Walking the tightrope of school trips

Of course, most teachers have never had such a relaxed attitude to taking students out of school. Some would even say things have gone too far. You can't do anything nowadays without completing a risk assessment first, and there's always the fear of litigation if something goes wrong. Teaching unions are completely disparaging about school trips. Teachers interpret their advice as: Don't do trips, because they're too risky. And if you do, we won't back you up when something goes wrong.

But many teachers still do take school trips - and they are quite passionate about them. My husband, a geography teacher in a secondary school in Middlesbrough, is quite emphatic about it. "Fieldwork is where geography comes alive," he says. "There's nothing like getting out and seeing things as they really are." He takes groups of 30 15-year-olds to measure rivers, which means they often need to go into the water. To me, this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but he is surprisingly relaxed about it.

"In 12 years of trips, I have always found that children behave better when they are in the field, because they really engage with what they are doing. The key is good organisation - making sure they are all doing something constructive."

Careful planning is the mantra which all teachers recite when you mention school trips. Catherine Crawford, headteacher at St Augustine's Primary School in Darlington starts planning the annual Year Six residential trip at least a year in advance.

'The children's safety is always paramount and we complete full risk assessments for every situation," she says. "We also rely a great deal on the support and goodwill of our parents."

Last year, I saw the whole school walk through town to see The Gruffalo at the Civic Theatre in Darlington. It was an impressive sight, with parent helpers drafted in for support, and all the children walking calmly in line. I couldn't believe my five-year-old twin daughters were in there somewhere. Normally they would never be so cooperative.

That's part of the reason why teachers believe in school trips. So often, children are surprisingly responsible and full of initiative when they are given the opportunity to prove it.

"Our outward bound course gives children the chance to be more independent and practise team-building," says Catherine Crawford. "For many pupils, it is the highlight of their primary school career. It's also excellent preparation for the transition to secondary school."

Louise Nicholson, head of modern languages at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College, in Darlington, is equally emphatic about the benefits for students. She takes groups of students abroad, for work experience and to stay with host families.

"Seeing another country can open doors to experiences the students might never have thought of," she says. "Some of them come home saying they'd like to work in France one day. That makes all the hard work worthwhile."

It's a tricky business, though, taking sixth form students abroad. Many of them are used to a lot of freedom at home, which can be challenging for staff.

"I have to explain this is not a holiday," says Louise. "They can't go into town on their own at night, even though they might do at home. And I can only take students who are trustworthy, because they can't be actively supervised every minute of the day."

Louise also has to think of her staff, because the students have so much stamina. "We're all shattered by 10pm, but the students can keep going nearly all night, so we have to build in respite periods for the staff," she says.

So far, the worst problem she has experienced on a trip was when a student had money stolen. "I'm always reminding them to look after their wallets," she says. "You can pre-empt most difficulties when you know what's likely to happen. We eat at the same restaurants every year, and stay at the same hotel. It's important to feel you have done everything humanly possible to prevent problems occurring."

There are some things you can't plan for, however. My husband let a sixth former fill up the minibus with fuel while he went and stood in the queue to pay. Ten minutes later, as they ground to a halt, he realised the student had put unleaded into the diesel engine. He's still surprisingly philosophical about it all, though.

"If you let them do things, they're going to make mistakes sometimes," he says. "That's all part of the learning experience." An expensive learning experience, in that case.

His biggest headache, he insists, is road safety. "Have you ever tried to get 30 teenagers to walk single-file down a quiet country lane?" he asks. Sometimes you can list all the right precautions on your Risk Assessment, but you actually have to put them into practice. If you don't, you can still be held responsible.

Occasionally, you are held responsible for things which really aren't your fault. One teacher took the whole of Year Seven from his Middlesbrough school to Osmotherly in North Yorkshire for the day. For many of them, it was their first experience of life in a quiet, rural village. He thought they were very well-behaved, but the residents didn't agree. They complained that the 100 11 and 12-year-olds were far too noisy.

Sometimes teachers make mistakes too. A teacher I know confessed to stepping off the Underground "just for a second" to check his party were all on board. Then the doors shut and the train sped off with his entire group, leaving him stranded on the platform.

You can never eliminate the 'what if' from a school trip. That's why it's easy to be paranoid. But school trips offer students so many valuable experiences that most teachers still go out of their way to provide them. We even enjoy them, though we moan a lot about all the paperwork. And, until we hand every child back safely to their parents, we don't relax for an instant.

* Hilary Cooper is a general studies teacher at Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College in Darlington.