The new “rarely cover” rules which stop teachers covering lessons for colleagues when it is known in advance that the teacher will be out of school, have brought the government’s “learning outside the classroom” programme to a halt.

The policy was instigated in 2006 and seemed to be making significant progress, (details are at http://www.lotc.org.uk/ but of late there has been a slowing down.

This downturn comes on top of the problems that schools are facing because of worries over health and safety issues.

A survey of around 1,500 teachers by the Countryside Alliance found that although 97 per cent of teachers thought it was important to teach pupils about the countryside, three quarters felt that health and safety concerns were a barrier to them doing so.
Just under half said they feared litigation in the “unlikely event of an accident”.

This worry is not reflected in the reality of legal claims, in that only 364 have been made against local authorities in the last 10 years.  Local authorities paid out less than £300 a year in compesnation during this year.

A separate poll of 2,000 six to 15-year-olds found that although 85 per cent of youngsters wanted more school trips, less than half (46 per cent) had visited the countryside with their school in the past year.

ii@schoolsare.us