This term, all of our Primary children will participate in an educational visit. Indeed, Y2 children visited the Water Puppets show on Tuesday of this week as the entry point for their new Lien Ket topic and on Wednesday Y5 visited the Bitexco Tower for their new topic, “Rivers”.
Throughout the BVIS Primary School educational visits regularly take place outdoors, away from school. These trips may take a half day or more and across KS2 we also run a programme of residential visits. Educational visits are an important part of the curriculum here at BVIS and we adhere to the BIS Group of Schools’ policy when planning and carrying out our school trips.
The British government recognises that: “learning outside the classroom helps to bring the curriculum to life – it provides deeper subject learning and increases self-confidence. It also helps pupils develop their risk awareness and prepares them for their future working lives.” (Health and Safety Executive 2011).
Before any BVIS educational visit takes place, whether a few hours or several days’ in length, whether close to school or further afield, we carry out a “Risk Assessment”. In fact, a risk assessment is taking place this very weekend for the Year 4 residential visit to Long Hai which will take place at thexbeginning of March. During a risk assessment, staff visit the hotel and location(s) of the planned activities. They will carefully check the quality of the facilities and ensure healthy and safety precautions are in place for the children and staff.
Trip itineraries are planned carefully and enough staff accompany each trip according to the school’s agreed staff/pupil ratios. Whenever possible, either Mr Oliver or I also accompany the residential visits. First aid training for BIS Group staff is provided on an annual basis by Family Medical Practice here in HCMC so we can ensure there is a first aider accompanying every residential trip too.
Good communication is an essential part of trips so the trip leader ensures all staff accompanying the children are equipped with all the information they need and are fully briefed beforehand. Parents receive information letters and, in the case of residential visits away from school, we hold an information meeting for parents several weeks before the trip takes place (please see the list of dates in this newsletter for the dates and times of the upcoming meetings). The aims of any trip always encompass children’s personal and social development and support academic learning back in school too.
Overview of our residential visits programme for Y3 – Y6 children this term:
