Primary school teacher Sarah Carter provides insight aimed at coach drivers and operators into a school trip from the point of view of school staff, including what drivers can do to help make the day go smoothly
You’re a coach driver and you’re parked up outside the primary school gates with your colleague in coach number two waiting for your groups to walk out. You’re ready to roll: you’re chatting to your workmate, eager to get a move on at a moment’s notice. The school asked for you to depart ‘promptly’ at 0910hrs, but it’s now 0920hrs and there’s still no sign of them.
Some parents are loitering after dropping off their little ones half-an-hour earlier. They want to wave their pride and joy off – it’s as if the children are going on an expedition to a far flung place, perhaps never to be seen again, when in reality the kids are due to be back in school for normal time of 1530hrs. The parents are doubtless in your way: life would have been so much easier for you if the driver of that purple Nissan Micra hadn’t parked with its back end sticking out, making it tight for you to manoeuvre your charge. Yes, the head teacher does send out periodic reminders about car parking in the roads around the school, but there’s always one.[wlm_nonmember][…]
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Huddled together, the parents will be eyeing you and your colleague up, trying to establish whether you’re a ‘good driver’ or not – and they’ll be inspecting the external condition of the coaches from the comfort of their position 100 yards back, quietly reporting their observations to their fellow group members.
Why the delay? Where have the children got to? It’s now 0930hrs. Walking down the school drive, I lead my class. The children have donned yellow high-vis jackets branded with the school’s name and logo as is common practice these days to help identify pupils. They’re walking in pairs. They’re behaving themselves, even if some of them are understandably a little excited about the day ahead. Just then, one of the parents calls out and order is disrupted. The boy’s mother blurts out: “Just check your bag again – have you got your juice?” The young man complies, but it leads to the pedestrian equivalent of a mini pile-up. Order is restored when one of my teaching assistants enquires if the little boy is alright.
You spot us and wait outside the entrance to your coach at the bottom of your vehicle’s steps. Your sun glasses perched on the edge of your forehead, you smile and greet us. In stark contrast however, your colleague remains glued to his seat, without apparently giving us a second glance. As lead teacher on this trip, I ‘claim’ your coach for my class.
I stop abruptly with my class. I apologise to you for being late. I would love to tell you the truth: that Charlie was sick in the toilets after registration and I had to clean it up, but professionalism prevents me. Being too honest with you could literally lead to me being put on ‘gardening leave,’ threating my livelihood, should someone complain. Little children have ears which pick up everything, so it’s always best to be careful what you say in their presence.
Charlie sits in the front, bucket balanced on his superhero shorts. I wasted no time in making sure he had one of the allocated buckets. I hope he takes inspiration from his clothing and tries his hardest not to need to use it. Superheroes are never ill – please be a superhero Charlie!
On the walk from the school to the coach, as well as supervising our pupils, my colleagues and I carry all the required equipment. That includes bundles of paper towels, newspaper, two sick buckets, six asthma inhalers and the good old green first aid box which everyone hopes they won’t need. The funny thing is, it makes us look prepared, but in reality, we wouldn’t know what to do with some of it – a bit like Dad’s Army’s Private Godfrey and his trusty first aid kit with the ointment for wasp stings! I think I would feel like Godfrey if I ever had something out of the ordinary to deal with. Fortunately, it’s usually just the odd graze on knee or a runny nose.
So, we climb aboard – normally the adults are spaced out along the line of children to enable us to monitor the boarding bit. I do my best to appear ‘authoritative’ to you, the driver. If this were to be a nice ‘leisure trip’ such as with my mum or partner, I would now be looking forward to the journey, and feeling relaxed. However, on a school trip like this, I am more likely to be praying that we get through without needing to make use of the sick bucket. There is a little trick that sometimes works on this note which has been handed down by teachers; that if you ‘sit’ the children on newspaper, and tell them it will stop them being sick, for some it works. Of course, for others it won’t. Even if we get through without any sickness incidents, there are always a couple of children who say they need the toilet – no matter how many times I have said they need to try. I try to stay calm – after all, the day has only just begun.
Planning
When planning a trip, there are a few main things that have to be taken into consideration from the point of view of the school and staff. If the children are very young (this is largely where my experience lies), the destination has to be within relatively easy reach, or at least somewhere we can get to without having to spend the whole day travelling. If it is preferable that the children are to be picked up at normal school finish time, then it is not advisable to spend more than about an hour and a quarter travelling either way for obvious reasons.
We are required to carry out a risk assessment for the trip which is quite in-depth and has to detail all the potential sources of risk, and what measures we are going to take to minimise or deal with that threat. The risk assessment will list all the activities and parts of the day where there may be a potential hazard involved. For example, simply walking the children from the school to the coach would be a risk factor if we are walking along the path by the road. We then detail how we will reduce or manage the risk; so in the case of walking alongside the road, this may be a statement that goes something like this: ‘Ensure the children all walk in pairs, holding hands with their partner at all times, and adults to be evenly spaced out between the children.’ Everything that may be a hazard or present a risk has to be listed. Other examples would be walking near to or by water, or walking where there is a high volume of people, such as in a busy street where there will be members of the public. Each risk listed must be thoroughly assessed and appropriate action detailed on the form. Each adult is then given a copy of the form which they are advised to keep with them at all times, as it usually includes phone numbers for the other staff members on the trip. By the time we return to the coach at the end of the day, my copy is usually dog-eared and decidedly tatty looking.
The task of choosing a destination usually falls with a senior or more experienced member of the staff team, or perhaps the year leader/phase leader. In a lot of cases, the destination is selected because it relates to a topic being studied at the time, maybe for that particular term or half term. Teachers will sometimes have in mind a particular place which they know is suitable for a given topic, and some destinations particularly lend themselves to certain themes. For example, if the children are working on a topic about farms and animals, it is reasonably simple to come up with some suitable places to visit – Sacrewell Farm near Peterborough being one. If, on the other hand, the topic is travel and transport, then a visit to a heritage railway may be a great choice of destination. I have previously visited the Nene Valley Railway at Wansford on a school trip when our young children at infant school were learning about transport. To give another example, if children have the sea or seaside as their topic, then a trip to the beach is an obvious choice, and bound to be popular with pupils – although probably a very long risk assessment will be required.
Sometimes, the destination chosen can be more loosely linked to a topic or theme, particularly if the end of term is fast approaching and the school staff are wanting to choose somewhere as a treat or reward for the children. An adventure park or similar may be chosen as it provides a great fun day out for the children, but may also have links to a topic or area of interest. This was the case when I visited Sundown Adventureland (sic) near Retford on a trip; it was mainly for the children to have fun, but linked to our then topic of fairy tales – ideal!
In terms of hiring the coach and deciding which company a school uses, in my experience it is often a member of the school office staff who arranges that. The school office manager or administrator is likely to know which company has been used before or has an established relationship with the school.
However, feedback about the coach firm, driver and so on would probably be welcomed by the school office staff to help inform their decisions about future trips and companies to use.
Helpful driver tips
I can imagine that being allocated a school trip probably isn’t one that many drivers would relish or have at the top of their ‘nice jobs’ list. The same probably goes for the school staff involved. However, there are certain ways that drivers can help the day/trip to go more smoothly. One of the first things that springs to mind for me is the ‘settling’ of the children when we first board the coach. This involves making sure the children all get to a seat – as obvious as that sounds and that they are not sitting next to an unsuitable companion for them, the result being too much noise and the risk of unimpressed looks from the driver. Once in a seat, I/we then have to make sure that they all do their seat belts up properly, and with young children as I am used to, this takes time. Some children can fasten the belts themselves, but many need assistance. All of them have to be checked – I feel a huge sense of responsibility with regard to this aspect.
I don’t know if drivers are required to ensure that all belts are fastened, but on one trip I recall that the driver couldn’t really have known if belts were done or not as he stayed in his seat whilst I did all the checks.
Others have been a lot more helpful. It goes almost without saying I suppose, that a helpful driver can be a godsend to school staff when on a school trip. If a driver is able to have a general wander up the coach to check that belts are done up, this would be beneficial – the more pairs of eyes, the better sort of thing. Also, this helps to make the driver seem authoritative, and backs up the school staff. We can say ‘Look Tommy, the driver is making sure that your belt is done up’ – so it aids compliance and the children can see that it is important. If you like, it’s not just their teacher ‘barking orders’ again.
As school staff, we try to ensure that the seating allocation is such that the adults are dispersed to sit amongst the children in order to keep an eye on them generally, and to nip in the bud any children who are getting too noisy. Usually the adults will be sitting near to their specific group that they have been allocated – complete with a paper towel or extra newspaper if needed. Some but not all schools have a policy of having a staff member in the seat next to the emergency door.
As for the temperature on board, I would surmise that this is usually down to personal preference. Personally, I prefer to have a little air and would much rather it was slightly cooler than too warm when travelling. Obviously when on a school trip, I would say this is even more important with the presence of so many children who are more likely to get warm than cold. It is also best to be somewhat cooler in this situation as being too warm can increase the likelihood of children feeling ill. Without wanting to return to the sickness issue again too much, a cooler temperature is far better for helping to prevent this – something which I’m sure we all want.
Teachers and other school staff are quite likely to be stressed when on a school trip as there are so many things to be aware of and keep track of – mainly the children. Headcounts are all important too. I find myself counting the children with increasing frequency, and redoing it even during the journey, which of course is a bit pointless as if they were all there at the start, we can’t have lost anyone mid travel – unless something truly awful has happened. It’s probably best not to think about that…
On the journey, I occasionally find my mind wandering and gazing out of the window at the sheep in the field, or the pretty little windmill, until I am brought back to reality with a bolt to the sound of ‘Missssss, Billy’s squirting me with his water!’ to which I hastily get up and go to try to deal with it. Oh the joys. I suppose there are worse things that could be squirted.
Back at school
At the end of the day, on arrival back at the school, it isn’t quite over yet. Once the children have been assisted to get off the coach, I then start to ‘do the checks’ – although this pretty much sums up the whole day for the lead members of staff. This involves, first and foremost, ensuring all the children have actually got off (they may have fallen asleep) and that they have remembered all their thing, including bags, coats, lunchboxes, jumpers, bottles and so on. Once all the children are off the coach, I tend to like to do a few walks of the vehicle to check that nothing has been left behind. Usually I may find the odd water bottle or perhaps a hat or similar.
I do like to know that I have done my best to ensure we have not left anything on the coach, but also that it is tidy and there is no litter. With our young children, litter isn’t really an issue – mainly because they would not be eating on the coach. However, I think this would be more of an issue with older children or teenagers.
Once off and all checks by school staff are complete, the lead member of staff will thank the driver and ask if anything needs doing, such as signing of a form or similar. In my experience, school staff are not usually expected to deal with financial matters with the driver on the day – this is normally dealt with by the school office.
Me being me, I would probably do one final check of the coach to ensure it is clean and tidy, and that Charlie has his superhero sun hat before finally wishing the driver well and making my way back into school. The parents are (hopefully) waiting to pick up their little ones from the door.
Final word
That’s the school trip done for another six months maybe. Meanwhile, I’m sure that you the driver are probably breathing a sigh of relief too and hoping your next job is something a little more relaxing.
It may be approximately 1530hrs, officially the end of the school day, but like you, my day still isn’t over yet. As well as your regular afternoon school run, you’ve probably got to clean, fuel, park up and do your paperwork back at your depot.
I have to return all the equipment to its correct home in school, such as the first aid boxes and paper towels. I will then have to take my lesson plans home to refresh ready to start tomorrow’s day back in the classroom.
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