Trips for SEND / ASN students
Education Destination is committed to helping teachers and SENCOs provide inclusive trips for groups containing students with special requirements.
We work closely with all of our based partners and venues to understand their provisions and limitations for visitors with additional needs. All our partner venues are required to provide sample Risk Assessments and all are encouraged to publish or develop comprehensive Access Statements.
Once we understand your requirements, we can task our local third-party CMIOSH assessor to undertake any specific checks required. Whatever your particular needs, Education Destination can advise on venues and activities to suit your cohort.
Ways We Can Help
- We can vary activities (both physical and academic) to suit
- We can adapt learning resources and activities or develop specific learning programmes
- Resources can be differentiated to provide inherent flexibility for mixed ability groups - all working to the same task but at different levels
- We can liaise with your SENCO and all of our partners to ensure we understand and are fully prepared for your students
- We will work with your chosen venues to adapt service provision as needed
- We can provide chaperones to boost supervision ratios helping limit the impact the trip will have on other staff
- We can arrange specialist transport, facilities and accommodation if needed
- We will be honest with you about problems we know you might encounter to allow you to come prepared
Talk to us
Common Issues & Situations
Behavioural Disorders and Social Interaction Difficulties
e.g. ADHD, EBD, Conduct Disorder, OCD, ODD, SEBD, SEMH
Of all of the special educational needs, those that can be generally classified as behavioural disorders are perhaps the easiest to provide for.
We ask schools planning to bring students with these conditions to be frank with us about the types of issues each affected student typically presents, as well as the level to which they can become affected. For instance, do they need enhanced supervision or the just provision of easily-identifiable safe spaces to remove them to?
Then it's usually a case of building an itinerary specifically to suit the potential problems that we might expect to encounter. For example:
- Inattentive ADHD students often benefit from visits to attractions that have lots of different things going on at the same time, so they are likely to find something that holds their attention but also offers plenty of other options they can switch to if they begin to tire of the current activity. Visitor attractions with a mix of physical as well as pastoral activities, indoor and outdoor attractions work well
- Impulsive ADHD students on the other hand usually benefit from multi-activity venues where there is a planned and changing programme to avoid impatience so that the day is broken up into timed "chunks" with varied activities throughout
- Private visits to attractions can help students with conduct disorders by keeping them within the 'comfort zone' of their cohort, without mixing with public or other groups
- For students with OCD, we find that providing Trip Diaries well in advance of the trip helps them prepare for the experiences that are planned for them - forewarned is forearmed! In the past we've also gone to such extremes as photographing individual hotel rooms and making short video tours to be used to prepare OCD students so they know exactly what they are walking into.
- Trip diaries can also help those with Oppositional Defiant Disorder for the same reason - however we would also recommend self-led visits to attractions rather than instructor-led sessions, so this may have an impact on the choices of activities
For groups including students with behavioural disorders we will almost always recommend that your accommodation is booked exclusive use, so the only people present on site will be your own cohort and the minimum number of staff required to provision your visit. By making your hotel or other accommodation a 'home-from-home' we find this helps students settle better and avoids any inter-group or public issues.
Anxieties
e.g. Panic Attacks, Phobias, Separation / Attachment disorders
Where anxieties cause barriers to a student's ability to access normal activities, we can work with you as the person most understanding of their needs to devise a workable care plan for their visit.
For example:
- Students with separation anxieties or attachment disorders usually benefit from lots of pre-visit preparation so they become comfortable with what is planned. Our Trip Diaries (see above) can help here. In extreme cases we have arranged for parents to travel to Dorset concurrently with, but separate from, the student cohort (mainly for safeguarding reasons) so they can be on-hand in the event of problems arising. We also find that regular video contact with home can help other students and so we can arrange accommodation options where strong WiFi is pervasive to facilitate this.
- Phobias can throw up challenges depending on what the issue is - social phobias for example can usually be dealt with by arranging private sessions with activity providers. Food phobias can be addressed through liaison with the catering provider(s) and most other phobias through planned avoidance of the triggers - e.g. avoiding watersports for those with water phobias
- If you have students routinely suffering panic attacks we can help you identify safe spaces at each of the activities you will be visiting. We can also ensure that a coach remains on-site for the duration of your visits so there's always the possibility of exiting any situation quickly.
Physical / Mobility Limitations
e.g. Motor skills limitations, muscle weakness, palsies & dystrophies, physical disabilities, sensory impairments, wheelchair or mobility scooter users
As mentioned, we champion inclusivity and will always seek to ensure that students affected by physical or mobility limitations can participate as fully as possible within the constraints of those conditions.
As such, it's not uncommon for us to:
- Recommend activities that can be undertaken successfully by students with such limitations and highlight those where they might struggle, offering alternative compromises where available
- Providing suitably-equipped transport and accommodation options with a student's specific limitations in mind
- Arranging the local use of mobility aids to help with participation - for example the provision of special beach wheelchairs with large pneumatic tyres
- Incorporating additional support staff on guided activities so that mobility-impaired students receive the additional support they need without impacting the provision for the rest of the cohort
The range of potential scenarios is very wide - once we've discussed your particular needs we'll be better placed to advise on our specific recommendations for your group.
