You’re geared up and excited about your upcoming class trip, but you may need help ensuring enough students sign up to attend.
Keep these pointers and guidelines in mind next time you begin planning a student trip.
Money
The number one factor that usually prevents students from attending a trip is lack of adequate funds. Be sure to immediately get into fundraising mode once you’ve secured your trip details with ETI. Host bake sales, car washes, etc. Don’t be afraid to get creative either! Approach local businesses or past donors to see if they’re interested in donating or sponsoring a student’s trip.
Additionally, encourage students to apply for available educational travel scholarships. Do some online research to find potential opportunities and pass them along—you never know how effective this can be unless students apply. For example, ETI is very active with the SYTA Youth Foundation; their Road Scholarship applications are now online!
Also important? Choosing a destination that your kids will get excited about. Simply stated, if they aren’t excited about where you’re going, they aren’t going to sign up or work to fundraise for the trip. Make sure the destination is not only one that the kids will be interested in, but is one that fits into a realistic budget.
Momentum
Be proactive in sharing information with parents as early on as you can.
Stress the vital role travel plays in students’ development and hold regular planning meetings—keeping the lines of communication with parents as open and transparent as possible. Making yourself available otherwise to answer any questions they may have helps build trust and reassures them that their child is safe in your capable care.
Motivation
Traveling in general has educational benefits, but be sure to share the specific ties the trip has to what the students have been learning. Instead of reading about a historic event that happened at a location that seems so far away, bringing students there—standing where those history makers once stood—will have an impact beyond what their textbook alone can give.
Essential to broadening a student’s worldview, traveling has endless cultural benefits, as well. Share with students the fact that they’ll get to interact with new people and experience traditions that are different than their own.
Besides the obvious educational benefits, trips like these are FUN. Be sure to share that in addition to the trip having components that are tied to your curriculum, there will also be plenty of chances for kids to be kids. Opportunities like these not only enrich their educational learning, but will leave students with memories that will last a lifetime.
Courtesy of ETI.
