School budgets are being stretched and cut to the bone.
One possible casualty of this will be field trips given the increasing costs of transport / cover costs, but also the ability of families who are under financial pressure to afford the price of trips for their children.
This piece by Lola Okolosie has some powerful quotes that certainly resonate with my own experiences over the years.
Ask any teacher, and most will have a story to tell of pupils leaving their neighbourhood for the first time to explore previously unknown parts of the country’s geographical or cultural landscape.The author describes a trip to Malham.
As a child growing up in Bradford, it was on a school trip that I was able to see the huge, curved limestone amphitheatre of Malham Cove in North Yorkshire – just an hour away from home – for the first time. More than 30 years on, facts about sediment and rock formations have long been forgotten. But what has stayed with me is the spark of curiosity ignited on that trip. It led me to walk eagerly along with my peers, awed by the nature around me that I had never before experienced, far away from my neighbourhood of packed back-to-back houses. Up until then, I hadn’t known what my teachers meant when, in lessons, they referred to the Yorkshire Dales national park.
Financial support for fieldwork is available by the Frederick Soddy Trust.
Applications are open I believe.
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