If there’s one thing that you surely have to manage year after year in your educational institution, it is undoubtedly the school trip, whether it’s for sixth grade, 4th year of ESO, or any other educational stage.

It’s something that excites the students a lot, and they eagerly wait for this moment to finally arrive. However, there is a lot of work behind organizing this school trip. It’s a process that is neither quick nor easy for the teachers who organize it: deciding on the destination, managing payments, communicating with families… A countless number of tasks need to be handled to ensure everything goes smoothly!

In this post, we’ll go over the keys to making the management and organization of a school trip a breeze. We’ll give some tips and show tools that will make your tasks much easier.

And if you’re interested in learning how to streamline other processes at your educational institution, we invite you to read about the admissions officer role or school duty management.

Challenges in Organizing a School Trip (and Similar Projects)

There’s no doubt that organizing a school trip is an exciting task, but it’s also complex. The teacher in charge of organizing it must pay attention to many details, planning and coordinating each one perfectly. So, let’s look at the main challenges faced by teachers and those responsible for organizing these activities:

1. Logistics and Coordination: When choosing a destination, you not only have to choose the location (which is probably the most exciting part), but also other aspects, such as transportation, accommodation, on-site activities, etc. Since it usually involves a large group, these details need to be carefully managed to avoid complications or last-minute changes.
2. Budget Management: When managing a school trip, it’s obvious that we can’t splurge. No matter how much we’d love to ignore the numbers, the reality is that we have to manage a budget, which can sometimes be tight. This requires precision and clear communication with families to ensure transparency about the total cost of the trip.
3. Time Management: Although planning a school trip can be fun, the reality is that these tasks need to be balanced with regular teaching duties. All these tasks can be overwhelming for the staff organizing the trip, so it’s important to clearly define tasks and responsibilities, ensuring an optimal distribution of work so that no one gets overloaded.
4. Communication: Another common challenge when planning and organizing a school trip is ensuring that everyone involved is properly informed of any developments. From families and students to other colleagues at the institution and external suppliers, it’s essential to ensure the smooth flow of information related to the trip. Additionally, the more scattered the information is (paper circulars, emails, etc.), the more likely it is that important information will be overlooked.

Keys to Success in Organizing the School Trip

The recipe for success lies in the elements we detail below. You’ll see how no school trip will be too much for you to handle!

1. Main Ingredient: Dividing Into Phases
   To ensure everything goes smoothly and nothing important is forgotten, it’s crucial to divide the organization of the school trip into several stages or phases. Doing so will help clarify everything, show which tasks depend on others, and set the necessary time frames to avoid rushing.

Using tools like Additio App’s project and incident module will help improve control and organization for projects like a school trip. It allows you to create phases, tasks (with deadlines), and assign responsibilities.

2. Perfect Side Dish: Task Distribution
As we mentioned earlier, a major challenge is that organizing a school trip can be overwhelming for the teachers in charge. Once you decide who will be responsible for organizing it, it’s essential to distribute the responsibilities fairly. This way, you’ll ensure that no one is overloaded with work.

3. And if it comes with time, even better.
The last ingredient for the perfect school trip is planning ahead. This allows you to find better deals and prices and avoid last-minute rushes that can lead to mistakes and complications.

Steps in Organizing a School Trip

Now that you know the basics for organizing a successful school trip, what steps should you follow to organize it from scratch? Let’s break it down into 8 steps.

1. Dividing into Phases and Setting Tasks: Using tools like Additio App’s project management module, you can easily create the phases and tasks for the school trip, keeping everything recorded and making necessary changes easily.

2. Selecting the Destination and Dates: In this phase, you can consult travel agencies that, based on the age and approximate number of students, can help guide you in choosing a destination. It’s also important to consider whether the trip will be recreational, cultural, natural, etc. In earlier stages (such as 6th grade), teachers will probably choose the destination. In later stages, such as 4th of ESO, students may be able to vote on their favorite destinations.

3. Establishing the Budget and Choosing an Agency: Once you have a couple of destinations in mind, it’s time to set a budget and ask for quotes from travel agencies that specialize in groups. Once you have all the information, you can choose the agency you’ll work with, considering the value for money and any other factors you deem important.

4. Constant Communication with Families: From the moment the trip is set in motion, it’s important to maintain constant communication with families. This likely involves in-person meetings, but tools like Edvoice make it easier than ever to share any information related to the trip.

You can create a specific communication channel for the trip, where you’ll share updates, send authorizations and forms that require digital signatures, and even allow families to chat privately with the organizers if they have any concerns about their children.

5. Fundraising Actions: To raise funds for the trip, you’ll likely need to organize some fundraising activities. It’s essential to decide which actions to take, what materials you’ll need, when to do them, etc.

Here are some ideas:

• Selling Christmas lottery tickets
• Musical bingo
• Selling roses for Sant Jordi (in Catalonia)
• Raffles
• Theater performances
• Flea markets

6. Explanatory Meetings with Families: Throughout the entire process of organizing the school trip, it’s crucial to have meetings with families to update them on any progress. They also need to be kept informed about payments that need to be made for the trip. To make this easy and quick, we propose two methods:

• If you use Additio App’s communication module, you can manage payments easily through the payment platform. This allows families to pay in a simple and intuitive way (even with cash) and gives the school a way to track unpaid amounts.
• With Additio App’s economic and administrative management module, you can also quickly invoice families for trip-related expenses. You can set up various payment methods (bank transfer, credit card, cash…) and even accept advance payments to cover costs.

7. Control of All Necessary Documentation: Before the trip, make sure you have all the necessary documentation in order, including the required travel insurance. Especially if the trip involves minors, you’ll also need the appropriate permissions to travel with them.

8. Let’s Go on the Trip!

And It’s Not Just for School Trips…

The module we’ve shown you for managing projects will help you with countless projects, not just school trips! Here are some examples of projects you can manage:

• Managing incidents at the institution
• Organizing open house events
• Managing registration processes
• Organizing excursions
• Managing certificates for regulations
• Coordinating internal and external evaluation plans
• Coordinating the institution’s digital plan
• Managing teacher training on digital tools
• Managing facilities

Which type of project would you use it for? Let us know on social media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Youtube.

Remember that with Additio App, you can perform competency-based assessments, putting students at the center of learning, keeping them informed about their progress, and helping them identify areas for improvement and strengths.

More than 150 features are at your disposal to improve your teaching and the learning of your students. Sign up and enhance your teaching!

See you next time!