It is more and more important that school visits don’t just deliver a fun residential but that we also offer a rounded experience for the groups that visit and give them skills and confidence that they can apply when they return to school and in everyday life. The LOtC badge is aimed to check that we do just that and is supported by educational visit advisors from local education authorities throughout the UK.
Why it is important to hold the LOtC badge
Though we have held the RYA recognition and an AALA license for many years these are limited in their inspection scope when it comes to delivering high quality learning experiences outside the classroom. We feel we have always delivered such a service and our feedback year on year would support this but applying for and attaining the LOtC Quality Badge helps to demonstrate this to a new school who aren’t as familiar with Rockley as we are. The other benefit is it places us in a group of likeminded centres, all focused on delivering the best possible experience to their visitors, where we can share best practice and continue to learn and improve.
The process
In order to attain the LOtC badge we have to apply through one of the approved awarding schemes and submit all of our procedures, paperwork and systems. From this we are nominated an inspector who visits the centre to assess it against a set of criteria including our infastructure and facilities, the support we give our visitors and the way that we present activities and personalise them to the needs of a group or individual. This was followed by their recommendations as to whether we should be approved for a quality badge and if there are any actions to be undertaken to develop and improve.
LOtC recognition
So far we have been inspected at our flagship centre, Rockley Point and passed with no further requirements. We are scheduled to be inspected across all our centres in 2020 and hope to have a similar outcome.
To find out more about our school and groups activity trips, please click below