Visits out

As we identified in in our section on the key principles of Project Based Learning, incorporating a visit should be planned in, if possible. At a basic level a visit will provide your students with rich and memorable experiences which will hopefully inspire the learning back at school as well as broaden horizons. It will develop their cultural capital. But a visit should not just be a nice add-on. There needs to be a sound rationale for any visit with the purposes clearly articulated. In our case study schools the following were identified:

■■ It can provide a ‘wow factor’ launch to your project;

■■ It can provide some of the subject content knowledge that will be required to complete the project;

■■ It can provide the context for the project;

■■ It can provide an opportunity to put into practice the learning from the project.

Visits can be complicated to organise. They take time to arrange, they may cost money – which has implications for particular students, they may require additional staffing and they make require the students to miss lessons other than the ones that you teach. Visits on this scale and complexity are important, but may be something that you only do once a year, and at times where there is less impact on other lessons and you have more time to make the arrangements.

However do not underestimate the value in ‘thinking local’ and of creating smaller-scale visits. Not only are these easier, less time-consuming and cheaper to organise, they also encourage the students to see their locality through fresh eyes.

Have a look at two examples from projects around the North East for inspiration, as featured in the PBL Planning Guide (p44).

When you are planning a visit as part of your project, think about the people and resources that you can draw upon to help you.

■■ Are there local organisations or businesses that you could talk to in order to arrange a visit?

■■ Have you looked at your nearest university outreach webpages to see what kind of visits, workshops etc. it offers? Does it have a travel bursary that you can apply for?

■■ Do you have museums nearby that organise tours or workshops?

■■ Are there staff or parents/carers that have useful contacts?

■■ Does your school careers lead have contacts that you could speak to?

■■ Do any of the larger local employers allow visits and also contribute to the travel?

Some organisations will work with you to provide a bespoke experience for your students.  This was the case with Teesside University.  The BTEC teacher contacted the outreach team, discussing the course specification with them and followed this up with a visit to look at the facilities and equipment they could access.  The teacher and the outreach team member then collaborated to develop a bespoke taster day where students:

• visited a laboratory

• used specialist equipment

• had a lecture from university course teachers

• explored the university and discovered what life as a student could be like

The University helped towards transport costs and provided lunch for the students.  The taster day was very successful, and students gave the experience positive feedback when questioned later, talking about what they had learnt and how they had enjoyed being given the opportunity to use specialist equipment and meet experts.  On the strength of the bespoke day, the University have now developed a DNA extraction and analysis "summer school" held over two days for FE students.