Amanda and I have worked in the same department in two different schools, and I know first-hand how creative and innovative she is. Like her, I believe teaching is one of the most important jobs there is, and I am grateful to continue in the classroom this year alongside my new role with TripPA. However, from my own experience, I know the increasing workload placed upon teachers in the UK needs to be addressed. It’s unfortunate that this workload is a significant factor in the decreasing number of educational visits offered each year, and I am passionate about contributing to this project to help remedy these issues!
As I’m keen for my students to have access to great educational visits each year, I have run many school trips myself. As a Head of Music, I’ve led countless concert and performance trips, as well as music tours in the UK and abroad. In July, I organised a music tour for 60 secondary school pupils, taking the group to northern Italy for a week to perform a programme of concerts (and, of course, to enjoy the sunshine and gelato!). We all had an amazing time, but wow, was it hard work to organise and deliver! As my team of staff gathered at school for the departure, I looked with dismay at the size of the paper packs I was giving them, and with despair at the even larger, every-pocket-filled folder I had to carry myself.
I knew then and there that if I were running this trip in the future, I would have so many issues resolved by TripPA. Thankfully, our school trip management app is nearing completion and will be ready to use soon. So, I thought I would reflect on some moments during my trip when I longingly imagined how things would be so different with the TripPA trip management app on my phone!
- Lists of pupils: We were swimming in paper, juggling various lists of pupils, showing their groupings, room assignments, dietary requirements, information about learning and medical needs, emergency contact details, and more. The TripPA student manager will thankfully make it super easy to pull up the information you need with just a couple of taps, while keeping all that data secure.
- Sharing content with parents: In the run-up to the music tour, I lost count of the number of questions I fielded from parents! Understandably, parents want to see and hear what their children are up to when on a trip. Unfortunately, we had to make do with clunky processes of sharing media and pictures via the school email, which took a lot of time. TripPA’s Moments feature will provide parents with a secure, social-media-like platform through which they can quickly see posts shared by staff.
- Pre-trip approval: The laborious process of gaining EVC approval for the educational visit involved a whole series of back-and-forth emails and meetings, which could have been avoided with TripPA’s easy EVC approval feature. The EVC will be able to review and approve trip details with just a few clicks.
- Itinerary viewing: I found myself sharing the itinerary in various forms with the EVC, staff, parents, and pupils, which was time-consuming! Plus, getting the itinerary sheets out frequently during the trip was a little frustrating (especially on the rainy day!). TripPA’s itinerary feature will streamline all of this, allowing staff and parents to view trip schedules digitally, anytime.
- Expense management: We were lucky to have a budget for staff subsistence and some prizes and extras for the pupils, but the process of keeping receipts from all the staff and managing expenses took up too much brain space! TripPA will make this process effortless, with real-time expense tracking that the EVC and accounts department can access instantly.
- Registers: It’s that paper again…! Taking registers at key moments on a trip with 60 pupils could have been so much simpler with an online solution. TripPA will allow teachers to efficiently register pupils at a moment’s notice.
- Risk assessment: If there’s one task that takes more time than any other pre-trip, it’s this one. Risk assessments are not the most fun, but as we all know, they’re crucial for any educational visit. While sitting in front of multiple questionably formatted Excel spreadsheets, I was dreaming of TripPA’s future Risk Assessment function, which will simplify the process and ensure compliance. In the meantime, we’ve developed a Risk Assessment Generator for Excel which you can download and use for free by signing up here!
- Getting messages to staff and parents: Like most teachers, we had a staff WhatsApp group for the trip. While useful (and fun!), we had to be cautious about what was shared there, particularly when highlighting specific students. The TripPA messaging function will provide a secure way of communicating with staff during the trip, as well as enabling any necessary on-trip parental contact without the need for phone calls or emails.
While I loved the music tour I just ran, and I know the children did too, it certainly reminded me why teachers don’t always volunteer to run school trips anymore—it’s a lot of hoops to jump through to get to that reward! Luckily, by the time of my next music tour, I’ll have a powerful school trip management app to help me out, and I’m excited to help shape its development for all teachers.
