Founded in 2003, the School Travel Forum is a democratic, not for profit organisation of leading school tour operators that promotes good practice and safety in school travel.
Our Objectives
- To promote best practice in educational school travel and support the principles established by the Learning Outside the Classroom Manifesto
- To design and promote sector-specific standards that will be periodically reviewed and adapted to reflect changes in education, health and safety legislation and any other relevant influence.
- To ensure the needs of schools and teachers are understood and adopted into our standards by regularly meeting bodies such as the Learning Outside of the Classroom Council (LOtC), the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF), the Outdoor Education Advisors Panel (OEAP), Head Teacher Associations and Teacher Unions.
- To ensure independent assessment of travel companies offering educational travel in line with the requirements of the LOtC Quality Badge and the STF Code of Practice.
- To provide a forum for members to discuss non-competitive issues of common interest and concern.
What We Do
From our inception all Assured Members of the STF were required to adhere to a rigorous Code of Practice and Safety Management Standards and were externally verified each year by Argent Health & Safety, the UK’s leading Health and Safety Consultancy specialising in Travel.
During the course of developing the STF Code of Practice, and in addition to liaising with the DfES (as was), advice was sought from all leading educational Unions and Associations. The STF initiative had the support of the ASCL, ATL, NAHT, NUT and Voice. Was welcomed by the Outdoor Education Advisors Panel (OEAP) and the DfES, and NASUWT advised members wishing to organise school trips to use companies that had this type of scheme.
Supported by
In late 2008 the STF were appointed by the LOtC Interim Council to act as the Awarding Body for the Study & Sports Tours Sector of the LOtC Quality Badge and our standards adopted as the benchmark for all companies operating in that sector. The additional requirements of the Quality Badge were adopted by the STF and written into our Code of Practice and Safety Management Standards.
The STF now manages both members and non-members applications for the awarding of the LOtC Quality Badge.