UK School Trips back government proposal
to ensure more school trips for pupils

The UK?s leading independent online school trip adviser, www.ukschooltrips.co.uk is throwing its weight behind a new government campaign to ensure more school trips for pupils across England.

The Midlands based national school trip planner is 100 per cent behind a new government measure by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. The ?Staying Safe? Action Plan will help teachers find it easier to take pupils on school trips with more help and advice, with the implication of quality badges for popular school trip destinations.

It is hoped the new guidance will make it easier for teachers to take their pupils out of the classroom.

School trip destinations across England will be encouraged by the scheme to qualify for ?quality badges?, which will act as a guide for teachers when identifying school trip destinations that provide high quality learning outside the classroom and are managing safety effectively.

The measure was included in the ?Staying Safe Action Plan? launched by the Department for Children, Schools and Families on Tuesday 5th February.

Other new measures outlined in the report include:

? A new Child Safety Education coalition
? New guidance for professionals on bullying in non school settings like children?s homes and FE colleges
? New guidance on safeguarding and on protecting children with disabilities or special educational needs from bullying
? A new safeguarding unit for the Third Sector
? New guidance on child employment
? New guidance on cross-border issues
? Publish research on joint working between children?s and housing services (with the Department for Communities and Local Government)
? Publish a review of safety education materials for Personal, Social and Health Education
? Carry out a Priority Review of local area accident prevention
? Put forward safeguarding theme for the local authority beacon award scheme

www.ukschooltrips.co.uk will be actively supporting the plan by encouraging school trip destinations to take part in the voluntary ?Quality Badge? scheme as part of the Staying Safe Action Plan, which is set to begin in September this year.

UK School Trips is the UK?s leading online trip adviser for UK school trips. The Internet based school trip adviser has been successfully providing information for planning school trips for schools, colleges, nurseries, special schools, youth group leaders, child minders and parents throughout the UK.

Additional information

The Out and About guidance on school visits will be available from May 2008 and the quality badge in September 2008.

The new ?Staying Safe? action plan sets out how the government will deliver the new Public Service Agreement on improving children and young people?s safety.

The Staying Safe Action Plan is available at www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/stayingsafe/

The Children?s plan is available from www.dcsf.gov.uk