It is a scenario played out in staff rooms across the country: a teacher, already overloaded with marking and lesson planning, hastily fills out a generic risk assessment form to get an upcoming field trip approved. They copy and paste a few standard risks—slips, trips, falls, sunburn—sign the bottom, and file it away.
Technically, the school is compliant. Practically, the students are no safer than they were ten minutes ago.
The uncomfortable truth is that for many schools, the risk assessment process has become a bureaucratic hurdle rather than a genuine safety tool. Most excursion risk assessments fail not because the form was filled out incorrectly, but because there is a fundamental disconnect between the document filed in the office and the dynamic reality of the real world.
The Compliance Trap
There is a prevalent myth in education that if the paperwork is done, the risk is managed. This is dangerous thinking. A paperwork system based purely on checking boxes and approvals often masks a lack of real risk management understanding.
Paperwork is static; excursions are dynamic. A risk assessment form sitting in a filing cabinet cannot spot a changing weather front, identify a fatigued driver, or notice that a student with diabetes is acting unusually lethargic.
While documentation is essential for legal defense and compliance, it does not constitute safety. Safety is the result of active, informed decision-making by competent staff on the ground. If your risk management stops when the form is signed, you are exposed.
The Experience Gap: Classroom vs. The Field
Why do these assessments often fail to translate into practice? It usually comes down to the "experience gap."
Teachers are experts in their subject matter. They are highly trained for the structured, controlled environment of a classroom. However, the moment you step outside the school gates, the environment becomes unstructured and uncontrolled.
We often see risk forms completed by teachers with no real understanding of risk management in an outdoor context. They may be excellent educators, but they are often ill-equipped to identify the complex hazards associated with transport, foreign cultures, or remote environments.
When a "low-risk" trip turns fatal—as we tragically saw with student deaths on language and history tours in 2019—it is rarely because the paperwork was missing. It is often because what was an obvious and foreseeable risk to trained eyes was completely missed by untrained eyes.
Where the Process Breaks Down
From decades of reviewing school safety systems, we see the same points of failure repeated:
The "Cut and Paste" Syndrome: Schools often reuse old risk assessments for new trips without considering specific variables like weather, current student medical needs, or staffing changes.
Outsourcing Responsibility: Some schools assign the risk assessment to a single administrator or a third party rather than the staff actually running the trip. If the teacher on the bus hasn't engaged with the risks, they cannot manage them.
Ignoring Human Factors: Most forms focus on physical hazards (equipment, terrain) but ignore human factors like teacher fatigue. Research shows that fatigue impairs decision-making similarly to alcohol, yet few risk assessments account for staff shift lengths or rest breaks.
Moving From Compliance to Culture
To fix this, schools need to shift their focus from "doing the paperwork" to building a culture of risk management.
1. Train for Situational Awareness
Teachers need training in situational awareness and contingency planning, not just form-filling. They need the confidence to assess a situation as it unfolds—whether it’s a sudden storm or a medical emergency—and make decisions based on safety, even if it means changing the plan.
2. Bridge the Gap Between Policy and Practice
The risk assessment must be a working document, accessible to all supervising staff at all times. It should trigger prompts for critical actions, such as medication administration. We’ve seen cases where a lack of simple reminders led to students missing critical medication, resulting in significant behavioral and safety issues.
3. Acknowledge the Reality of Risk
School leaders must recognize that off-site activities require a different skillset than classroom teaching. You cannot rely on osmosis for teachers to learn these skills. If staff are untrained in risk management outside the classroom, the activity is simply too risky to run.
The Bottom Line
Risk management should not be made up as the program goes, nor should it be just a piece of paper someone has to fill in. It is about ensuring that every teacher who leaves the school gate is prepared, supported, and capable of making good decisions under pressure.
If your current process is just a barrier to getting a trip approved, it is time to rethink your approach. Your students deserve transformative experiences, but they also deserve to come home safely.
Are you confident your staff can bridge the gap between their risk assessment form and reality? We help schools move beyond compliance to create genuine cultures of safety.
Contact Xcursion today to review your training and risk management systems.
