Visits and Visitors

At Archibald First School we want all of our children to experience enriching visits and visitors linked to their learning. We want them to experience the cultural offer of the North East and to explore the different areas of our locality.

Visits and visitors into school greatly enhance the children’s learning, appreciation and understanding of a topic. They often ‘bring the topic to life’ and provide the children with a stimulus to learn from.

For each year group, we aim to provide a balance of visits out of school and experiences within school.

Please see our offer for 2023-2024:

Costs and Associated Charges

Visits and visitors do cost money to organise particularly if a coach is required or if the visits are led by a member of staff from the place we are visiting.

Every effort is taken to ensure that costs are kept to a minimum and that when there is a cost incurred that it is warranted by the opportunities the visit presents . When there is a charge for the visit we ensure that this is divided equally amongst all the children.

Whilst visits do come at a cost for each child, school can only ask for a voluntary contribution towards the visit in accordance with the 1988 Education Reform Act.

We are also very fortunate to have a PTFA who support us with donations towards the costs of visits.

If you are unable to contribute the full cost then even part of the cost is very much appreciated, however, we are sure that you understand that if the cost of the visit/visitor is not covered through the voluntary contributions then it may have to be cancelled as sadly school is unable to fund the difference. Cancelling visits/visitors is not a route that we would like to follow.

Our Charging and Remission’s Policy is listed on the Policies page.

Packed Lunches for Visits

From September 2023 for any school trip, ALL children who have a school meal from Nursery to Year 4 will be provided with a school packed lunch. 

Children in Nursery, Year 3 and Year 4 will be charged for these as a school meal. Children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 will get these free a part of the Universal Infant Free School Meal offer. 

Children who are normally packed lunch will need to provide their own packed lunch for the visit. 

***There will be a deadline to notify us if you do NOT want a school packed lunch and wish to provide your own. If you do not let us know by this deadline, you will be charged for the school lunch irrespective if you provide your own as we will have placed an order for it. *** 

AFS Learning Outside the Classroom 2021