October 25, 2006
What stops teachers from booking school excursions?
October 23, 2006 - Brisbane, Queensland - What is it that stops teachers from booking school excursions, and what can you do to help? The preliminary results of the Dazzled school excursions survey are in! We've spent the last few months asking teachers questions about their experiences with organising school excursions, and we'd like to share some of the preliminary results with you.
We ended up with more than five results in each category due to some ties, but here they are...
Top 5 challenges teachers face when organising a school excursion
1. Pricing/Funding for the excursion
2. Liability/Risk Assessments/Safety
2. Transportation to/from the excursion
4. Scheduling
5. Meeting curriculum requirements
5. Not knowing what is available at the excursion venue
5. Paperwork
Top 5 Improvements to Make School Excursions Easier
1. Provide detailed information
2. Cheap deals for schools
3. Make it easy for teachers to contact you and communicate with your business
4. Excursion/Transportation/Accommodation Packages
5. Worksheets
5. Facilities
5. Align the excursion with the curriculum
5. Good with school students, welcoming, friendly
What can you do to help teachers book school excursions?
So what does this mean for you, the school excursion vendor? Let's take a look at the challenges in more detail...1. Pricing/Funding for the excursion
The education sector has always struggled with funds, so make sure that your pricing structure is not a barrier to buying.
2. Liability/Risk Assessments/Safety
Litigation has increased significantly over the past few years and teachers have to put together detailed risk assessments before they can conduct and excursion. You can make it easier for them by providing them with some initial risk and safety information. For sample risk assessments, see our Risk and Hazard Assessments page.
2. Transportation to/from the excursion
We address this one again below, but if you can package yourself with a transportation company and provide a single, all inclusive price, you will help teachers overcome one of their major challenges with organising school excursions.
4. Scheduling
Teachers, particularly high school teachers, can struggle with scheduling school excursions, getting time off, or getting their other classes covered while they're out. How can you help? Perhaps you can offer, or at least suggest, multi-year or multi-subject excursion packages. You'll get more students using your services and the teachers will have their scheduling conflicts reduced.
5. Meeting curriculum requirements
How can your service meet curriculum requirements? Perhaps you can get some ideas by asking some of the teachers who already visit you how they are tying your offerings to the school curriculum?
5. Not knowing what is available
What services do you offer? Provide as much detail as you can.
Now let's look at the improvements teachers would like to see...
1. Provide detailed information
This was by far the top priority for teachers, finding detailed information quickly. They wanted to know: collection and departure points, the time it takes to do tours, etc, clearly organized timetables, accurate and up to date information, they want you to have your insurance information on hand so when they ask for it you can provide an answer quickly.
2. Provide cheap deals for schools
Budgets are an obvious concern so teachers are looking for a deal.
3. Make it easy for teachers to contact you and communicate with your business
Do you make it easy for teachers to reach you? If someone is not staffing the phone, do you redirect it to a mobile phone?
Do you have pre-prepared documentation that contains all the information teachers need so you can send them quickly? Do you ever ask what additional information teachers need? Do you have a system for collecting suggestions from your staff as to what additional information should be provided to teachers in advance?
4. Excursion/Transportation/Accommodation Packages
According to the results of our survey, if you package your service with complimentary services, and provide all inclusive pricing, teachers are much more likely to buy from you. If you're a venue, can you package yourself with a local bus company and/or hotel? If you?re an accommodation vendor, can you package yourself with several local venues and offer all inclusive pricing for accommodation plus one or more venues at the same time?
5. Student Worksheets
Do you have worksheets available for teachers to download? If so they'll make life much easier for teachers. What other types of activities could you offer? Web applications that support your venue? Downloadable tours that could be played on a mobile phone or an mp3 player? Educational cell phone games?
5. Facilities
Teachers want to know that you have the facilities available so that the excursion is successful. Some of the specific facilities mentioned were:
- Girls toilets ? do you have more than the regulations require? If so, you have a selling point, as bathroom breaks are big time wasters on school excursions.
- Bus parking ? do you have ample bus parking? It's much easier for teachers to organize transportation if they know what sort of parking facilities you have available.
- Wet weather facilities ? If your venue is outdoors do you have indoor options? Do you have indoor lunch facilities?
Are you able to align the services you provide with different parts of the school curriculum, if so specify which.
5. Good with students, welcoming, friendly
Make sure that someone is there when the students arrive, act like you're expecting them. Make sure that your tour guides/drivers/staff like children and have a natural rapport with them. Guides that are obviously impatient or have little tolerance for children will not encourage repeat visits or word of mouth advertising.
School Excursion Survey Still Open
Teachers who would like to have their say by participating in the Dazzled school excursion survey can visit our survey page.More Results to follow
If you are interested in the final results of the school excursion survey, or in our special promotional rates for advertising on Dazzled, send an email to survey@dazzled.com.au.About Dazzled
Dazzled Pty Ltd, is a company that is passionate about education, and particularly school excursions. Founded in 2005, its mission is to bring educational relevance and experiential learning to the world. In recent years teachers have become increasingly reluctant to organise school excursions due to the amount of paperwork required, which comes as a result of escalating liability concerns. Dazzled's first step in achieving their mission is to promote and facilitate school excursions, and remove some of the organisational obstacles for teachers. Dazzled is headquartered in Brisbane, Qld. For more information visit www.dazzled.com.au.
For PRESS information, please visit www.dazzled.com.au/pages/media.php or send an email to media@dazzled.com.au.
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