normally be able to afford that sort of experience. Another example is Parliament. If you use the school minibus it becomes basically free of charge.

Have you got any ideas for how you want to spend the £2k prize money you won?

Craig and I want to take our most disadvantaged pupils on the biggest trip possible using the school minibus and give them as many experiences as possible. We would like to take them to the Isle of Wight or Cornwall for three or four days where they can go to an activity centre and learn how to surf and go to Land’s End or the Eden Project if we’re in Cornwall.