Teacher Resources

On this page you'll find help and information on planning and booking your school tour. The FAQ's are followed by a selection of standard letters covering all aspects of launching and running a trip. In addition you'll find a schedule for planning each stage of the process, Risk Assessments and tour documentation such as Room Lists.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I book?

Either telephone or email us with your preferred dates and group size and we will send you an itinerary and booking pack. If you wish to promote the tour please call us and we will make a provisional booking while you send a letter to parents/your group. Once you have collected deposits from the students, simply send us the Booking Form and a cheque for the deposit. Don't forget you will need permission to run the trip from your school and possibly your LEA as well - so leave plenty of time. You may like to use the tour planning schedule in the table below (under Planning).

How much is the deposit?

You pay £50 per paying person at the time of booking - the balance is due 10 weeks before departure. We do not ask you for multiple stage payments. If your Finance Department needs a Proforma Invoice please ask - this shows the total cost of the tour and the deposit amount so they can raise a cheque.

Is there a minimum number of people?

Most touring coaches have 49 seats so our tours are great value for 30+ passengers. The most economic number is 44 students with 5 free places for staff. If you travel with less than 44 students a Low Number Supplement will apply. This means it is important to give a price range to parents or add a contingency onto the price we quote you, just in case you get a lower uptake than expected.

What is a Collective Passport?

If most of the students do not have a Passport of their own you can arrange a Group or Collective Passport. Each student will need a passport size photograph and you will need to collect information on their date and place of birth etc. The application for a Collective Passport is made online direct with the Passport Office. You need to allow 3 to 4 months for the Passport Office  to process the application. The fee is currently £39 which we will refund you.

Do you provide Risk Assessments?

We can provide generic risk assessments on all elements of each tour. Risk Assessments are a document that identifies possible risks and the ways to prevent or reduce the risk of accidents occurring. The process of producing a risk assessment is useful as it makes you think laterally about each stage of your tour.

When do we decide who shares rooms?

We need you to produce a Room List at least 8 weeks before the tour departure date. This allows us to confirm the right mix of room types. After you have supplied your Room List to us you can still change it as long as the room types do not change. It is therefore best to get your Room List sent to us as early as possible - you can then have a separate list you use on the day.

Can you cater for vegetarians and other special diets?

As long as we have plenty of warning we can cater for most special dietery needs. Vegetarianism is now fairly common place even in France so this is not usually an issue. Sometimes there will be an additional cost if a special medical diet is required (ie coeliac diet).

Standard Letters and Forms

If you have not organised a trip before you may like to use our template letters and forms on this page. Check first with your school office as they may have their own templates. You can easily download these letters to your own PC as Microsoft Word files and then amend them to suit your own itinerary, school policy and students.

The letters and forms below are designed to make it easier for you to administer the tour. They need to be amended to suit your own tour/students/school policy.

These documents have been produced in Microsoft Word. Just click the link to start downloading the file to your computer.

Trip Proposal Letter
Confirming Trip Letter
Request Balance Letter
Confirming Details Letter
Packing list.doc

Planning the tour

We have added a useful Tour Planning Schedule which shows the critical dates for your tour. You can then add the dates to your diary. You can download the Planner as an Excel file. Simply enter your proposed departure date and the planner will set the dates for each of the key steps in planning your trip. You can easily change the schedule to suit your own timescales. As you complete each task you can update the schedule. The lead time for a Collective Passport varys so it is best to check with the Passport Office as early as possible.

Critical Date Planner.xls

Below are other useful documents for you to download when planning your school trip.

Booking Form Sep 2009 - Aug 10.pdf

Risk Assessments

LEA's and your school's SMT's will require Risk Assessments for your trip. A Risk Assessment is a document which considers the type and level of risk for each activity during the tour. To make the task easier we can provide generic Risk Assessments as WORD documents. You cna then edit them to meet your own requirement. It is important you read the Risk Assessment carefully and add any additional risks that may occur due to the nature of your group.

You can download our Risk Assessments for your tour by clicking here.

How to complete your Room List

Filling out your Room List is the final stage of the tour documentation process - when you book we can normally confirm to you the number and type of rooms your group has been allocated by the hotel (usually twins and triples).. You then need to type the names of the students and staff into our Room List template which can be emailed back to us at info@rtours.co.uk. You decide who is sharing each room. Start on room 1 and fill in the names of the students who are sharing the room working across to the right. When you have finished, save the file to your PC and then email it back to us. By emailing us your Room List on our template we can automatically upload your room list into our computer which avoids any spelling errors  (not everyone's handwriting is easy to read). Where you have more than one hotel and the room allocation varies you can enter the hotel number at the end of each row.

For Overseas tours it is important the SURNAMES and FIRST NAMES are exactly as per their Passports as we use the Room List names to produce the Shipping List (a list of every one on the coach which is handed over to immigration control at the border).

As anyone over 16yrs is an adult for the ferry companies, we need to know age at the date of travel (in years) for each student and their gender (male or female) . For staff you can put their age at 21!

If you have more than one coach we also need to know which coach (1, 2, 3 or 4 etc) each person has been allocated - there is a column on the Room List Template where you enter this number.

The Room List names are also used to produce the Insurance Cover Note - a list of everyone who is insured.

Below is the Room List template which you can download to your own PC. Simply click on your right mouse button and choose 'Save as' and save it into a folder on your computer.

1 Rhapsody Room List template .xls

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Home Page > Resources

How to Book

Call us on 0845 130 4611 to discuss your requirements or click on 'Get a Quote' and send us your request. We will then send you an itinerary and price. Click here for more.

Sustainable Tourism

We have useful information on our Sustainable Tourism page regarding carbon offsetting and calculating carbon emissions.

FAQs

If this is the first time you have organised a school trip you may like to read our Frequently Asked Questions in our Resources section.

Testimonial

"Our driver was brilliant and fantastic with the children, we would like to request that if at all possible he's our driver next year. Generally well organised trip and value for money."

EW, Scaltback Middle School, Newmarket, Suffolk

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