There is a comforting lie that many school leaders tell themselves when reviewing upcoming excursions: "It’s okay, John has been running this camp for twenty years. He knows what he’s doing."
We place immense weight on tenure. We assume that because a staff member has hiked a specific trail a dozen times or run the same canoe trip since the late 90s, the risk has somehow evaporated.
But in outdoor education, experience is a double-edged sword. While it provides valuable context, it can also breed a false sense of security that blinds us to changing variables. The belief that "we’ve always done it this way" doesn't actually mean anything is being achieved, nor does it mean it is safe. It often just means we are perpetuating the same mistakes over and over again, simply because we haven't been caught out yet.
Here is why relying solely on staff experience is a dangerous strategy for schools.
The Trap of Familiarity
When we do the same thing repeatedly, our brains naturally look for shortcuts. We stop scanning the horizon with the same intensity we did the first time.
I have hiked certain tracks many times before, yet on one specific trip, the conditions made it feel completely different. I knew the route, but the humidity, the building storm, and the group dynamics were unique to that day. If I had relied purely on my memory of the trail rather than assessing the immediate weather warnings, the outcome could have been catastrophic.
In that instance, despite my concerns, there was pressure to proceed because "it will be fine". That attitude—often born from a history of near-misses that looked like successes—is where liability lives.
Fatigue Does Not Respect Tenure
One of the biggest equalizers in risk management is fatigue. You can have thirty years of experience in the classroom or the field, but if you are exhausted, your decision-making skills are compromised.
Research has shown that multiple shifts of work and not sleeping for 24 hours (which is common on school camps) has the same effect on decision-making as being drunk. We would never allow teachers to be drunk at work, yet we frequently allow fatigue to be overlooked.
I recently read about airplane crashes where experienced pilots forgot their training and failed to take simple corrective actions. These weren't novices; they were experts. But under the pressure of fatigue, their focus narrowed into a tunnel vision that crippled their ability to make sound, reasoned judgments.
The same applies to your most experienced outdoor education staff. When fatigue sets in, that broad problem-solving skill set stops working, and we can often only focus on single tasks.
Experience does not immunize you against biology.
The "Just a Classroom Teacher" Fallacy
Another risk is assuming that experience inside the school gates translates to safety outside them. Teachers are generally well-trained and prepared for the classroom environment. It is a highly structured, controlled space with clear parameters.
However, the outdoors is a highly dynamic and uncontrolled environment. Activities can vary dramatically in nature, and the skills required to supervise a science experiment are vastly different from those needed to manage a group during a sudden thunderstorm or a medical emergency in a remote location.
We often see schools failing to train staff because they assume their general teaching experience is enough. But unless you are specifically trained in excursion and activity risk, you are bound to miss something. Relying on osmosis—the hope that teachers will just "pick it up" over time—is ridiculous and professionally irresponsible.
From Individual Heroism to Systemic Safety
If your school’s safety relies on a specific teacher remembering to check the medical kit because "they always do," you don't have a risk management system; you have a dependency on a person.
People get sick, people get tired, and people leave. When that experienced staff member retires, does your institutional safety knowledge walk out the door with them?
To truly manage risk, schools must move away from relying on individual experience and toward robust systems.
Structured Training: Provide professional development specific to off-site risk, rather than assuming tenure equals competence.
Fatigue Management:
Implement systems to monitor shifts and workload on camps. Ask yourself: How long is an acceptable shift? What backup plans are in place if someone is fatigued?.
Digital Guardrails: Use tools that prompt behavior rather than relying on memory. For example, apps that trigger alerts for medication can ensure nothing slips through the cracks, regardless of how distracted or tired a teacher might be.
Experience is invaluable, but it is not a safety net. The most dangerous phrase in education is "it’ll be fine, we’ve done this a thousand times."
Real safety comes from challenging those assumptions, recognizing the impact of human factors like fatigue, and supporting your staff—veteran or novice—with clear systems that help them make better decisions in the moment.
