At MTO Persian School, we will follow the stated procedures below for any off-site visit:
We will:
- State a clear objective and the learning outcomes.
- Talk to the co-ordinator when we want to arrange a visit. She/he may contact the local authority for support and guidance about safety.
- Have a detailed back-up plan if the main objectives cannot be achieved.
- Have a leader who has had suitable training and experience. Talk to the co-ordinator about who will be a suitable leader.
- Consider the kind of activity and the length of the trip to have enough adults to supervise the children/young people effectively
- Have a qualified first aider on all visits.
- Have qualified specialist leaders, to supervise any adventurous or high-risk activities
- Write a risk assessment for every visit. The risk assessment will cover:
- the main activity
- the back-up plan
- free time (if we decide to allow any)
- travel arrangements
- emergency procedures
- numbers of staff/volunteers, including mixes of gender and skills
- arrangements for supervision
- site-specific hazards and risks (such as needing to have a trained person in charge of a sporting activity)
- variable hazards (such as the weather, children/young people who cannot manage to complete activities, behaviour issues).
- Write a clear information sheet about the visit, including its purpose, what everyone will do, times and places where everyone should meet and from where they should be collected afterwards, the people supervising the visit and any other details we think families might need. Give this to children/young people and to parents/carers.
- Discuss the visit with the children/young people who are going and agree a code of conduct with them, making sure that they help to establish the rules that are made to ensure their safety, and that they know why they have to follow them.
- Get written consent from parents/carers for children/young people to go on the visit and take part in the activities.
- Get additional specific consent if any of the activities involve going near water.
- Collect medical information and information about special learning, dietary or cultural needs from parents/carers, to care safely and sensitively for the children/young people.
- Write an agreement about whether each child/young person will be collected after the visit or is allowed to make their way home independently.
- Give parents/carers an opportunity to ask questions before the visit, by either an informal invitation to speak to us at the end of classes or a full parents’/carers’ meeting, depending on the nature of the visit.
- Take with us on the visit a list of children/young people with medical details and emergency contact numbers, and leave an identical list with a trusted adult, who will arrange to be contactable by phone for the whole time of the visit. If there is an accident or emergency, or even if we are just going to be late arriving back, that person will phone the contact numbers to make sure that parents/carers are informed.
- Find out as much as we can about the place we are going to visit. Plan any emergency procedures and pack a first aid kit. We find a safe meeting place for any child/young person who gets lost. We tell the children/young people what to do if they should get lost.
- Call registers and check regularly that everyone is there. We put a system in place so that children/young people do not get lost or wander off alone. We give each child/young person a ‘buddy’ and put them in small groups to be supervised by a named adult. We get them to form a circle at the start of the visit so that each child/young person has a left-side buddy and a right-side buddy. We give children/young people something to wear or a badge or head covering so that you can pick them out in a crowd. There is no child/ young person’s name on the Badge but will have the name of the MTO Persian School and a phone number on it.
After the visit, we spend time with the co-ordinator, children/young people and other adults reviewing the visit, considering how it went and how it might have been improved. We will make a note of any special safety measures we need to adopt for the future.
Signed on behalf of the Management Committee
Signed: ……………………………. Date …………………..
| Date implemented: | Future review dates |
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| 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 |
| Date reviewed |
N/A | July 2018 | July 2019 | June 2020 | ||
| Date approved by trustees | July 2018 | July 2019 |