Planning a school trip to London, can you help?

Asked by linguaphile (14574

) October 28th, 2011

I’m tentatively planning a school trip to London, but am not sure where to start. My school’s administration wants me to get as many details together before the plan is approved. It’s my first time planning anything overseas, and I have to plan with kids and education in mind—that means we’re not going as ‘tourists,’ but for learning experiences. I Googled it, but if someone already knows the answer and tips, it would save me a lot of guesswork.

The kids expressed interest in seeing:
Big Ben, The Buckingham Place, Oxford, London Bridge, The Eye of London (a ferris wheel?), The Tower of London, Stonehenge, Hampton Courts, the rebuilt Globe Theater, Telecom Tower, The Mansion House, London Underground,
Westminister Abbey, Cliffs of Dover/Calais, Newton’s Apple Tree at Royal Institute of Science, and any literary spots of interest (they want to see Boudicca’s statue and as we go through the units, they will definitely want to see anything related to what they’re learning about—Canterbury, Robin Hood, King Arthur so far and more will come up).

I’ve Googled things like Literary Tours and they don’t fit what we need as a school group. I also need to figure out how we plan to get around and that will determine how many kids can go. The plan is for the second week of June.

Any ideas, tips, suggestions, information, wisdom-from-residents are welcome!!

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7 Answers

I think I would plan on about 3 days in London and then a bus tour swing through the heart – literally and literarily – of England; down through Winchester, Salisbury and Stomehenge, then across to Bath and northeast to Oxford and Stratford-on-Avon. You should be able to do that in about 4/5 days if you rush. The Underground is great for getting around London but if you are afraid of losing kids en route, you might want to contract with a tour guide and bus company for that part as well. If you find a hotel that provides breakfast, you will save some on food which costs a lot in London. If you have more questions, I would be happy to answer as best as I can. I am American but spend a lot of time in England. Many places like Stratford will be overrun with tourists at that time of year but if you want to hit highlights, you’ll have to put up with it a bit.

janbb (62884

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Here are a few places that you can go to: Paddington Station, Baker Street, Canary Wharf, MI5, Scotland Yard, ITV studios.
A trip to Nottingham might help.

reijinni (6953

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The bus tours such as this one can be really handy and cost effective for the type of sight-seeing you would be after in London.

harple (10448

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Two must visits are the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum(London)

The science museum is especially good for kids as it has lots of hands on exhibits.

The London Eye in my opinion is best experienced at dusk just as London is lighting up all around, although dusk might be quite late the second week in June.

RareDenver (13173

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Look into coach hire with a driver, then you can go wherever you want when you want with your own scheduled stops :-/

Scooby (10294

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From the USA? Make sure everybody has a passport (I think it takes a few weeks just to renew), confirm they won’t need a visa, make reservations early (flight including seats if you can and accomodations)... I hope you get to go too after all this work!

selfe (282

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