School residential trips in the UK?

[Bonsoir]

Does anyone have any recommendations for providers, apart from Kingswood.

lots of schools use PGL

Is it better than Kingswood?

We are looking for a trip without any kind of sports facilities! Just cultural/heritage visits.

Where are you located? Do you want them.near you?

We are in Paris. The proposed trip is to the Kingswood centre near Ashford but there was uproar at the parents' meeting last night - parents want a cultural trip not a sports/outdoor activities trip. South of England close to a Eurostar station is good.

One I can personally recommend is Mill.on the Brue in somerset. Residential activity centre but doesnt just focus on sport. Does village walks, has an onsite farm so can involve that aspect, very into organic produce (the menu has the airmiles.of the food.on it), some activities are things like campfires rather than just archery / canoeing (though they also do those).

They have a website which will tell you more.

It sounds lovely but we are looking for castles/cathedrals/museums/history of England.

How old are the students? Most residential centres.in UK focus on activity and teamwork. Cultural tours / castles.etc are left to families.to do and dont mean to be rude can be incredibly dull for kids

Children are 9 and 10 and hate the idea of sports/activities and love the idea of visiting!

I've never heard of a residential centre in the UK that does cultural trips for children. Schools tend to do that kind of thing as one-off day trips, and the residential courses are for outward-bound style activities. But there are always huge groups of Italian & French school children being shepherded around London, Cambridge, Bath etc during the summer holidays, so I presume there must be tour companies specialising in that sort of thing for the overseas market. I would guess it would involve staying at hotels or hostels rather than residential centres, as it has when DS has gone abroad with his British school.

When I was 9 (20+years ago) we went on a trip to London, there wasn't a centre, we stayed in an ordinary hotel and did day trips we went to St. Pauls the first day and the Tower of London the next.
I remember we had one floor of the hotel just for our school, it was a long time ago though and don't know if it would be allowed now.

The primary school we are hoping to send our daughter to does a residential trip to London for their year 7s (I think that's the year - bit new to all this!). They arrange it themselves and I think they said they stay in a youth hostel near Holland Park. They then take the kids to various sights and do loads of different things like eating in Chinatown, visiting the theatre etc. I think it's a three day trip. The head does make sure she's visited the various places before they go to make sure they will be ok for a group of kids.
Not sure if that's helpful?

That sounds great, MyMiddleNameisLaura - much more the sort of thing that the parents and children at our school would like.

Does anyone know how old DC have to be to stay in a youth hostel?

Agree with exexpat. I would think you are looking at foreign language schools or companies that market almost exclusively to schools from abroad.

Cultural trips would normally be organised by individual schools, often on a day trip basis. Companies marketing residentials for UK schools will almost certainly be focusing on sports/activities/team building stuff because that's where their market is and what the schools want.

When schools in the UK organise trips abroad they use specialist UK tour organisers, not organisers in the destination country.

There must be travel agents or tour organisers in Paris that will arrange everything for you surely?

There's certainly no shortage of kids on cultural trips in London - can't move for them!

Bonsoir I was staying in this hostel and there was a group of French teens on some kind of school trip. It was cheap and clean and good fun and near St. Pancras. I read the rules about how old people have to be to stay there, thinking about my own children, and as long as youth groups book rooms just for their own occupation, it is OK as far as I know.

I think the youth hostel my daughter's future school use is this one www.yha.org.uk/hostel/london-holland-park

There is a link on there about booking for groups of 16 and more and I don't think there is an age limit.

Schools can sleep overnight on the Golden Hinde in London, though you would need to find something else as well as it's quite a trip for one night!

The junior school I work at have a Y5 residential at Ufton Court in Berkshire - our children usually do Tudor activities, though one year they did the environmental activities. The activities are on-site, though, not visiting other places - the venue is a Tudor manor house, complete with priest hole and (reputedly) resident ghost.

There's also a similar place, called Hooke Court which has centres in Dorset and wales. Although they do outdoor activities, they also have history, science and language programmes. Our school went there for a few years, but have now gone back to Ufton Court because it's so much closer to the school and travel costs have gone up so much.

If you've got enough children you can hire whole youth hostels. There is one just outside Stratford upon Avon - great location for visiting Stratford (for Shakespeare stuff), Oxford, Warwick Castle, Kenilworth Castle, plus various manor houses around. Easy access to Birmingham if you want a big city.

Bonsoir, my DC's primary school always does a trip to Hastings and London in Year 6 (we're in Germany), and the individual school is free to set its own schedule and events a bit. Our school has a day in Canterbury at the cathedral, learning about medieval life etc, then a day in London and a trip to the Globe (I think they do a workshop there), and a trip down the Thames, a whirl round the London Eye etc. No sport, I recall. Trip lasts a week and they stay here.

Can't remember the name of the provider, unfortunately, but the hostel will be able to suggest something surely.

The provider organizes a coach which takes them from Germany and across the Channel, then they get to keep the coach and driver for trips all week.

National Trust properties do 'school activity days' get the kids dressed up as Victorians and do the laundry etc.
Could you hire a youth hostel near a number of NT properties and then organise your own NT itinerary?

AphraBane - that is extremely helpful - thank you! I think our parents would like that accommodation and itinerary very much indeed!

Bonsoir, unfortunately I'm in Yorkshire, so not close enough for your school to come and visit (although I'm really excited about the Tour De France coming right past my front door in the summer, and hoping our little village will be enjoyed by the French Visitors!), but I'd just like to add- I wish our schools would recognise the importance of cultural trips.

All we get offered is the same old, same old 'outward bound' visits; canoeing, abseiling, climbing, etc., yet they're never offered a visit to London, or any of our beautiful historic cities.

As someone said upthread, that's left to families. I'm pleased that your families spoke out and asked for a cultural trip

Ha! I should think the food at Kingswood would not go down well with the French - DD came back having lost quite a bit of weight both times