How do you assess quality for school trips?

How do you assess quality when it comes to choosing a school trip? What is quality? At Château Beaumont we hold the Adventure Mark, the Learning Outside the Classroom Quality Badge and are members of the British Activity Providers Association. But what does this mean? What do the various badges that providers display guarantee?

A long time ago, in a previous century no less, I was a lucky 15-year-old on a school trip to Kenya. This was a time in popular culture when safety meant Arnold Schwarzenegger saving the day with his biceps or, if you were out of your depth, David Hasselhoff and Pamela Anderson dragging you to shore in a way that was more bewildering than beguiling.

As we prepared to travel to Africa, safety was deemed paramount and so it was solemnly announced to our much-relieved parents that, for several days, we would be ably protected from bandits by two men with Kalashnikovs.

There’s too much in that sentence to analyse under the spotlight of today’s safety expectations but, fortunately for all, those men were fun and friendly - and their prowess with those kalashnikovs was never put to the test (although I remember being slightly disappointed about this at the time).

What is quality?

Thankfully, health and safety rules never age well and today Educational Visits Coordinators (EVCs) among others need robust ways of assessing a) providers they’ve never heard of and b) whether those they know are maintaining their level of provision. These things are hard to do, with lots riding on the decisions made, yet quality is a mercurial beast that is often subjective, inconsistent and difficult to define: how do you assess quality for school trips? How do you decide what it is? I’m going to boldly suggest that quality boils down to three things.

A commitment to robust safety systems. This means that safety and an ongoing commitment towards best practice is evident.
A commitment to well-trained and assessed staff. This means the people running your trip, from the person handling logistics to the instructor coaching archery, have been safely-recruited and suitably prepared for your visit.
A commitment to standards in provision. This means an understanding of best practice, some kind of internal plan towards measuring it and evolving accordingly, and respect for the client: or doing the job well, even when not observed.

The outdoor sector has various bodies and badges that are supposed to help people assess and make decisions, but it’s not obvious how they all hang together, what they do and what it all means in relation to safety and quality. The best way to understand it is with a brief history lesson.

Quality for school trips - a brief background

Broadly-speaking, in the United Kingdom, we can talk of pre-1993 and post-1993. That year saw the tragic death of 4 young kayakers in the sea at Lyme Bay while on a school trip. Hitherto self-regulation by outdoor centres was effectively ended when, in response, the government introduced the Adventure Activities Licensing Authority (AALA).

Ever since, they’ve inspected any organisation offering climbing-type activities in a natural setting or water sports on open, moving or tidal waters. To be clear, this means that a purpose-built, tower-based Zip Wire, a climbing wall, or a man-made lake under a certain size does NOT require a licence to operate it. These activities are said to be “out of scope.”

Yet by picking which activities it would inspect, AALA effectively divided operators into two groups: those who were inspected and those who weren’t – and this was a problem. If you were “out of scope,” how did you demonstrate that you had solid safety systems and, indeed, compete in the outdoor market against centres who had been inspected? If schools were suddenly asking "how do you assess the quality of school trips?" then providers were also asking "how do we demonstrate it?"

The answer was developed through two, non-statutory schemes that aim to badge providers according to a robust set of criteria. There’s no legal requirement to hold them, but you’d have to wonder why any provider wouldn’t want to avail themselves of the opportunity, which makes it something of a red flag if they don’t. That’s not to say they’ll be poor operators, just that it’s hard for them to make a case for not having one of these accreditations and hard to make a case for taking a group to a provider who doesn’t hold one of them.

How do you assess quality - what's behind the badges?

With the above in mind, when assessing quality and safety for a school trip, it’s important to remember that there’s nothing out there which guarantees an accident won’t happen or that you’ll have the most amazing trip. However, looking out for some, or all, of the following badges can help you with decisions that dramatically reduce the chances of an accident to minimal levels and massively improve your chances of a great adventure:

AALA Licence. This is compulsory for any operator providing caving, climbing, trekking or water sports. There are specifics, but generally this means outdoor climbing activities on natural rock (climbing, abseiling, coasteering, etcetera), caving in natural cave systems, and water sports on flowing, tidal and open waters. It’s the law. Since 2007 the scheme has been run by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). The licence is valid for up to 3 years, but not necessarily for that long. You should check available operators, or whether existing ones have a current licence, here: Find a Provider

Adventuremark. This is a non-statutory safety scheme designed by the Adventure Activity Industry Advisory Committee (AAIAC). Asking a centre whether they currently hold the Adventure Mark is a good way to see if they’ve had an independent assessment. Importantly, the assessment is on site and looks primarily at their safety procedures, but also considers educational merits, too. A provider with the Adventure Mark has chosen to engage in an external assessment of their procedures and practices. The badge is valid for 2 years.

The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom (LOtC) Quality Badge. Endorsed by the Department for Education (DfE) and the Outdoor Education Advisors’ Panel (OEAP), this is the industry sign-post for quality provision, or anything that goes beyond just safe practice. It doesn’t delve too deeply into things like pedagogy, but it’s respected. Any provider holding this badge is at least thinking about how they deliver from an educational point of view. Think of it as a good baseline measure rather than an indicator of high-end, targeted learning, but it’s an important indicator for making choices, nevertheless. As such, it has a broad church including various indoor leisure providers such as trampoline parks and even museums can apply. Again, this badge is valid for 2 years.

In real terms, you can expect that any provider showing these badges is aware of, and adhering to, National Governing Body (NGB) guidelines for the activities they offer, has suitable insurance in place, practises safer recruitment, understands accident reporting, has suitable and appropriate First Aid provision on site and engages with relevant organisations and legal requirements for safety and quality across all that it does (accommodation, catering, transport, etcetera).

Furthermore, given that there’s no absolute guarantees of quality, the way a provider gets accredited for the non-statutory schemes (Adventuremark and LOtC Quality Badge) is interesting, too. There are four, main ways:

directly through the awarding association. For Adventuremark and the LOtC Quality Badge this is via Adventure Activities Associates Limited (“the 3 As”). They are the supervising body appointed by AAIAC to operate Adventuremark and have themselves appointed two other organisations to accredit centres with the Adventuremark;
through membership of the British Activity Providers Association (BAPA). BAPA provides access to mentored support in achieving the requirements of its own Code of Practice. An onsite inspection takes place every two years in which Adventuremark can be awarded; with an extended inspection the LOtC Quality Badge can be awarded, too. A centre which is a member of BAPA has signed up to robust, third-party inspection and has made a baseline commitment to ongoing improvement in, and discussion of, safety and quality. BAPA is the awarding body for the CLOtC Quality Badge for recreation and leisure, such as trampoline parks and aqua parks;
inspection for the Association of Heads of Outdoor Centres (AHOEC) Gold Standard Award. This means that a member of the senior, onsite team is a member of AHOEC and that there is a commitment to continuous professional development for staff and high operational standards. The Gold Standard award incorporates Adventuremark and can also award the LOtC Quality Badge as an option;
inspection by the School Travel Forum (STF). They are the awarding body for the CLOtC Quality Badge for companies operating in the school travel and tourism sector, but do not award Adventuremark.

How do you assess quality - who are the key organisations?

Other indicators of quality are more subtle, but insightful. There are five organisations leading the drive for safety and quality in the wider, school travel sector. Understanding the below organisations is, therefore, useful when wondering: how do you assess quality for school trips?

AHOEC – Association of Heads of Outdoor Centres. Linked to the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT), they offer individual memberships offering support, mentoring and access to CPD and their Gold Award inspection scheme. A long history, traditionally built around and for the heads of Local Authority centres.

BAPA – The British Activity Providers Association. It offers organisational membership only with a mentored approach to compulsory member inspections and improvements in safety and quality. A long history also, but historically built around commercial operators as opposed to Local Authority Centres, offering shared good practice, HR advice, and their robust inspection and accreditation scheme.

IOL – The Institute for Outdoor Learning. It offers both individual and organisational membership and historically has had a strong, leading role in developing standards in outdoor learning. It does not, however, inspect or accredit provider organisations. It recently absorbed the Outdoor Council (the OC), where these associations but also groups like the Scouting Association and the YHA met to discuss common cause, and has good links to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Outdoor Learning.

STF – The School Travel Forum. Its organisational members benefit from free guidance on legal, health & safety, transport and adventurous activities, but also share current knowledge. Traditionally they play a strong lobbying role in all areas of school travel and outdoor learning.

CLOtC – The Council for Learning Outside the Classroom. It is at the forefront of championing the quality of educational focus on school trips, chiefly through its Quality Badge and research.

They’re important organisations because they’re all evangelists for the three quality definitions posited at the beginning, albeit with their own, historical foci. The commitment to robust safety systems is where BAPA has traditionally found its focus; the commitment to well-trained and supported staff has traditionally been the aim of AHOEC; and the IOL has been at the vanguard of a commitment to developing standards in the outdoors. The CLOTC and the STF are obviously involved in all of these elements as underpinning their goals.

Providers who choose to be members of these organisations are taking part voluntarily in the wider conversation about evolving all of these factors and that’s good to know about them.

What's really behind the badges...?

How do you assess quality for school trips? Well, in the same way you would assess anything: understand your aims, gather information about how you can do it, research people who can help you, research and check their credentials, make some comparisons and then take a decision.

To help you do that, behind all these quality badges and organisations is inspection, assessment, testing, robust codes of practice, research, representation and, in the case of AALA, the law of the land. But what’s really behind the badges is a commitment to the same hopes that the children, parents and schools have: that trips should be worthwhile. That trips should be educational. That trips should be fun and memorable. That the best test of quality is in measurable, positive impact on the children and teachers that participate.

As for safety, all these badges and organisations firmly believe that it’s about a demonstrable, rigorous and knowledge-based system of checks, observations and actions – and not about charismatic heroes with guns.