I appeared (December 19th 2024) on Talk TV talking about a disastrous school trip which happened in 2017, but which has only just been adjudicated upon by the Teaching Regulation Agency. A headteacher has been struck off, and banned from teaching for five years because she was negligent in her duties when taking teenagers on a skiing trip to Switzerland. A disciplinary panel heard that on this trip, pupils drank alcohol, carried knives and had sex, and an adult shared a room with a pupil.
I spoke to Mike Graham on Talk TV about this and explained that it is a rare occurence, because most teachers are very safety conscious indeed now when going on school trips. There are many safeguarding protocols in place to stop the kinds of misbehaviour like this from happening.
But why do things go wrong on school trips?
ONE: Accidents
Accidents do happen. It appears in some cases, pupils can get into difficulties unexpectedly such as swimming or doing moderately risk activities. For example, children have died in accidents connected with the sea, such as the one that happened in West Wittering some years ago where a pupil died swimming. In another famous case, known as the Land’s End Disaster, on May 6 1985, four pupils from Stoke Poges School drowned after they were swept out to sea while playing on the beach. A verdict of misadventure was given in an inquest. In other words, it was judged to be a freak accident with pupils being dragged out to sea by unusually large waves.
Land’s End, Cornwall, UK, where 4 children tragically died in 1985 on a school trip
However, a private inquiry was critical of the headteacher. The incident led to guidelines been set up by the government for school trips. Regulations were further tightened some years ago, with the latest government legislation around school trips being quite stringent. This said, things have been made easier for schools because they can use the services of organisations which hold a badge of quality from the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom.
TWO: Inadequate risk management
The headteacher of the AP school who was sacked for negligence clearly did not manage the risks involved, to say the least. While it can be quite bureaucratic to carry out a risk assessment for school trips — I did enough of them in my time — they are useful in order to think through what might happen, and to mitigate against the risks. For example, the Land’s End Disaster clearly would not have happened if the headteacher had not allowed the children to play ‘dodge the spray’ in an area where the waves could be dangerous. Other things like not driving when you’re tired, and taking breaks while driving could have avoided other tragic accidents.