Trips and Visits

SWCHS believes in the value of learning beyond the school premises. In addition to the fixtures run by the PE Department and the vibrant Duke of Edinburgh programme, different departments in the school provide opportunities for students to go on trips and visits. Sometimes this involves visiting nearby locations (usually within the school day) – parents agree to students attending these Routine and Local Area Visits when their child enrols in the school. At other times, trips are organised that involve students having residential visits and going overseas. Parents provide specific permission for these trips.

As well as trips organised by curriculum areas (such as Languages trips to France and Germany, Classics trips to Pompeii and Rome, Geology trips to Tenerife, English and Drama trips to the theatre, Science trips to the zoo and to the Space Centre, Geography trips to London, and History trips to the Battlefields), there are also multiple Enrichment trips that students can apply for. Given the size of our year groups, some of these trips become oversubscribed and a careful and fair selection process takes place, which includes prioritising those from older year groups, those taking relevant qualifications (eg GCSE PE, for the ski trip), and those who have missed out on previous trips.

We seek to provide financial assistance to those for whom we receive Pupil Premium funding and the Sixth Form Bursary for Curriculum trips. We try to stagger the payments for these trips over a number of months but, sometimes, the initial payment may be larger (eg to pay for flights).

In order to support parental planning, here are some examples of trips we tend to run (although we cannot guarantee these will run each year, the costs may vary, and places may be limited):

• Year 7: We aim to offer the opportunity for all students to have a day in France in the summer term (indicative cost: £120).
• Year 8: We tend to run trips to France, Germany and Italy in the summer term (indicative cost: £600-£1,000).
• Year 9: We run trips to the Battlefields in the summer term (indicative cost: £490).
• Year 10: We tend to run a trip to USA in the Easter holidays (indicative cost: £2,650)Year 12: We tend to run a trip to Geneva and an expedition (eg to Nepal/Morrocco).

In addition to these, we also run two ski trips: one for year 13 students at Christmas (indicative cost: £1,600) and one in February half term that is open to students in years 9-12 (indicative cost: £1900, often with an initial payment of c.£500 in March). We also run an annual Music Tour in July for those in senior ensembles (indicative cost: £700).

As you can see, we provide a lot of opportunities for students to visit exciting and interesting places. We have many trips that we do for everyone in the year group (eg to the zoo and to France for all of year 7, to the theatre and to London in year 8, a visit to the Space centre for all of year 9). We are also conscious that some of the Enrichment trips are more expensive (due to the high costs of travel) but we do what we can to reduce costs and we also encourage students to consider how they can save up for these trips (eg for older students, taking on part-time jobs).