WST School Travel

We caught up with Stephen Base, Head of Sixth Form at Verulam School who has long been an advocate of school trips. In February 2022 he blazed a trail as one of our first group leaders to take a trip to New York in 2 years.

Why do you take this trip?

One of the founding fathers of Sociology, C.Wright-Mills said ‘The aim of social science is to make the familiar strange and the strange familiar’. For me ethnographic research is so important for students. The only way they can understand society is to see it, smell it, walk it and that’s what we do in New York.

That said it’s not an essential part of the course, it’s an enhancement but many of the families in our school buy into that ethos for any of the school trips.

Why did you choose New York?

Quite simply, I love New York and knowing it well I’m comfortable taking them there. The students I take are Social Science students and New York has some excellent visits that cover topics for Psychology, Sociology and Criminology, so Ellis Island and the Tenement Museum have great historical and cultural links, focusing on population and migration.

A school trip should be a really big part of everyone’s education.

What were your learning objectives for the trip?

For Social Science the key learning objectives were to cover migration, culture and crime & deviance. New York is a great example to talk about how in the 1980’s they embraced a policy of zero tolerance and today the city is a far safer place to visit as a result of that.

Did you have any other objectives?

As Head of Sixth Form I see the value of educational trips for the relationship building with students and families. I encourage them even to do a day trip. At Verulam School it’s a 7 year journey and they start with a trip to the Lakes in Year 7 and expect to finish with trips in the Sixth Form.

The students are creating life-long memories. When I bump into students in later years, they don’t remember what we taught them in class but they do remember the trips they went on.

From your students perspective what was the best part of the New York trip?

First thing we do is arrive at twilight and go up the Empire State Building. It’s their first time up there and to see the New York skyline – it’s a wow moment!

On the last morning I do a walking tour taking in Battery Park and then walking across Brooklyn Bridge. They aren’t allowed to look back until we are half-way across the bridge when they turn around and look across the whole of Manhattan. Again this is a moment that really stays with them, to take in where they are.

How has your experience been with WST over the years? Would you recommend us to colleagues and friends?

I love working with WST. I don’t want to have a trip off the shelf, I know the city well and want to go off script. Elleanor works with me on a bespoke itinerary for us and could not be more flexible. She is always prepared to run with my crazy ideas!

Do you have any advice for other teachers thinking about taking a trip to New York?

• I recommend you go there first so you have good experience on the ground.
• Do lots of advance planning.
• Share your ideas with colleagues.
• I always work closely with one other person who can provide support on tour should anything that’s unplanned happens.
• Its good to have someone back at base who is helping with admin.

If you'd like to know more about taking a school group to New York then take a look at school & college trips to New York, or call us on 01253 441900, chat to us online or request a quote today. 

This year Lorna Mackay at Boclair Academy in Bearsden, Glasgow, decided to take their 2nd and 3rd year pupils to Paris for the first time to develop their language skills.

Lorna had previously taken French language students on exchange trips but decided that as a first trip for the younger pupils a visit to Paris would help to give them a taste for France and develop an interest in French culture. We spoke to Lorna about how she felt organising this type of trip for the first time.

It wasn’t difficult to get interest in the trip at all. I spoke to all the pupils in the classes and asked them to come back to me if they were interested. In the end we had more pupils interested than numbers we could take.

Children who didn’t know each other to start with became friends. Because we had a mix of pupils from two year groups, the trip really gave the pupils an opportunity to bond with children they wouldn’t normally mix with. They were a bit divided at the start but returned as one big group.

I wanted to travel with a company that I knew would look after us. WST came up on a Google search for school trips, so I spoke to our Head of Art who already travels with WST and he confirmed he was really pleased with the service, which helped me make my decision.

From the first time I contacted Nici at WST she was so helpful. I had no real fixed idea about what I wanted to do on the trip, I just knew I wanted to see a few of the sights of Paris. Nici obviously knows what she’s doing and guided me, advising what would fit well into each day.  I hadn’t thought about lunch or evening meal, but Nici planned all of that. I think if I’d organised it myself the itinerary would have been unbalanced.

Nothing was too much trouble. Once I confirmed the tour Rachel, our Paris expert, was absolutely brilliant. I contacted her back and forth a lot and I always got a reply from her; nothing was too much trouble. She was so patient when I took a while to get paperwork back to her and when I had to make some last minute changes before we left.

We definitely achieved our study objectives on the trip. The pupils were all trying out their French. In fact two girls who came had originally not intended to continue with French, but after this trip they changed their minds! 

The pupils coped really well with the long coach journey. I was dreading that long journey from Glasgow but it worked well that we left at night, as the pupils fell asleep so it really wasn’t that bad.

I was really pleased with how the itinerary worked out. We didn’t have to pay for a lot as we included free time seeing the sights such as Montmartre, Notre Dame and the Louvre. This meant we didn’t pay a fortune to get in to things. The packed lunches were amazing too!

The highlight for the students was of course Disneyland Paris. We did this on the last day, which helped to tire the pupils out before setting off for the overnight journey home. They also loved the Seine Cruise as it took them so close to the Eiffel Tower. 

If you'd like to know more about taking a school group to Paris then take a look at school & college trips to Paris, or call us on 01253 441900, chat to us online or request a quote today.