We base the required visiting adult/child ratios on the advice given by Hertfordshire County Council in their document “Guidance for Organisers of Visits for Children”.  This guidance can be found on the Hertfordshire Grid for Learning website (see link opposite).  We strongly recommend that you consult guidelines provided by your own Local Authority as part of your planning.  You might also want to consult the guidelines in the DfES good practice guide 'Health and safety of pupils on educational visits' available as a download from the Teachernet website (see link opposite). The Hertfordshire recommended ratios are given below:

Day programmes
Years 4-6 (age 8-11):  1 adult for every 10-15 children
Years 7 and above (age 12-18): 1 adult for every 15-20 young people

Residential programmes
Year 3 and older (age 7 and older): 1 adult for every 10 children/young people

These are generic ratios which may need to be adapted depending on the risks presented by your particular group: if your group includes students with disabilities or behavioural or learning difficulties, you will need to take this into account in your risk assessment and consider adjusting the ratio of adults to students.  Although our staff and volunteers supervise the students for most of the day, we are unable to act in loco parentis as this duty cannot be delegated.  During the night there the supervision of the students rests solely on the visiting adults.  You are advised to consult the advice provided by your own education authority regarding ratios.

Irrespective of the ratios and guidelines above, there must be at least two supervising adults for any group and there must be at least one female if there are females in the group.