For those of you who have an interest in the health and safety aspects of school trips you may be interested to know that the guidance from DCSF is being revised. The consultation document aims to simplify the planning/risk assessment process and can be read at .

www.info4local.gov.uk/do...ts/consultations/1375734

I've had a quickl look and there seems to be some reasonable guidance here. Certainly pleased to see mention of the balance between risk and benefit gained, and mention of managing activities rather than preventing them. I have always thought that my job is to ENABLE things to happen - safely. I accept that over the years there have been some accidents/tragedies (call them what you want) related to school trips but to me the greater tragedy would be to stop the trips all together. Most of the likely risks can be reasonable well managed but that will never totally eliminate the potential risk of certain accidents. This is something that the HSE alluded to some years ago in their 'position statement' on childrens play.

My experience with the State sector is completely different to the Private system there simply isnt enough supervision in the former.

The HSE dont regulate safety for children in schools so I wonder why they had a "position statement" ?