faqs

The first Big School Camp that a school runs will take some planning by a team of staff. Each school must work out what type of experience they want to offer their students and how many children will be able to take part. Big School Camp can offer everything needed for up to a whole secondary year group at a time. Hiring the Big School Camp team will greatly reduce the school’s planning time. The school will be provided with all required risk assessment, information on how the camp can be run, and offered a wide range of activities.

The Big School Camp team can offer online presentations to staff, students and parents, and can also provide training for the staff. After a school has run a Big School Camp experience for the first time, planning the next will be much quicker and easier!

The students are taught how to pitch their tents in their first activity, as a team the children build the camp with our staff’s guidance. It’s fun and a vital life skill.

The pack down is again student led, they are shown how to safely take down and pack away their tents.

We recommend a 1:16 staff ratio during the day. Our advice for overnight camps is 1:8 this may differ depending on the student’s individual needs, – i.e. 1 to 1

We can help complete parts of the paper phase for the school, we offer an evolve support guide. Certain information will need to be completed by the school with regards to their own students and staff. We provide all the risk assessments and paperwork regarding the camp. The specific needs of the children will need to be managed by the school.

We provide schools with letter templates, with all relevant information and requirements. These can be tailored by the school. We will not have direct contact with any parents.

We provide all the tents for the students and staff; we do not provide any bedding.

All our tents are 4-man dome tents.

We provide all the equipment for the camp; we bring everything to the school.

We have a wide range of activities which schools can choose from to make sure that the camp meets the needs of their students. No school is the same. We tailor all our camps to each school. See our activities listings for further information.

Yes, the whole Big School Camp experience teaches children how to be safe in the outdoors. Every activity is fully risk assessed and run by highly qualified and experienced instructors. All children will follow clear safety instructions and have a safe and enjoyable experience.

For an overnight stay on the school grounds the LEA will need to approve the camp. The site will need to be risk assessed. Big School Camp will provide example overnight risk assessments and advise. Staff are advised to have someone awake throughout the night and arrangements for trips for to the toilets for students in place.

Yes, once a full fire & safety risk assessment has happened of where and how the activity will take place, which will then be approved by the LEA. The activities are then run by full insured, qualified and experienced staff. They will provide all the safety equipment needed to the children to gain a valuable experience whilst teaching them the importance of safety around fire.

The Big School Camp is designed to allow all schools the opportunity to offer this experience to all students at a low cost. We can support the school in showing them ways to help fundraise and sponsor their camp. We have a range of package options that schools can select as well as being able to design bespoke camps with specific requests.

Schools will need to provide a set amount of first aiders from the school depending on the total amount of students on the camp. All our instructors are first aid qualified.