Matt Price, EVC at Bedford Modern School, on the challenge of mobile phones on visits and managing more than 100 trips per year.
How did you get into your role?
Both of my parents were teachers and when I was at university I began helping other students with statistics. Then in my third year I got the opportunity to do sabbatical cover for a teacher at Eton College and from there I decided to train as a geography teacher. When the EVC at a school I was working in retired, it seemed an obvious step for me to take.
What kind of trips do you organise?
As a school we do over 100 trips every year, with 20 to 25 residential visits and often over a dozen overseas trips. We take our rowers to Italy every year for a rowing camp around Easter, we’ve had sixth form students go to Washington D.C. and in December some of our year seven and eight pupils went to Paris.
We also offer lots of day trips, whether that’s the British Film Institute in London or more local trips like the University of Bedfordshire and Wrest Park.
How do you manage multiple trips taking place at once?
The biggest challenge we have is that it’s such a busy school, so it’s about finding the right dates. If it’s a day trip then we need a date that won’t cause issues for other teachers, particularly if we’re taking a lot of students out - it’s important that they’re not missing assessments. It’s all about ensuring we use the calendar correctly to avoid clashes.
How do staff prepare for trips?
We had a recent trip where a young, relatively inexperienced member of the team ran a water sports residential to Spain, and did it fantastically because of the sheer amount of time and effort they put into the planning.
”They had thought about ‘what if ’ scenarios like if a child became ill, or a child got injured and couldn’t do an activity. They did a brilliant job because they were so prepared, which is key.”
What benefits do you find the pupils get from trips?
There’s a lot of intangible things students gain, particularly if it’s a residential. There’s that element of independence being away from their parents and they can develop friendships with students who they might not normally see.
A big one for me is the relationships that students develop with teachers. We do an annual exchange trip with our twin town Bamberg in Germany. Our students go out there during half term and they come over to us around Easter. It’s all homestay and that’s been running for about 40 years.
On the most recent occasion, our pupils got to Heathrow to find their flight was cancelled. They spent 14 hours sat in the departure lounge, which you think would be the end of the world, but everyone bonded before they even got on the plane. In a way, they probably wouldn’t have had that chance to get to know everyone so well if the flight had gone on time.
How do you communicate with parents?
We have a system for all trips where a member of the leadership team is the 24/7 contact. For most day trips that’s me, and for overseas trips we share it out. Members of staff who are back in the UK have a copy of all the paperwork, plus a very detailed document which tells them what they might do in different scenarios.
We also use Teams to brief parents ahead of time which is something that has developed since the pandemic. In the past we had to get parents to come in for a briefing, but now we can do online presentations and send a recording to those who can’t attend.
How has your role changed over time?
I have been an EVC for 18 years now and when I started very few students had phones, whereas now all learners have mobiles. If something does happen on a trip, it would be down to the staff to contact the school, and the school to contact parents. However, this has become a challenge because if something happens, it can be very hard to control the communication that gets fed back to parents by the pupils.
On residentials, we are now collecting in phones at night and then handing them back at breakfast. If you leave them in the rooms with the students they won’t sleep, or they’ll be messaging each other.
Do you have a favourite trip you have been part of?
I trekked to Everest Base Camp with a school group. We got to more than 6,000 metres up which was incredible. More recently we went to Ecuador and the Galápagos Islands. I was able to scuba dive with sea lions and that will really stick with me forever.
Would you like to tell us about the work you do in organising educational visits? Get in touch by emailing editorial@schooltravelorganiser.com.
