Field trips can be so much fun when they run smoothly. However, there can also be those field trips where you want to pull your hair out or vow never to do it again. We’ve gone on hundreds of field trips over our careers. Some of these trips are cherished memories of special classes. Others are permanent scars and trauma (ok, that might be pushing it). Come learn from our mistakes so you can avoid these field trip problems.
We have a whole list of more ideas for items you can put in your field trip backpacks in our post, The Ultimate Guide to Field Trips. It also has lots of helpful tips to plan your trips. If you’ve ever tried to find a tissue in the wild, you’ll thank us for this!
Not All Field Trip Problems Are Created Equal
There are some problems that you just can’t plan for (like the child who was dealing with food poisoning and got sick all over the bus). And there are some problems that you can’t really prevent because you don’t think it will happen in a million years (like the child that caught their crutch between the planks on a wharf and fell – cast and all – into the pond).
You can do all the planning in the world to make sure your field trip is organized and will be valuable to your learners, but there is a whole class of field trip problems that take a special kind of planning and preparation. These are your volunteers.
Volunteers are absolutely vital to any field trip. It is not possible to be the eyes and ears of every child when you take your class out into the wild. You need those volunteers to round up the children and keep them safe so you can manage the learning. Most of our experiences are very positive, but we have had plenty of experience and thought it could help any teacher who is still learning the ropes or hasn’t been on a field trip in a while.
Make your expectations about what you want from your volunteers very clear from the beginning. Many parents or family members want to come along on the field trip to spend time with their children. While that is wonderful, your goal as the supervising teacher is to make sure all your students are being supervised.
Need help organizing your field trip?
We have a simple set of field trip forms that you can use to keep your field trip organized. They are available in the Resource Library for members of our email list. If you’re not on the list yet, we can send it directly to your inbox when you sign up.
Problem #1: Parent-child Relationships
Through years and years of field trips with parents and children, we’ve learned there is no perfect relationship. Some field trip problems have nothing to do with you.
Hyper focused
Some parents spend all their time with their child, leading to another child who was supposed to be supervised by that adult having a problem that you now have to deal with. Honestly, it would save you time if the parent weren’t there in the first place.
Taking Over
Some parents take over everything the child is doing on the field trip. Instead of this, the child – who can normally be responsible and do their work – suddenly can’t even write their own name on a piece of paper. Some parents like to “overhelp” their own child during the field trip. I’ve witnessed perfectly good children suddenly go limp as if it’s too much strain to put on their own shoes. Why? Because that’s what happens at home. We don’t have time for that at school.
Separation of Home and School
Some children can’t handle the parent coming into their class. They need the separation of home and school. It’s almost like they’re two different children. One year, we had a student who was an absolute delight until the day her mother came on a field trip. This child had a full-blown kicking and screaming temper tantrum in the middle of the very public exhibition. The more mom tried to help, the worse it got. She asked that her mom never come on another field trip. We spoke with her mom, who agreed (but found other ways to volunteer).
The Solution
I had a rule that parents were not always put in the same learning group as their children. This was something parents were told in advance. I simply worded it as We cannot guarantee you will have the opportunity to spend the whole day with your child as our main objective is for the safety and supervision of all students. This means you may be asked to supervise students in different groups or classes based on the needs of all students.
There are still plenty of times they can spend time together during the field trip. Encourage them to ride the bus together, each lunch together, or if there is “free time” where students are kept in an enclosed space where it doesn’t matter who leads who.
If a child acts out when a parent comes along, maybe choose a different volunteer or separate them as much as possible on the trip. Talk with the child and the parent separately to brainstorm ways to make it more manageable.
If a parent is too helpful, explain that it’s important to the process to see what children can do independently. Redirect them to a child who genuinely needs the extra help.
Problem #2: Phones and Photos
Technology has created new field trip problems. When we began teaching, we didn’t need to worry about smartphones.
Our school has a very strict policy that parent volunteers cannot take photos of students. This is because of privacy rules. Schools are not public spaces, and the photos taken inside are not allowed to be made public unless it is specifically a public event (like a concert or an assembly where the public is invited). One of the reasons this rule is in place is to prevent students who may be protected in the foster care system, custody situations, or parental requests for privacy from being accidentally made public. Despite being in public spaces, not all aspects of field trips are “public.”
I also ask parents to put their phones on silent and avoid being on them during “class time.” Nothing is more annoying than listening to a guest speaker with a volunteer chatting away on their phone just outside the door. Not only are they disruptive, but they’ve missed the information the students got and will now struggle with the activity or lesson.
The Solution
Before going on a field trip, I explain that parents are not permitted to take any photos (even those of their child). Instead, I provide school devices that all the parent volunteers can use to take photos. These photos are property of the school, but if a photo of a child is good, I pass it along to the parents.
Problem #3: Volunteers with Their Own Set of Rules
Before I share these horror stories, I want to point out that these are only three stories out of the hundreds of volunteers I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside over the years. But, just as in life, there are some people who don’t feel the rules should apply to everyone.
Eat It
While visiting a local historical site, I’d made a point of telling families that we would not have access to the restaurant or any microwaves for lunch. Students and volunteers needed to bring a lunch they could eat quickly as our time between sessions was about twenty minutes long. That included washroom breaks and walking across a huge field to get to the afternoon’s activities.
As we were walking to the afternoon’s activities, I noticed that one volunteer and his son weren’t in our line. When I inquired with the other group members, they told me they’d gone to the restaurant for lunch. Not only had they broken the rules, they were almost forty minutes late to the afternoon activities. The dad tried to blame it on his wife “not telling him about the lunch rule,” but his son totally tattled.
Gift Shop of Horrors
The second example I can share is a field trip to the museum. The trip was extremely short, so students were not permitted to go to the cafe or gift shop. As we were waiting on the bus for the last group to arrive, I realized the reason they were so late was that the dad had taken his group to the gift shop and they were having a little spending treat on him. When they got to the bus, he genuinely didn’t understand why buying five children box loads of candy and then putting them on the bus with the other twenty-five children without candy might be a problem. The only silver lining is that the bus driver wouldn’t let any of them eat the candy during the drive.
Retail Therapy
And the winner for the worst volunteer was when I took a choir to sing at a local festival. After the festival, there were about twenty minutes of free time so students could look around. As we lined up at the bus, I realized I had all my students, but I was missing one parent volunteer. When I inquired about her, the kids said she was shopping. Now, the part I left out was that it was -40°C, snowing, there were over 1,000 students and our bus driver wasn’t going to wait. We drove back to the school without her.
I’m sure you want to know what happened. She took a cab back to the school and screamed at the office staff about how she wanted to be reimbursed. Fortunately, my principal confronted her about the shopping instead of supervising the students (she was still holding her bag of goodies she’d bought) and explained that she would not be asked to accompany any group of students anywhere again.
The Solution
This one is a little more difficult to predict, but you do not have to take every person who volunteers. If you have a challenging one, maybe switch them out for someone else.
If you’re looking for a more proactive approach, ask last year’s teacher if the volunteer had any issues.
Problem #4: No Shows
While it’s easy to assume that lower economic areas would have fewer volunteers, we’ve actually found that not to be true. Many families do not have parents who are available during the day as they are both working. However, many of our families live intergenerationally. This means there are aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents who volunteer. When we have taught in more affluent areas, the parents tend to have very demanding jobs and aren’t available during the day.
The Solution
If you have a school population where it’s challenging to get volunteers to remember their commitments, consider sending home reminders. Sometimes, parents get busy and forget they signed up to help months earlier. This could be a note home, an email, a phone call, or a reminder on your class website.
Plan your field trips as early in the year as possible and notify families as soon as they are booked to give people ample time to plan.
It helps to have a few extra people sign up in case you need to make replacements. Our school requires volunteers to have a criminal records check and sign a confidentiality form before they can volunteer. Try to get this done as early in the year as possible. We actually encourage all our families to do it, even if they don’t think they’ll volunteer. That way, they might be a good replacement at the last minute.
Explain the importance of volunteers. In many cases, field trips have to be cancelled if there is not enough supervision.
Problem #5: The Participant
Have you ever had a volunteer not only take over the activity but do it instead of the kids? This can be the case when the field trip is a unique experience. These are memories that children will remember for their lifetime. The last thing they want to experience is someone else’s family member getting to do something really cool.
The Solution
Remind all your volunteers that the goal is for all the students to experience as much as possible first-hand. In the event there is extra time, then it might be possible for the adults to give it a try.
What are your field trip problems?
We could write a whole book on all the things we’ve learned. What field trip problems have we missed? Leave your ideas in a comment below and maybe we’ll write a whole other post.
