Why school trips are needed now more than ever

The school trip now seems rather quaint. When you can see the whole world on Google Maps, what’s the point of traipsing to the seaside to see longshore drift in action? In an age of austerity, moreover, the school trip might seem an unaffordable indulgence.

Yet parents seem to think otherwise: according to a recent Family Finances Report, 69 per cent of parents are willing to pay for school field trips in Britain. Experiencing the real world — rather than merely reading or writing about it, or staring at it through a computer — should be an essential part of education.

The government agrees. Last October, Michael Gove unveiled a £5 million scheme designed to fund trips to the first world war battlefields for thousands of pupils in England. The aim, Gove said, was for children to learn about the sacrifices made ‘to secure our nation’.

Gove has attacked the bureaucratic educational culture which led to schools not organising trips for fear of contravening rules they did not even understand.