You might be thinking about DIYing your next school trip. Here’s why that would be a bad idea.
With the cost of school trips rising, we know more teachers are trying to arrange trips themselves to save money. And you might.
But there are some really compelling reasons to use a school tour operator (we know we’re biased, but these are actually really worth considering carefully).
- To protect yourself and your group
- To make the process less stressful and redress your work/life balance
- To access great learning support that’ll make your trip even more educational
- To get expert advice on getting the most out of your trip
- To enjoy expert support throughout the process
- To make sure you’re getting value for money
Protect yourself and your group
The number one reason to book with a specialist school tour operator is to make sure your group is covered if something goes wrong.
If you arranged the trip completely by yourself and ‘sold’ it to parents with two or more elements (i.e. travel and accommodation), your school would then be bound by Package Travel Regulations.
Among other things, this would mean that you’d have to provide parents with a full refund if the trip was cancelled or significantly altered (regardless of whether suppliers can refund you).
Using a tour operator passes this responsibility on to them.
Added to this, a specialist school tour operator should be fully accredited, with things like ABTA and ATOL bonds. This provides additional financial protection, with the relevant body stepping in and ensuring you can carry on your trip or have a full refund if the tour operator fails.
ABTA in particular requires members to adhere to a strict code of conduct. So, if your tour operator is an ABTA member (like we are), you know you’ll be treated fairly.
You could also look for accreditations like School Travel Forum (STF) membership and the Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge. These accreditations are your reassurance that your chosen tour operator understands that your needs as a school group are actually very different to other groups.
For example, STF membership means the tour operator will have a robust Safety Management System in place. And the LOtC Quality Badge means you can be sure you’ll receive the quality of tour that’s been advertised.
It won’t surprise you to learn that Halsbury holds all these accreditations and more.
Make the process less stressful and redress your work/life balance
School trips are life-changing experiences for students, but they don’t have to consume your life.
Using a school tour operator could significantly reduce your workload in terms of the trip.
How we hear you ask. Well, if your school trip company’s a member of the STF (like us), they’ll have a Safety Management System, which you can use as part of your risk assessment.
And if they also have an LOtC Quality Badge, you won’t need to seek further assurance that they’re offering the quality of tour advertised.
Holding both of these accreditations basically means the operator (and its safety and quality standards) have been inspected and accredited to an appropriate level.
Of course, we have all of these accreditations.
And this is our day job. We literally arrange school trips each and every day. That means we can guide you through the process, so you don’t spend time worrying about what’s next, or stressing out about missing something.
And we’ve got loads of linguists on our time, so we can talk to suppliers in their own language (so you don’t have to worry about any crossed wires caused by language barriers).
If you’re arranging a school music tour, have you thought about how you’re going to make sure your ensemble have an audience to perform to? A specialist school tour operator like Halsbury will sort all that out for you, promoting your concerts in-resort before you even get there. That way, you can relax and focus on getting your students performance ready, rather than wasting your time with potentially ineffective concert promotion from abroad.
And if you’re arranging a school sports tour, how are you going to make sure your team have opposition of the right standard? A specialist school trip company like Halsbury’s going to have local contacts in the destinations they travel to, so you know your students will benefit from the fixtures. And you won’t spend weeks of your time trying to sort this out yourself.
Access great learning support that'll make your trip even more educational
Well-established school tour operators have strong links with local experts who can use their expertise to enhance the educational value of your trip.
On a language trip, for example, you might want to add lessons at a specialist language school. These lessons will be taught by fully-qualified native speakers (and you can agree the content with them in advance).
Or you could choose to add workshops, like cookery lessons, dance lessons or pretty much anything you can think of.
Your tour operator might also be able to provide you with workbooks to help keep your students on track (just ask your Tour Adviser or Itinerary Coordinator about ours).
Obviously, letting your tour operator take responsibility for these things means significantly reducing your workload, while still safe in the knowledge your students are really going to get the most out of their trip.
Receive expert advice on getting the most out of your trip
As we touched on earlier in this article, school tour operators spend all day every day organising trips. And here at Halsbury, that’s been the case for nearly 40 years.
We’ve literally seen it all. We know our destinations inside out and we’ve got great relationships with local suppliers.
So, use us. Bounce your ideas off us, ask us for advice and let’s work together to make your trip the best experience possible for everyone.
Enjoy expert support throughout the process
Probably the best thing about using a specialist school tour operator like Halsbury is the fact you won’t be on your own.
A good school tour operator will support you throughout the entire process, from your first enquiry to the moment you return home (and even beyond).
Find out how we’ll be with you every step of the way.
We’re not saying this to alarm you, but sometimes things do go wrong on school trips (as with any travel). But if you’ve done your due diligence and picked a specialist school tour operator with a proven track record of providing comprehensive support, you’ll be able to rely on them to sort things out for you.
Here at Halsbury, we’re not exaggerating when we say we think we’ve seen and sorted pretty much everything. We’ve had trips disrupted by storms and Icelandic volcanoes. We’ve had airlines cancel flights and lose a whole group’s luggage (with all their ski kit, no less). We’ve even had a group lose all their passports.
Solutions have included making alternative travel arrangements, sourcing ski gear for the whole group (they ended up not missing a single hour of skiing), and negotiating with immigration at Calais to let the group sans passports back into the country.
We’ve gone into greater detail in our ‘How We Deal With the Unexpected’ article, if you’re interested.
Value for money
Still thinking you’re going to risk it and arrange the trip yourself to save money?
It might work out a little bit cheaper (as long as everything goes as planned, of course).
But good school tour operators will have well-established links with suppliers, which may mean they have access to better rates.
And don’t forget, all the added protection, support and educational value that specialist school tour operators like Halsbury can offer may actually represent better value for money in the end.
Why not get in touch with us about your next trip and see what we can do for you? Request your no-strings-attached quote today.