Planning a school trip is a lot of work on top of a full timetable, so we do as much of it as we can for you. This page sets out what is included in every price, how your group and your payments are protected, and the eight steps between a first email and the day you fly.
You will receive a safe, affordable, high-quality, and inclusive school trip package by booking with Schools Go Surfing.
Nobody stands up on their first wave. Students fall, get back on the board and try again, dozens of times in a session, and by the end of the week most of them are riding waves to the beach. That is where the resilience comes from, and the teamwork comes from the friends cheering them on.
A week in the sea also does what we are all told to do more of: time outdoors, exercise, early nights, no screens. And students who have surfed a reef or cleaned a beach come home caring about the ocean in a way a lesson about it cannot teach.
Confidence
and resilience
Care for
the ocean
Health
and well-being
A week
outdoors
A new skill
from scratch
Friendships
that last
Press Book at the top of this page or email info@schoolsgosurfing.com with the destination you have in mind, rough dates and a year group. We reply within one working day.
We arrange a call to talk through dates, destinations and budget, then send a written proposal and quote for your trip. Once the school is happy to go ahead, we send you a parents’ letter, a flyer and a presentation for your launch assembly or parents’ evening.
Each trip has a minimum group size, agreed in the proposal. Once enough students have signed up, your Programme Manager sends the booking form and the first deposit invoice, and the trip is confirmed when both are returned.
Your Programme Manager sends a single form for passenger, passport and medical details, which you can start filling in as soon as the group is confirmed.
The second deposit is due eight weeks after the first. Both deposits are non-refundable, and the dates are set out in your booking form so parents can plan for them.
The final balance and the completed passenger and medical form are due 12 weeks before departure.
Four weeks before departure your Programme Manager sends the travel pack, with the itinerary, flight details, accommodation, contacts, risk assessment and health and safety audit, and a parents’ version to hand out.
Your Trip Leader meets you at the destination airport, and our duty officer is on the phone 24 hours a day for the whole trip.
After the trip we book a short call to hear how it went, what worked, what you would change and what the students said. Most of the changes we have made to our trips started in one of these calls.
Our booking conditions form part of the contract for your trip. They cover financial protection, insurance, changes to a booking, cancellation charges and accommodation, and they are worth reading before the deposit deadline.
View our Booking Conditions by clicking here.
How we plan for things going wrong, who answers the phone if they do, and the licences and insurance behind every booking.
Our safety management policy sets out how every trip is planned, staffed and run, and every member of staff, Trip Leader and supplier works to it. It is reviewed each year and is available to schools on request.
Every place we stay completes a health and safety audit and is inspected in person before it takes a school group, and the same audit applies to every surf school and activity provider we use.
A written risk assessment for each destination covers travel, the accommodation, the surf and each activity, and you receive it with your travel pack so it can sit alongside the school’s own.
Every group on tour has an emergency plan that says who does what, and our staff train in incident management every year. If something happens, the Trip Leader calls our duty officer, the duty officer calls the school, and the school tells parents, so nobody hears about it second-hand.
We are members of Protected Trust Services (5642). Every payment a school makes is held in an independent trust account until the group has travelled, which is how the Package Travel Regulations require it to be protected.
We hold an Air Travel Organiser’s Licence (11393). Under the ATOL scheme, if a licence holder fails while a group is away, the group completes the trip and is flown home, and if it fails before departure, the school is refunded in full.
A duty officer in the UK is on the phone 24 hours a day from the moment your group leaves school until it is back, for anything from a missed connection to a medical emergency.
We hold tour operator insurance with public liability cover of £10 million, plus crisis event and professional indemnity cover. Every student and staff member on a trip is covered by our youth group travel insurance with Zurich, included in the price.
Every Trip Leader holds an Enhanced DBS check and safeguarding training, and our child protection policy sets out how staff, Trip Leaders and suppliers behave around students. Schools can read it before booking.
We have worked with most of our surf schools and accommodation for years, and every one of them is contracted to the standards in our safety policy. Our team visits each destination before the season, so what we promise a school is something we have seen ourselves.
We follow Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advice for every destination and tell you if it changes. If the FCDO advises against all but essential travel to your destination within two months of departure, we meet with the school to agree an alternative.
From the first call you deal with one person. They help you choose the destination and launch the trip, then your Programme Manager takes over for the forms, the payments and the travel pack, and your Trip Leader takes over at the airport.
