Educational Visits

Our Educational Visits team can support your school in providing a safe environment for children to learn outside of the classroom, one which meets national health and safety standards.

We offer guidance on the effective management of outdoor learning, off-site visits and learning outside of the classroom. Our proven framework ensures that you meet all statutory health & safety responsibilities, while observing duty of care requirements.

We ensure that all visits are recorded, monitored and approved online by your school’s Educational Visits Co-ordinator (EVC) or Headteacher. Higher-risk visits may be approved by the local authority (LA) Educational Visits Adviser.

Support is administered via EVOLVE, an online approval system, select Essex Juniper Education or Warwickshire Juniper Education, while advice and guidance are provided through our helpdesk, or via the OEAP National Guidance website.

Our online Continuous Professional Development (CPD) modules in Visit Leader training are offered under annual licenses, so that your staff can complete the required training in their own time. Subscription costs for the year are based on school type/size. Our available modules are Critical Incident Planning and Educational Visits.

All of our modules can be adapted to suit your school’s needs. Establishments are monitored through the annual ‘Schools Health & Safety Audit’ and EVOLVE online submission systems, to ensure that they meet health and safety requirements.

Legal duty of employers under the Health and Safety at Work Act (1974) and associated regulations: Employers must ensure that employees are provided with appropriate guidance, training, and access to further competent advice.

The employer retains overall responsibility for health, safety and welfare. The Local Authority (LA) is the employer in LA maintained schools (community and VC), Statutory Youth Service, Looked After Children and other LA services or settings. The governing body, trustees, and owners are the employer at foundation, VA, academies, and free and independent schools.

Employers have overall responsibility but will delegate most visit approval to Headteachers, as they know the visit leaders and young people. The educational visits support service helps schools to ensure these responsibilities are met, staff are trained and competencies are developed and recorded.

Contact us to find out how we can help you to provide a safe learning environment outside of the classroom.

Guidance on Educational Visits is changing regularly, to see our COVID-19 advice please visit our Coronavirus – Educational Visits for Schools page here.