Thread: Educational trips to London?

Why are you going through a tour company? When I taught at an American school in Saudi Arabia, our teachers planned these outings through travel agents. Our secondary students went on extended field trips to India, France, the UK, Japan etc.

The use of a travel agent allowed our school to tailor trips to each specific group. The more people who went, the more free hotel rooms and plane tickets they got for accompanying teachers. (Parent volunteers also went - but they paid their own way.)

The travel agents booked charter buses and hired private guides for touring. They also booked hotels, shuttle service to and from the airport, and plane tickets.

One possible source of help for identifying places to visit would be the American School of London. Their website may be found at:
[url]http://www.asl.org/[/url]

In general, there are American schools in most countries throughout the world. I myself taught in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon. As a student, I attended American schools in Ghana, Thailand, and EL Salvador.

The local school could prove to be a useful resource if you can find someone who'd be willing to correspond with you.

Another resource would be the London Tourism Guide book. This used to be a free publication complete with an A-Z map guide but unfortunately it's now out of print. The full text may be found on-line at: [url]http://www.londontourist.org/[/url]

I don't know what your time frame is, but have you considered the possibility of finding British pen pals? My 3rd grade class used to correspond with a public school in Edinburgh, Scotland.

As you may know, British public schools are actually private schools. State schools are what we would call "public schools."

If you aren't planning this trip until the following summer, perhaps you could find a public school that would be willing to correspond. Woudln't it be great if each student on a field trip had a matching counterpart in the United Kingdom? And wouldn't it be wonderful if your two schools could arrange a meeting of teachers and students?

If you could find a school to correspond with, I daresay you could also find British teachers who could help you plan your trip.

Here is a Wikipedia site that offers a partial listing of schools in London.

[url]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_schools_in_London[/url]

I have used EF twice...the first trip was Theatre Time in London and the second was Kilts and Castles.

They were both good, though I have heard some horror stories about EF....I was lucky, I guess.

I'm currently thinking about Passports for my next trip. Really just to give them a try and compare them to EF. A little more pricey, but I'm told worth it.

Hope this helps,

CR

The nice thing about travel agents is that they work for you. They earn their money via commission that's genearted by your business. They also have access to a wider range of services as compared to a tour company which generally work within set parameters i.e. only certain hotels and airlines.

If you need an analogy, think of of a tour company as offering table d'hôte service (fixed dinner service with limited if any choices) compared to a travel agency which offers a lavish buffet.