INTRODUCING EDUCATION DESTINATION
What We Do
Education Destination is an Isle of Wight based business specialising in providing bespoke, curriculum-focused school trips to our lovely island. We can provide a full door-to-door service, taking care of all your requirements, or simply support you in making your own arrangements.
Just looking for Accommodation? - no problem. Transport? - sure. Venue Tickets? - of course. Curriculum-relevant Teaching Resources? - choose from hundreds. Whatever you need when bringing a group to the Isle of Wight, we can provide it.
We can ensure that your visit is directly relevant to the key stage of your student group and the curriculum subject(s), unit(s) and topic(s) that you are planning to teach.
Your whole trip is made enjoyable and stress-free because we help you design your perfect itinerary and provide all of the supporting materials you are likely to need. We offer the UK's most comprehensive collection of unit-specific teaching resources, along with unprecedented levels of support for trip organisers.
We have made it easy for you to create outstanding educationally relevant day trips and residential visits. Our comprehensive Safety Management System also means that all of the documentation is already done for you, too!
About Our Island
Just a few miles off the south coast of England, the Isle of Wight offers an incredibly diverse range of learning opportunities for all ages and abilities, all within a small geographical area and supported by a rich network of experienced hospitality service providers to ensure a safe and successful educational visit without sacrificing any of the FUN!
It's like going abroad, but without the hassle! You can cross to the Island in as little as 12 minutes, and we're within a couple of hours' travel time of central London, making the Isle of Wight the ideal school day trip venue as well as being perfect for a residential of any duration.
Our Approach
Our Island Classroom concept allows cross-venue learning to ensure your objectives are fully met. Take only what you need from each of dozens of fantastic learning venues to home in on the skills and knowledge that you need to impart to your students. Or soak up everything that our unique range of venues and locations have to offer for some excellent cross-curricular learning opportunities.
With a range of 704 high quality teaching resources available and another 22 in development right now, you'll almost certainly find activities to suit the subjects and topics you are trying to teach. All are prepared by qualified, experienced teachers and are differentiated for age and ability. All are supplied with comprehensive teacher notes, to help you slot them perfectly into your schemes of work, and helpful parent notes to help you sell the advantages of the trip.
Our impressive resource packs are FREE when you book via Education Destination.
By working with local venues and service providers on a revenue sharing basis to promote out-of-season tourism, booking with Education Destination usually costs no more than arranging everything yourself - but without all the hassle! Our quotes are completely FREE and without obligation, so you've nothing to lose by asking!
Simplifying Trip Planning for Teachers and Visit Leaders
Our comprehensive Safety Management System means that we vet and document all of our suppliers and service providers on a regular basis so that you don't have to!
We understand the amount of preparation and planning that visit leaders must go through, especially when planning a residential visit to a new location. Education Destination deals with most of that for you, leaving you to time to plan the ultimate school trip.
We'll supply you with incredibly detailed supporting information for all of our accommodation partners, transport providers and visitor attractions, including video tours, to help you avoid the need for pre-visits. We regularly check that documentation such as insurances and fire certificates are up to date, and supply you with a sample risk assessment for each part of your trip. If you have any specific risk assessment needs, we're happy to be your eyes and ears and undertake checks on your behalf. And all of this is free of charge when you book your Isle of Wight school trip with us.
See our before and after flowcharts showing the amount of administration we can take from you!
BEFORE...
Without Education Destination's involvement, you will need to liaise with all of the service providers individually to check everything is in place, and possibly make one or more pre-visits to undertake risk assessments etc. This can be very time consuming for a residential visit taking in several attractions and activities.
AFTER...
With Education Destination, you can focus on planning the ultimate school trip by leaving all of the mundane paper-chasing to us. We'll validate everything you need with transport and accommodation providers, plus all of the visitor attractions and activities you will include in your itinerary. Each activity will be covered by a fit for purpose and comprehensive sample risk assessment, cutting down the amount of work you need to do to meet your own internal obligations. If we missed something important to you, we'll act as your eyes and ears to save you a visit.
EDUCATION DESTINATION LTD. CORPORATE PROFILE
Education Destination Ltd: The Island Classroom
Education Destination specialises in bespoke, curriculum-focused school trips to the Isle of Wight. They will ensure that your visit is directly relevant to the Key Stage of your student group and the Curriculum Subject, Unit and Topic that you are planning to teach. The whole trip is made enjoyable and stress-free by helping you plan your itinerary and by providing all supporting materials. Offering the UK's most comprehensive collection of unit-specific teaching resources, Education Destination has made it easy for you to create outstanding, educationally relevant visits.
Every package is supported by detailed Parent Notes, to explain the educational importance of the trip to those that will be paying, Teacher Notes to ensure proper planning and preparation is thorough yet easy, and On-The-Day procedures to avoid any logistical hiccups. And of course, all standard Risk Assessments are available to download.
Education Destination's innovative website www.edudest.uk allows teachers to build their own bespoke itinerary, from a day trip to a week-long stay, by combining travel, accommodation and catering options with venues and attractions, subjects, teaching resources, special events, evening activities etc. all through a simple on-screen planner. Alternatively, given a few key pieces of information, the specialist liaison staff at Education Destination can design a bespoke itinerary just for you. They can even provide accompanying Chaperones to reduce the number of teachers required to support the trip!
Innovative Learning
Referred to as The Island Classroom due to the diversity of outdoor learning opportunities available for school and tour groups, the Isle of Wight is the UK's foremost destination for students of all key stages to learn about a huge range of topics, with Roman remains, a royal palace, a castle that imprisoned a king, and lots of dinosaurs! There are many sites of special scientific interest, including dramatic downland, forests, beaches and landslips. The Island is one of the sunniest spots in Britain, with palm trees, exotic plants and even lizards - it feels like another world, but is just a couple of hours from London and only 12 minutes from Portsmouth. Education Destination will help you take an innovative approach to delivering key curriculum units in English, Mathematics, Sciences, Art & Design, Geography, History, P.S.H.E., Religious Education and many more subjects.
Group leaders are supported by inspired resources that have been written by practising teachers and which are specifically designed to meet your curriculum objectives, whilst allowing your students to have fun and interact with their surroundings. Many resources even offer variants for ability within a key stage.
Not Just Another Worksheet!
A wide range of carefully planned resources are provided. In addition to traditional activity sheets there are hands-on experiences to suit your particular teaching style and objectives. Many resources are designed for you to use pre-visit to prepare your students for their trip, others as post-visit activities to reinforce learning and integrate the trip's outcomes back into your overall scheme of work. Sample lesson plans are provided to guide you through this.
Learning opportunities begin as soon as you board the ferry - with over 60 resources available on the ferry crossings alone, you can make the most of this exciting element of your visit to the Isle of Wight. On the Island, Education Destination has partnered with leading visitor attractions to develop innovative teaching and learning activities, including a heritage steam railway, dinosaur & fossil museums, theme parks, two castles, a royal palace, country park, tree climbing activity provider, a model village and a commercial hovercraft operator. New partners are being added regularly and the resource count is expected to top 1,000 fully curriculum relevant teaching resources by year end.
OUTSTANDING LEARNING has never been so much FUN - or so EASY to plan!
EDUCATION DESTINATION STATEMENT OF PURPOSE
Our Vision
- Education Destination will help transform the Isle of Wight into the foremost destination for educational trips, preferred by both teachers and learners at all levels.
Our Mission
- We will help Isle of Wight venues develop excellent, curriculum-based materials to create effective, enriching learning opportunities within existing attractions
- We will develop a bespoke booking system that allows curriculum learning to be planned and delivered holistically across multiple venues, whilst ensuring it is an efficient use of time
- We will continue to develop the out-of-classroom environment to ensure learning is fun and memorable
- We will provide necessary support to ensure excellent trip planning is made simple for organisers
Company Attitude
- We are a can-do company: we strive to satisfy any customer requirement
- We believe that simply meeting our customers' expectations is not enough: we enjoy consistently trying to exceed them
- We believe in developing continuing relationships with customers by offering learning opportunities across the widest possible range of subjects and age groups
Company Character
- We are educational experts, whilst being friendly and approachable
- We are proud of what we do, both as a company and individually
Company Values
- We always work as a team, and all employees and partner businesses should operate as integral and mutually respected members of that team
- We believe in absolute honesty and integrity in all matters
- We will not do anything in the name of the company of which we’re not proud
- We don't make promises we can't keep
- When we make a mistake, we admit it and correct it without question. Then we learn from it to make sure we don't make the same mistake again
- We do not moan about problems, we find solutions and use them to improve our operations
Company Commitment to Employees
- We will provide our employees with a dynamic, challenging, rewarding and safe work environment, where pride and excellence are the hallmarks of our operations
- We will treat every employee as an individual, and give them the opportunity, support and training to develop their potential
MEET THE TEAM
The management team behind Education Destination hail from a diverse range of backgrounds, and together they compliment each others skills and experience perfectly. Our teacher consultants are carefully chosen for their commitment to producing inspirational and insightful ideas for delivering curriculum topics in unique ways. All of our teacher consultants are currently practising or are very recently retired. All are kept fully abreast of curriculum requirements and changes.
EDUCATION TEAM
Our Education Team has over 170 years' combined teaching / training experience!
Debbie Aske-Harris BA(Hons) PGCE MA
Education Director
The Education Team is led by Debbie who is a qualified secondary teacher and NQT mentor with 15 years' classroom and training experience, well practised in developing quality learning resources and planning schemes of work.
Debbie herself is a secondary English, Media Studies and Drama specialist, and is supported by a number of experienced primary, secondary and SEN teachers with various subject disciplines to ensure we can match the appropriate skills to individual resource requirements.
- Alicia Linsdell-Davies - biology and chemistry, KS3-KS5
- Jackie Clegg - science, KS1-KS3
- Sue Devine - English, mathematics, KS1-KS3
- Rachel Griffin - English, geography, religious education, P.S.H.E., KS1-KS3
- Peter Gale - geography, geology, KS3-KS5
- Spencer Brown - history, all levels
- Ulrike Henderson - geography, KS1-KS3
- Lisa Bell - geography, KS3-KS5
ED The Squirrel
ED the red squirrel is a friendly little character that you'll find introducing and helping throughout many of our KS1, KS2 and KS3 resource documents. There are many faces to ED, and the squirrel family is growing all the time! Meet the current scurry...
MARKETING & CUSTOMER SERVICES TEAM
Peter Tomlinson
Chief Executive
Peter is an island-based entrepreneur and main board director of the Isle of Wight Chamber of Commerce. He owns and manages several successful local businesses and is an active mentor. Peter has a long international marketing background and since his "first retirement" has in-depth experience in the childrens' leisure market as owner of the Island's premier play centre.
Jon Carter
Managing Director
Jon is responsible for the day-to-day hands-on running of a diverse range of Island businesses and is an expert in project delivery. Jon and his team take care of the administrative functions for Education Destination and contribute heavily to the marketing and customer liaison aspects, bringing a wealth of customer service expertise.
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY TEAM
Martin Harris
Information Technology Director
Martin takes care of the I.T. functions for Education Destination, including managing this website, the supporting transactional systems, our blog and social media presence. He brings a long history of I.T. project management and delivery for multinational corporations, coupled with a strong customer service ethos.
HEALTH & SAFETY
Mark Elliott CMIOSH
Health & Safety Consultant
Following 10 years as a health and safety manager for the prison service Mark established an Island based safety consultancy specialising in Health & Safety consultancy and training. A Chartered Member of the IOSH (Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) and with NEBOSH certificates in fire safety and construction, Mark regularly works with local schools and the county council on safety management issues.
THINKING OF JOINING US?
Tourism Businesses
Do you operate an Isle of Wight visitor attraction, business, hotel or group accommodation provider and are you looking to increase your share of the growing schools travel market?
Are you looking for additional footfall outside the main tourism season?
Do you want to demonstrate to schools that you have fully considered all of the Safety Management aspects of group visits?
Education Destination partners will benefit from our extensive marketing of the Isle of Wight as a schools travel destination, helping increase patronage. You will also be able to proudly promote your venue as a leading educational visitor attraction by working with us to develop world class teaching resources and activities - usually in subjects you'd never previously considered!
Teachers and Chaperones
We're always on the lookout for keen, experienced teachers in all disciplines who will be willing to work with us on a consulting basis to produce excellent teaching materials. We can't promise continuous work, as this depends on the requirements of our partner venues. But we can offer very flexible hours, good rates of pay, and lots of scope for you to express your own creative flair and help design resources you will be proud of.
We are also building a bank of chaperones, available to shadow visiting tour groups to make up supervisory numbers and act as guides to deliver high quality learning experiences through our pre-prepared resources at the Island's top visitor attractions. Again this is handled on a demand basis, and would suit teachers, retired teachers, LSAs and those with similar skills who have a passion for the Isle of Wight.
First Steps
If you're interested in working with Education Destination, the first step is to get in touch. We'll sit down with you and explain our project in more detail, and let you know how you can be a part of it.
It is our aim to be inclusive and we welcome approaches from anyone and everyone who has an interest in working with us.
