Subject Based School Tours

tipperaryjim

Hi All,

I have been hearing a lot of colleagues speaking recently about taking students abroad on school tours that could potentially be linked back into the curriculum. Just wondering if anyone has had any experience in this and how the tour went?

I am a young English and Geography teacher and the possibilities are great. Any suggestions would be extremely welcome!

It would be great if anyone has any advice/feedback relating to this and any companies that they used to organise the tours. Additionally, do you think that a subject based tour would be more likely to get approval and would students/parents be more likely to partake in the tour as my school currently takes a number of tours abroad.

Many thanks for your advice in advance,

Regards,

James.:)

ulysses32

I think a trip to London could tie in very well with English and Art for instance.

Imagine a trip to the globe to see Hamlet followed by a walking tour of the London galleries.

I would imagine such trips would receive the general support of all. It certainly seems more educational than skiing or euro-disney!

rainbowtrout

London works very well for a school tour. You are supposed to be able to link the school tour back to the curriculum, it's not supposed to be a holiday. I know there's some form we have to fill in detailing our itinerary and how it's related to the curriculum... Anyway, there's plenty of educational stuff in London, Natural History Museum, Tate Modern, take the group to see a Shakespeare play as was suggested above (that's what the English teacher did in my school this year), we also went to see the Queen musical a couple of years ago because Bohmeian Rhapsody is on the LC Music course. Of course you can give them time to do other stuff, like bring them on an open top bus tour, give them some time to shop, but there's loads of interesting educational stuff to do.

The two main companies are Budget School Tours and NST

www.budgetschooltours.ie
www.nst.ie

I've organised tours with both and it's worked out fine.

spurious

I organise a Krakow trip every year for my kids. It's mainly aimed at Environmental and Social Studies for the JC, but sometimes I take History students too (JC and LC).

Day 1.
Fly from Dublin - Aer Lingus. Arrive just before lunch.
Short trip round Rynek Glowny (sometimes Wawel Castle too), shopping in Galeria Krakowska followed by a trip to Park Wodny (Water park)
Day 2.
Tour of Auschwitz/Birkenau Memorial and Museum
Tour of Wieliczka Salt mines
Bowling at Fantasy Park.
Day 3.
Fly home in the morning.

I organise it myself. We have a regular driver from http://www.transall.pl/ who picks us up at the airport and drives us everywhere we want to go. We stay in Brama Hostel which while by no means the cheapest, includes breakfast and is in a great location by the Florianska gate (over Mc Donalds!). I like it because it's safe for the kids and doesn't have stag parties in it.
The total cost is usually around the €250 per person mark. Sometimes that leaves money over for a small meal somewhere. Myself and any accompanying teachers pay full price.

I decided to organise it myself following some horrendous quotes from travel companies. If you'd like any assistance organising something similar, PM me.

tipperaryjim

Many thanks for all of the replies to the post. I guess my only concern with organising the tour abroad myself is the safety aspect, particularly with no experience in doing it before.

I have heard that some of the companies out there have pretty good safety programmes which check out every element of the tour to make sure accommodation and transport providers are of an acceptable standard.

Has anyone had any experience with any of the travel companies that organise tours? I really don't think that paying an extra little bit would be much of an issue in order to be reassured that there is a supportive and capable company backing us up all the way.

Thanks in advance,

Jim!:)

kob29

JJ Kavanagh bus co. does school tours- http://www.kavanaghtravel.com/index_schools.html

I know of several schools that have taken groups away and had no problems. Id imagine the biggest problem in doing something like that this year will be funding it.

kob29

here is a link that might be of interest
http://www.rte.ie/travel/nofrontiers/20090607.html