I'm planning to take my small group of 5th years to Italy - Rome, Pompeii, and hopefully Paestum - later this academic year. Probably, around Easter time. The new specification really gives so much better focus that I know exactly where to bring them: Pantheon, Colosseum, Circus Maximus (or what's left!), Forum, Temple of Vesta, and of course the Vatican Museum. Then Paestum near Pompeii for some Doric Greek Temples so they can see something similar to the Parthenon if not the Parthenon. (Pompeii would just be a wonderful off-curriculum side tour).
I'm hoping to combine forces with the Art Department in my school too, to give us about 20 students and 3 students for the trip.
This would be my first time doing a school trip abroad though. So, does anybody with more experience have any tips? Do you know good tour agencies to use or any tips to make the trip meaningful for the students? Or to make sure they're relatively well behaved?
Any advice or links would be much appreciated.
Seamus
Hi Seamus,
Just saw this. The Naples Museum is a must see in my opinion.
N
Hi Seamus,
I am so jealous that you are going. I had to cancel one and I don't have the heart to replan it yet. A thing that I learnt to do and it has certainly eased my workload and mayhem on school trips is dividing them up into groups. With 3 teachers, that means 7/8 students each. That teacher then takes responsibility for anyone in their groups' needs (medication/allergies/dietary requirements etc) and also when you need to do a head count, you can call your group to you and it's much easier to count 7/8 at a glance than 20. I have taken groups up to 50 away and this has been a life saver every time. I have even started appointing a leader in each group and then they let me know that everyone in our group is accounted for, so I am not suddenly surrounded by 7/8 students.
Another thing I have done is appoint a teacher in charge for each day. So basically as trip organiser on a five day trip (4 teachers), I took charge on Day 1 and Day 5. Teacher 2 took Day 2, teacher 3 took Day 3 and teacher 4 took Day 4. None of the teachers who went with me on my last trip (Athens) were Classics teachers, they were metalwork/woodwork/maths, so I was the expert on the material but they helped with all the other things. It was just for the simple things like liaising with the bus driver, going to the ticket desk to get the tickets, booking into the sites/venues, arranging what time we needed to be up and gone in the morning and communicating that to the students, arranging meetings points after lunch at that sort of thing. It sounds a bit silly but if you are the one doing all of that every day you will be exhausted. Of course you run through the schedule with all the teachers and plan it together but it means that you get to relax a little bit and hang with the students instead of always being the one answering the questions and rushing off to make sure that you are in the right place. I also found it a source of amusement when the never ending questions of "What time are we leaving here at?"" Where are we going next?" "What are we doing now?" we answered by me say "Teacher 2 is in charge"
Time - it takes ages to organise a group to move anywhere, let alone stop for a quick bite - give yourselves plenty of time for lunch.
Food - always make sure you and the other teachers have biscuits/snacks/sweets anything to keep the sugar levels up. Things happen, everyone else gets to eat, ye don't always.
I hope ye have a blast,
Megan
Hi Seamus, sounds like a super trip and great to hear that you are planning one after Covid restrictions etc. I bring my 5th and 6th every 2 years to Rome for 4 nights and 5 days. I have always used NST and find them very good. I include a day trip to Ostia Antica. I don't use NST for this trip. We take a regional train and the return trip is less than €3 and the site is free with school letter. There is so much to see at the site relevant to the new specification and for pleasure. We bring a picnic and dine in the Roman theatre. I have had students get up and perform drama, songs etc. for us and any other (lucky) visitors! I highly recommend Ostia.
Good luck and let me know if I can be of more help.
Delia