Educational visits are activities arranged by or on behalf of the school, and take place outside the school grounds. The governors and teaching staff believe that off-site activities can supplement and enrich the curriculum of the school by providing experiences which would otherwise be impossible. All off-site activities must serve an educational purpose, enhancing and enriching our children’s learning experiences.

          The aims of our off-site visits are to:

• enhance curricular and recreational opportunities for our pupils;
• provide a wider range of experiences for our pupils than could be provided on the school site alone;
• promote the independence of our children as learners, and enable them to grow and develop in new learning environments.

These visits begin with excursions into the local area in the Early Years, and progress to a residential experience at the end of Key Stage 2.

          Residential activities

Children in Year 5 and 6 have the opportunity to take part in two residential visits. These visits enables children to learn various skills, as well as take part in outdoor and adventure activities as part of their PE work. We undertake these visits only with the written agreement of the LA. We ensure that there are qualified instructors for all specialist activities that we undertake. We do make a charge for board and lodging, insurance and specialist instruction for certain activities.

          Transport

Transport arrangements will allow a seat for each member of the party. It is our policy only to use coaches fitted with seat belts, and to insist that they be worn by all those participating in the visit.

Where private cars are used for transport, the group leader is responsible for checking that the insurance of each driver covers such journeys, that the car being used has a valid MOT certificate and double-checking that each driver has been subject to the normal police checks. Checks must also be made on the driver’s licence with regard to recorded violations such as speeding convictions. This information needs to be taken into consideration when deciding whether or not to allow the driver to be used for a trip.

The school requests a voluntary contribution from parents if their children are transported by means of transport provided by the school. The contribution covers the expenses of the journey only; we do not make any profit from this.

For sporting activities, the cost of hiring a coach or mini bus may be paid for using the “Sports Premium Grant”.

Where possible, we make use of the school's minibus to transport groups of children to events and for educational visits.