Educational Visits Policy (2023)

Essex County Council has responsibility of providing guidance for all educational visits and it is essential that all Staff members read this policy before contemplating or organising any educational trip or visit to be made involving children and young people.

We follow guidance set out by the DfE and Essex County Council (EVOLVE) when planning our visits to make sure that they are safe and offer the best experience for our young people. Links to DfE and ECC guidance can be found in the appendix.

Reasons for the visit

  • Essex Music Service is funded by the Department for Education via Art Council England to deliver high quality ensemble experiences for advanced players which includes residential courses and concert tours, both in the UK and abroad.
  • These courses and tours are essential for the musical development of young people but also provide invaluable educational benefits that will enhance their historical and cultural learning as they perform in some of the most prestigious venues across Europe.

Gaining Approval for the visit

  • All residential visits are submitted to EVOLVE (Juniper Essex) to ensure that all the information is provided, the events are thoroughly planned, risk assessed and educationally valuable.
  • EVOLVE will double check suppliers of venues, services and excursions to make sure they are satisfied with Health and Safety Standards.

Choosing a provider

  • To make sure that providers we use meet our requirements in terms of Health and Safety and value for money, staff will always conduct a site visit and produce a risk assessment of the
  • Once a provider has been identified, they will then go through another level of checks carried out by EVOLVE, who will then add the supplier to their approved list.
  • Where courses or tours are likely to cost more than £10K, the Music Service will undertake a Request for Quotation (RFQ) process.
  • This ensures that a minimum of three written quotes must be obtained via a self-serve Request for Quotation Process and makes sure that tours are good value for money.

Communication of information to parents and young people

Parents of ensemble members receive regular emails throughout the year including:

  • Orchestra or ensembles factsheet which details the dates for the whole It also includes the annual membership fee which a payment schedule.
  • Prior to each course, full details are sent to parents and young people including:
    • Venue
    • Course Schedule
    • Repertoire
    • Concert details
    • Health and Safety and emergency contact information
  • Post course a Menti-meter survey is sent out asking for feedback from the young /

Visits and staffing

Course preparation and supervision

  • All tours and residential venues are risk assessed by the EVC as part of the
  • For tours, the Head EVC and Visit leader will conduct an inspection
  • As part of this inspection, all accommodation, concert venues, transport arrangements and excursions will be assessed.
  • If venues do not meet acceptable levels, they will be rejected at this stage and an alternative will be found.
  • Essex Music Service work with experienced Tour Companies who also conduct checks on all providers to make sure that they meet acceptable standards.
  • Prior to each course, pastoral teams meet to discuss the format of the course and the needs of the individuals attending.
  • Additionally for orchestral tours, there is a parents’ briefing to pass on essential knowledge, introduce staff to parents/young people and to enable a Q&A

Staff Supervision

  • Course leaders will run residential courses.
  • These staff are selected to perform these roles because they have extensive experience leading pastoral teams for Essex Music Service.
  • Although there are no legal ratios of adults to children, Essex Music Service ensures that ratios are set to at least 1 adult to every 10 children for residential courses.
  • Each adult is responsible for the welfare of their group and builds a relationship of trust with them making excursions easier to manage.
  • Leader contact numbers are shared with all children and staff so that, in the unlikely event, a child is separated from the group they can easily make contact.

Types of Supervision

  • Young People are supervised throughout our courses and tours even though they may not be accompanied at all times:
  • Direct supervision is where a member of staff is with the young person / group, for example, leading the young people on a guided tour in a busy city.
  • Indirect supervision is where young people are accompanied by a member of staff, but the supervising member of staff are in the vicinity rather than following the group around. This might occur on the ferry journey or at the youth hostel.
  • Remote supervision is where young people are unaccompanied by a member of staff, and the supervising member of staff is not necessarily in the vicinity, for example during free time on a visit to an amusement park.
  • Both indirect and remotely supervised activities can bring valuable educational benefits and progression from dependence to independence can be
  • Staff will make sure that the young people have their contact details (on contact cards) so that if young people need staff whilst in remote supervision they can get hold of staff at all times.

Procedures (Overnight Activities)

  • Members of the orchestra are assigned rooms in the accommodation. Staff are given a rooming list so that they can locate children easily especially in hotels (where other guests may be present).
  • Students attending a residential course will have an allocated bedtime which will be dependent on their age, eg 11-13 years might be 10pm, 14-16 years might be 30pm. Staff will then do the room checks at the set times to check that everyone is happily installed in their rooms.
  • The room checks are conducted by 2 members of staff (men checking the boys’ rooms and women checking the girls’ rooms). Staff are advised not to enter the rooms of young people unless there is any emergency. In this instance, staff must enter in pairs.
  • As long as everyone is present, staff will usually stay up for a further 30 minutes to make sure there are no disturbances and then go to Staff rooms are labelled in case students need emergency assistance during the night. If anyone is missing, staff will notify the Group leaders who will initiate a search.

Parental Consent and Duty of Care

  • Students sign up to County ensembles annually with parental consent. The annual commitment for Essex Youth Orchestra and other groups can include residential courses and concert tours in the UK or Europe.
  • Parents are asked to supply medical details and any access requirements when they register on Speedadmin (Essex Music Service Database) so that any requirements can be
  • Whilst members are on courses and tours, they are the responsibility of the staff who look after them. Therefore, the Music Service expects members to respect staff, to follow all procedures that are put in place for their safety, and to undertake any reasonable request made of them without argument or dissent.

 Child Protection and Safeguarding

  • Designated Safeguarding Officer
  • Deputy Designated Safeguarding Officers
  • All Essex Music Service staff are DBS checked and register for the DBS update They attend ESCB Level 2 Child Protection and Safeguarding in-person training every 2 years.
  • Staff follow Essex Music Service’s Safeguarding and Conduct Policies as per our Policies webpage
  • These policies include guidance of how staff should deal with Safeguarding concerns outside school settings and the procedures to be adhered to protect young people and staff on residential courses and tours.

Expectations of all attendees

  • Essex County Council prohibits any illegal action such as the use of drugs or the consumption of alcohol on Tours and Courses regardless of age.
  • To protect the Health and Safety of all staff and students on its courses or tours, the Music Service promotes a smoke free culture in its organisation.
  • No member of staff or student may smoke or vape during a tour or course.
  • Essex Music Service prohibits smoking in front of under
  • Therefore, staff who do smoke, may only do so away from the young people and in accordance with the rules and regulations of the premises being used.
  • In addition, before a tour, parents will be briefed on Essex Music Service’s policy regarding behaviour and asked to sign a Behaviour Contract to confirm that they have understood their obligations and responsibilities.
  • Essex Music Service reserves the right to send the member home early at the parent’s expense if they break any of these rules putting their place in the orchestra at

Financing the visit

  • Essex Youth Orchestra and ensemble courses and tours are funded by a combination of DfE Grant funding via Arts Council England and from parental contributions.

Insurance

  • Essex County Council has Public Liability Insurance to the value £50,000,000.
  • In addition, Essex Music Service obtains travel insurance for everyone on the trip and EMS staff will have the financial resources to pay for any fees in a medical emergency or cover any other unforeseen costs.

Transport

  • Essex Music Service will only use coach companies who are approved by Essex County Council and are audited by EVOLVE or the tour company to make sure all Safety Check certifications are up to date.

Critical incidents and emergency procedures

  • A Tour guide, who can act as an interpreter, will accompany the group, and will assist in the event of an emergency.
  • Essex Music Service trains a large percentage of their pastoral staff in First Aid so that minor emergencies can dealt with, and more serious accidents and illnesses can be managed until paramedics arrive.
  • Students are made aware of the staff who are qualified to carry out first aid and how to reach them during the day or during the
  • All first aiders have access to a first aid kit at all times.
  • Emergency contact numbers and medical info is collected for all participants before a course or tour is embarked upon.
  • This information is held on a secure database only accessed by the pastoral team and Essex Music Service staff using a secure password.
  • In the event of a Critical Incident, staff should contact the Emergency Contact Team on 07767 298 483 and follow the national guidance.

Monitoring and evaluation

  • After all courses students are sent a feedback questionnaire via Menti-meter to Once the forms are all submitted, EMS staff review the comments and implement any changes to future courses.
  • There is also a de-briefing session with all staff after every course that will help to celebrate success as well as feeding into the general planning and risk management for future visits.

Complaints Procedure

  • Your complaints and concerns are important to us.
  • Where something has gone wrong, your feedback helps us to put it right and improve our
  • Equally when you are pleased with our service, we would like you to tell us so we know what’s working well for you.

What is a complaint?

  • Delay or failure to provide a
  • Dissatisfaction with our
  • Failure to provide adequate standards of
  • Failure to fulfil statutory
  • An employee’s attitude or
  • Lack of customer
  • Dissatisfaction or concerns with the way we handle your personal information

Please follow the steps below:

Step one:

  • Try to talk to the pastoral staff at the course or rehearsal to raise any concern you might have.
  • Many concerns can be resolved in this way and it helps to maintain a good relationship with between staff and parents.

Step two:

  • If the informal approach doesn’t work, you should contact the Ensembles Officer who is responsible for the ensemble activities by email Heard@essex.gov.uk or by telephone: 0333 013 9361 or 07786 125 703
  • We will:
    • Acknowledge receipt of your
    • Review and investigate the complaint within 10 working days.
    • If unable to respond within 10 days, we will contact you to explain why.
    • Take your comments seriously and make sure you receive a fair and full response
    • Put things right for you where possible and learn from any mistakes to make improvements to our ensembles service.
    • Investigate and respond properly to your
    • Contact you if we cannot agree with the complaint and explain the
    • We hope this will help you understand matters better, even if some of your concerns still
    • Regularly review the lessons learnt from considering complaints so that Essex Music Service can improve the quality of our County provision.
    • In this way, the outcome of our consideration of your complaint may help improve the experience of others that use our services.

Step three:

  • If you’ve gone through both steps of the complaints procedure and are still unhappy with the outcome, you can contact Essex Music Service on 0333 013 8953 and speak with the Head of Service, Peter Lovell.
  • If you need to make urgent contact, please the relevant direct mobile:
    • Peter Lovell: 07740 901 346
    • Beverley Heard: 07786 125 703
  • If the phone is not answered, please leave a message and we will call you back as soon as we are able to.

Further information

 

 

Published 2023