What key factors should teachers consider when planning a school excursion – or incursion – to maximise its educational value and minimise logistical challenges?
Planning a school excursion can often be a complex undertaking, co-ordinating with venues, transport, parents, and school administration.
Despite this, research suggests school excursions (or learning outside the classroom) can be a valuable learning experience for students, helping them develop social skills, curiosity, and emotional resilience by creating a sense of connection to their community.
School excursions can provide students with practical knowledge and experience that they can’t get from textbooks, exposing them to new places and cultures, and the opportunity to interact with the ‘real world’.
Moreover, excursions can create positive memories that can inspire students to continue learning and exploring and provide a break from the everyday routine of school life.
What to consider
Planning a school excursion typically involves defining the purpose, securing approval, and creating a detailed itinerary. It’s important to consider safety and accessibility, and to communicate with parents and students.
Dr Hugh Gundlach, from the Faculty of Education at The University of Melbourne, was a classroom teacher for seven years, including during COVID when educators had to rethink excursions. He is now a teacher-educator instructing best practice for excursions.
“Nearly all teachers go on excursions, but it is rarely explicitly taught in university training,” says Dr Gundlach, who has filled the gap by developing course materials for teachers-in-training at The University of Melbourne.
“My course materials cover physical, financial, instructional, and social considerations, and content and format. I also discuss the costs and benefits of excursions in the modern age when there is so much policy and risk consideration.”
Dr Gundlach says one of the first points to consider is whether the excursion is going to provide a high experiential quality.
“Is it worth physically going somewhere because it’s going to be visually stimulating, or will students get to experience something they can’t get from looking at a video on the internet or from high quality resources online?” he says.
“Because, depending on how many students you have, not every student necessarily gets the full benefit of an excursion. Imagine visiting a museum where only one student is chosen to wear a historical costume or take part in the demonstrated activity, while the rest merely observe from the audience—it would be no more engaging for them than watching a video.”
Value for money is also an important element to weigh up, Dr Gundlach says, especially in terms of logistics.
“If you have to drive a long way to get somewhere, there’s often very little time to do what you plan to do, once the necessities like safety briefings and time for lunch are factored in.
“Also, in terms of transportation and the number of students, excursions are not linear in their costs. For example, you might have to book a 50-seat bus although you only have 25 students, or you have 55 students and have no option but to book two 50-seat busses. That’s going to be problematic, in terms of cost.”
The legalities of student-teacher ratios can also be difficult to manage but can’t be overlooked.
“When you’re filling out the paperwork, as a teacher, no one necessarily reminds you of the legal liability of supervision numbers and even the skillset of which staff are going,” Dr Gundlach says.
“Imagine an excursion to an alpine resort where the person who is organising it has all the knowledge of outdoor education, first aid, who the students are, and what they’re meant to be doing. If a student is injured while skiing, that lead teacher is taken out of the equation to attend to the injured student, and you’re left with less experienced teachers trying to run the excursion in their place.”
The format of an excursion can also affect the level of engagement among students, and needs to be factored into planning, alongside elements like the weather.
“Is it going to be run by external staff, or do school staff need to create the content? Is it current, accurate and realistic for the type of learning that you want? If it is in the hands of external providers, is the language and content going to be relevant and engaging for students? These are the types of questions teachers need to ask,” Dr Gundlach says.
“I once had an amazing experience on an excursion to a location in Port Melbourne where the education officer was a former school teacher. Although the excursion was a bus tour of the location, it was so engaging, and a good option in winter, because you don’t get off the bus; you stay dry, and you see everything.”
Dr Gundlach says it pays to think outside the box for excursions as some providers can be very popular, especially at certain times of the year, making it difficult to book. Others can have restrictive opening and closing hours, or limited parking.
“In one school I taught in, we walked to the local DFO, or Direct Factory Outlet, for a commerce-related excursion. I created resources for the excursion, so students had their own worksheets, and that’s all they needed. It was a cost-effective way for them to gain some real-world understanding of business and commerce,” he says.
Teachers also need to consider whether the excursion accounts for diversity in student ability in terms of their learning needs.
“If an excursion involves listening to a speaker for an extended period, consider students’ different language ability or literacy, working memory, and general maturity.
“A large group of students can clog up a museum or gallery so having smaller groups rotating through the space can be better for the instructional side of the excursion.”
Learning can also continue after the excursion with follow-up worksheets or activities back in the classroom.
Dr Gundlach also recommends teachers ask providers questions about whether activities are free, subsidised or require an extra payment, how scalable the costs are, and whether there are fixed or variable costs based on how many students and staff participate.
“Anecdotally, some government schools have decreased their number of excursions because of the costs of having to replace the staff back at school. Alternatively, incursions, where you pay one person from an organisation to come to the school, can be a better use of funds, and you have more control of the environment,” he says.
He recalls a Zoom-based incursion with an external provider on a farm, which allowed students to engage in a live question-and-answer session with a presenter while they walked around the farm, showing the animals.
“The students found it quite satisfying. It carried none of the risks of students being in close proximity to animals, yet they were able to see the animals and ask all sorts of questions.”
Thinking outside the box has also led to other successful incursions during his time in the classroom.
“On one occasion, we were looking at taking students on excursion to a museum in Melbourne, but it was proving to be nearly impossible to get there and back in school hours,” Dr Gundlach recalls.
“However, it offered an amazing online virtual museum, where you can walk around the exhibits, click on everything, read everything, and all the students in a whole year level can be in the museum at once, whereas if you went in person, it would be very crowded.”
Top tips for planning a school excursion:
- Define the purpose: Consider what you want students to learn or experience.
- Get approval: Get approval from the school administration and any relevant authorities.
- Set a budget: Consider the cost of transportation, food, and any other expenses.
- Choose a destination: Consider the age, interests, and abilities of your students.
- Plan the itinerary: Include arrival and departure times, activities, and meal times.
- Arrange transportation: Decide how to get to the destination, such as by bus, plane, or school transport.
- Consider accommodation: If the excursion is overnight, arrange accommodation for the students.
- Conduct a risk assessment: Consider safety and emergency procedures, and make sure the venue is accessible for all students.
- Communicate with parents and students: Hold an information evening to answer questions and get an idea of how many students are interested.
