Trips Give Students the Strongest Sense of Belonging - and Schools* are Cutting Them Back
*not us!
New research from the University of Oxford suggests that school trips are the single strongest driver in giving students a sense of connection and belonging within the school community, with 58% of students surveyed saying that trips engaged them the most.
The OxWell Student Survey interviewed more than 35,000 students aged 9-18 across 95 schools and a range of demographics. The results were decisive.
When it game to community engagement and a feeling of belonging, school trips came top across the board, including among students with significant school absence (51%), students struggling with mental health conditions (55%), students with SEND needs (47%) and students who identified as feeling lonely (46%).
This is significant for a number of reasons. Not only are trips significantly ahead (lunchtime and after-school activities came second with 39%) for students, this trend carries through to groups of students who otherwise face barriers to engaging with school life.
This trend, however, is seemingly at odds with the reality for school leaders, with Sutton Trust research suggesting that the proportion of schools cutting back on trips has more than doubled since 2022 as already stretched budgets are forced to stretch further.
It's not hard to see the reasoning. After all, if a school's purpose is to teach, then trips, clubs and extra-curricular activities are surely not vital to the core mission, and can be cut if needed.
However, what this research suggests is that not only are trips an important part of engaging students in their education, they may be the single most important tool schools have in bringing struggling students back into the fold.
In the words of study lead Mina Fazel:
School trips emerged as the most frequently selected option by a clear margin, well above things like student councils, peer-support programmes and assemblies. This was consistent across groups, including amongst those who reported that they did not feel a sense of belonging at school.
Even students who do not currently feel that they belong in their school community still value trips highly as being able to change that experience for the better.
It's why, in line with our core mission of happiness-first schooling, MVA is bucking the trend by increasing the number of in-person trips we provide, currently sitting at around 10 per term, as well as expanding the scope of those trips with multi-day residentials and events outside the UK.
Because the quality of your teaching does not matter if students are not engaged, and they will not engage if they don't feel like they belong.
