It goes without saying that trips for students can be extremely rewarding and can introduce new ways of learning that you just cannot get in a classroom. But why is it that, the idea of organising a trip can spark the sense of dread in the trip organisers heart, why does organising a trip automatically feel like you have committed to 10’s if not 100+ hours of your life to pull everything together?
Could it be the process of organising trips is harder than it should be? Take a look at some key signs of problems in your trip management process.
- Are you documenting your Initial Authorisation Process?
First, do you know what your initial authorisation process is? When we talk to customers, they first say they don't have one, but then when you discuss it further, they have a very informal process of a chat in a staff room, or a quick email.
Give your group leaders a process to request and get confirmation with an initial authorisation. This gives confirmation that the trip has been signed off by your SLT, plus gives the SLT the opportunity to have input on the trip if they require.
- Does requesting authorisation for a trip take longer than 10 minutes?
From deciding to run a trip, to submitting the first form to request permission to run the trip, how long does it currently take your teaching staff? This could include, finding the right form(s) or system, knowing the 1, 2 or more people they need to request permission from then getting the request in front of them and know what information they need to provide.
In a world where you can book a holiday in 20 minutes, buy a car in 15 minutes or order a repeat takeaway order to your door in under than 2 minutes, you should be able to submit a simple form in a few minutes! You likely have guides and processes around who can authorise different types of trips already, you should be able to automate the process so the who and how the form gets submitted does not require the trip organiser to know up front, they can focus on the quality and purpose of the trip and trust you have an automated process to handle the submission.
This could be a simple email distribution group so the request gets emailed to “[email protected]” or could be a more sophisticated solution like eduTrips. Either way, don’t put the burden on the trip organiser to root around for your procedure document every time they want to request authorisation for a trip. And please, don’t make them print it out!
- How easily can the trip organiser select the students going on the trip?
Throughout their education life, students are grouped into classes, forms, courses, etc…, make sure when selecting your students to go on a trip, your trip organisers can identify them that way. Much easier to select 10F and ‘select all’ then have to select each student individually from a list of hundreds.
You likely already have a system that holds all your student data (such as SIMS or Pro Solution etc…), just make sure that however you manage your trip participants, it is directly pulling the student data and groups from that.
- Please tell me you are not still sending out paper authorisation forms?
We are fast approaching 2020, in most cases, your students and their parents/guardians will have devices to access forms online. There are definitely cases where this is not true, and any process or system you have should handle that, but you should be sending as many consent forms as possible electronically.
Using an electronic system such as email or SMS will allow you to send out requests to the whole group in a matter of minutes, it will save you paper and help with the ‘lost paperwork on the way home’ problem you inevitably get. And even more impressive is that you can see consent coming back within minutes. Linking this to point 2 above, selecting your student from your MIS and sending the consent form digitally should make the whole process take less than 10 minutes.
- Does the thought of completing a risk assessment make you shudder!
Nobody likes to fill in a risk assessment! OK, that is not exactly true, but it is a common point of pain when talking to trip organisers. But they don’t have to be.
Giving trip organisers easy access to your trip templates (especially if they are specific to the type of trip they are running), and allowing them to access previously completed forms for reference will make their lives much easier. For bonus points, having a process in place so completed forms are automatically submitted for signing off by your Health & Safety officer will save them time tracking down the right person for signoff and let them continue planning the trip.
- How much of this information can be accessed while traveling without having to print it all beforehand?
Gone are the days of carrying large ring binders of student details, itineraries, contact forms and any other details for ‘just in case’. We all carry around with us powerful computers in our pockets and if not group leaders can be issued with one.
Having access to all the data while traveling, stops the group leader worrying about which bits of information to take and which to leave behind. As they are planning the trip beforehand, they know they can access all of the information again on the trip. Plus the leadership team back at your school or college has access to all the same information if needed. Make sure all your information can be accessed on the go digitally, this could be as simple as saving a few PDF documents onto the device or having access to a system like eduTrips mobile phone version.
As you can see, many of these solutions are taking away the need for the trip organiser to understand every process and procedure your school or college has. Automate as much as possible and let the systems you have to do the routing of information when needed. They do not need to know that a day trip to a museum has a different authorisation process to a residential and adventurous activity. They just need to be reassured that by submitting the request that matches their trip type, it will automatically be sent to the right people and they can track it from the comfort of their own phone.
These are just a few warning signs that your trip management process might need improving. We would love to hear your take on this topic. eduTrips has spent years perfecting their software to solve many of these problems, sign up for a free trial today to see how it could help you.