Taking young people abroad is, of course, both a great pleasure and a significant responsibility: for that reason, I would advise a young teacher to accompany one or two trips before organising or agreeing to front their own expedition.
A number of dedicated companies exist, all of which can suggest or tailor a trip to your needs: see, for example, Hellene School Travel. Canvas opinions on the Classics Library or Quinquennium and choose carefully: there’s a huge amount of experience lurking around!
Preparation Is Everything
Prepare from at least six months in advance and advertise your trip extensively from the start. Use your colleagues to make those all-important cross-curricular links: try to team up with the RS / geography / MFl department to expand your numbers.
Parent Power
Keep parents in the loop with frequent updates and a clear timetable for forms / payments / meetings. Ensure that there is then a more detailed meeting where parents can ask those niggling little questions!
You Can Never Be Too Careful
Ask the school bursary to look after the finances and check where you stand on insurance – the travel company will also have its own. Plan the itinerary and timings very carefully, and be prepared to negotiate with the company: don’t be afraid to change or add what you require – make the trip your own!
Brush Up!
One staff member should be an encyclopaedia of information on the sites to be visited. Large sites can be intimidating and need special planning – for example, do not try to see everything at either Olympia or Pompeii! You could also make great use of Gill Greef’s very useful booklets, in case your department are relative newcomers.
Keep Them Busy …
Make sure that you lay the groundwork for the trip. In the eight school weeks beforehand, the pupils should have been introduced to the cities and sites that they are about to encounter. The pupils should have completed worksheets / projects in advance – they can then fill in simpler, tickbox-style sheets at specific sites to consolidate knowledge.
… But Strike The Right Balance!
A proper balance of free time and staff supervision on the ground is crucial. Staff should study and familiarise themselves with the environs of hotels (on Google Maps/Earth) beforehand: pupils will tend to see your trip as a ‘holiday’ and may let their guard down, so establish clear curfew and group travel rules early on.
Back To Duolingo
One staff member should be proficient in at least basic Italian/Greek: countless little misunderstandings and small problems can be thus smoothed away by a linguistically capable staff member, so, if your department haven’t got a GCSE between them, it might be time to knock on MFL’s door! On a similar note, take more than the legal minimum of teachers/supervising staff, if possible: you never know when a spare pair of hands will come in useful, and it’s definitely a case of ‘many hands make light work’!
What would you add? Do you have any memories of particularly successful trips? Comment below!
Great tips here. One thing I’ve done in the past that worked really well is getting the pupils to prepare short presentations on the different places / monuments on the trip. Make a list of it all and ask pupils/pairs to choose what they want to research and talk about. This takes the onus off the teacher a bit but, more importantly, allows pupils to engage with what they’re seeing. The pupils feel authoritative and proud of their research and the others enjoy listening to them more than the monotony of teachers (sad but true).
One of my colleagues always reckoned that it was important for the leader to see something they hadn’t seen before. It really makes a difference when the leader is excited by what they see – students don’t expect teachers ever to be excited! I’m glad to see my guidebooks mentioned – they’re still available (and I’ve just sold my first copy this financial year so perhaps there is light at the end of the tunnel).
Thanks, Gill (!) With two or three years between trips, I found that there was usually something quite new to see or visit ; those going to Greece, for instance, should make some time (about 90 minutes) for Nemea, which is not far from Corinth or Mycenae. The stadium there is quite something and you’ll usually have the place to yourself.