How beneficial are trips to students? Claire Simpson

The task… I was given the task of organising a trip for year 10 GCSE resistant materials students. I decided to take the students to the V&A museum in London. The trip included a taught lesson on chair design. After the trip I gave students a questionnaire to find out what they thought.

Did you enjoy the trip?

How did you rate the taught lesson?

Would you like to go back to the V&A with your family?

Other comments from students about how the trip could have been better… “I would have liked more time to walk around the museum on my own” “I would have liked a taught lesson on all types of furniture” “The taught lesson had nothing to do with what we are doing in class” “I would have liked more time to do sketches”

To conclude Some students obviously benefited from the trip and got some ideas for their GCSE coursework. Other students could not see the relevance between the exhibits and their GCSE coursework. Time was an issue.

A comparison… For year 10 GCSE students in food technology, a fish and meat expert from Waitrose came into school to show the students how to fillet and cook salmon. I wanted to compare the feedback that I got from the lesson with feedback from the trip.

Comments from students… “It was a great change from the norm” “I learnt a lot and it was really good fun” “It was well good and it should happen more often” “I really enjoyed cooking the salmon, and eating it too!” “Des needed to trust us more with the equipment”

Conclusion All of the comments (apart from one) were positive from the students about the Waitrose lesson. The students were still talking about it the following lesson. All students got a lot out of the lesson. Students did not miss any of their other lessons. I did not have to do a mountain of paper work (such as risk assessments etc etc!)