Trip Planning Time and Ratios
Adults needed by age band and activity, staff shortfall, and the administrative hours a trip costs before anyone gets on a coach.
Commonly used school-trip planning ratios are about one adult to four children under five, one to six for ages 5–8, one to ten or fifteen for ages 9–12 and one to fifteen or twenty for ages 13 and over — always subject to the school's own risk assessment, which overrides any general figure.
Trip Planning Time and Ratios
Frequently asked
Are school trip ratios a legal requirement?
In most systems they are guidance rather than statute for school-age children, and the legal duty is to carry out a suitable risk assessment. Early-years settings are the common exception, where statutory ratios do apply. The practical position is that a ratio below published guidance needs a documented reason.
Do pupils with additional needs count in the ratio?
They are counted in the group, and any adult providing one-to-one support should not also be counted as general supervision — that is the most common planning error, and it is the one this tool corrects for with a separate field.
How long does organising a trip actually take?
Teachers commonly report six to fifteen hours of administration for a single day trip: risk assessment, transport, payments, consent chasing, dietary and medical information, and the briefing. Chasing consent forms alone is often two hours of it.
More education & learning
Pakistan Class Level Calculator
Which class a child is usually in this school year in Pakistan, and…
Differentiation Planner
How much planning time three tiers of task actually costs, and whether it…
Cohort Share of School Calculator
How much of a school each birth cohort makes up, and what a…
Parents Evening Scheduler
Slot length, overruns and breaks modelled against the real finish time rather than…
University Entry Year
When each birth year reaches university, and how big that cohort will be.
UK School Year Calculator
Which year group a child is in this school year in England, Wales,…
Class Size Impact Calculator
How much one-to-one teacher attention each child actually gets per lesson and per…
School Commute Comparison
Compare two schools on total travel time across the whole school career.