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Disadvantaged children are missing out on residential trips

Extra curricular Narrowing the Gap
From personal development and team-building skills, to encouraging a sense of adventure and enhancing subject knowledge, residential trips can bring a wealth of benefits to children and young people. But a new report has found that millions of pupils are missing out on the chance to experience trips away from school.

The study, conducted by education think-tank LKMco, revealed that only one in five of secondary and primary pupils go on residential trips each year – and that youngsters in disadvantaged areas have the fewest opportunities to take part. This is partly due to cost and partly due to the fact that they are more likely to live in areas where fewer residential trips are available.

The research, funded by campaigning group Learning Away and published last month, discovered that educational establishments organise an average of 2.5 residential trips per year, with approximately 1.8 million children and young people taking part.

“This is equivalent to 21 per cent of the school population,” said the report’s authors. “While this probably means that in most schools, at least some pupils are involved in a residential each year, it also means that every year, a large number of pupils do not experience a residential. Unfortunately, we find that it is pupils in disadvantaged areas who have fewest opportunities to participate.”

The study found that residential trips were “generally of high quality” but that their cost prohibited many poorer pupils from taking part. Many teachers said they feared the situation would get worse as funding is squeezed.

One told the authors: “Some pupils did not have the means to access this opportunity even though they would probably have benefited most from the experiences.”

Speaking about the report’s findings, Joe Lynch, chair of the Learning Away Consortium, said: “The study shows that residentials in schools are generally of high quality. Disturbingly, however, it confirms what many of us feared – far too many children and young people are missing out on these transformational experiences.

“We would argue that if these experiences have such a significant impact, all pupils should be entitled to have them during their time at primary and secondary school.”

The Learning Away website features a host of advice for schools about ways to fund residential trips for those who struggle to afford them.

These include spreading residential costs over a period of time, using incentivised parental savings schemes, using Pupil Premium funding and encouraging pupil-led fundraising (which PTAs then match-fund).