The A Level Travel & Tourism students from Welsh Bridge Campus at Shrewsbury Colleges Group spent eight months organising three amazing, overseas trips for their peers.
As part of their syllabus, students organised four-day trips to Berlin for German students, Rome for Photography students and Paris for Business students, with around 40 pupils in each class. To choose the three teams behind each trip, they used the ‘Belbin Behavioural Test’, which consists of a series of questions to match you with your perfect team members.
Each team was allowed to pick which subject they wanted to work with and which European city they wanted to visit. Hotels, flights and itinerary were all organised by the Travel & Tourism students, with this project giving them responsibility and teaching them organisational skills.
Katie Nicholls, 17, from Telford, Adele Botha, 17, from Llanidloes and Emma Herbert, 17 from Shrewsbury organised the trip to Berlin for students studying German. They planned lots of educational activities once they were there like, trips to museums, the Berlin Wall and Fernsehturm (the Television Tower). To practise their language skills, the German students bought tickets, ordered food and navigated round the city using only German. Katie said: “There was a lot of pressure to get this right. It was part of our course, you didn’t want to let down the rest of your team and you had a whole class of students relying on you. But, once you were there it was amazing. I really enjoyed it and am looking into a career in the travel industry.”
Guy Patrick, 17, Riley Pritchard, 18, Lucy Thomas, 17 and Fran Kay, 17, all from Shrewsbury organised the trip to Rome for Photography students. There was a pop-up photography exhibition on whilst they were there and copious amounts of Italian landmarks to snap, including the Vatican and Colosseum. Fran said: “It was intense, but you could relax once you were there. The project gives you life skills – we had to speak to lots of people and companies to get things organised.”
Gemma Poston, 18 and Mia Ellis-Morgan, 18 both from Shrewsbury and Grace Walker, 18 from Telford, organised the trip to Paris for students studying Business. Students attended a business conference at Disneyland Paris and then got to explore the magical park. Mia said: “This project could be stressful at times, but it taught you organisation and people skills. It also brought us a lot closer together as a team and helped us make friends. The Business teachers were so pleased with the trip they have decided that they want to do it every year.”
Maria Richards, Travel & Tourism teacher, said: “This was an incredibly complex task for the students. Each team organised a foreign trip, all of which have been hugely successful. Everything, from what time to meet at the airport, to booking seats on flights and ensuring travel to and from the landmarks they visited were all perfectly timed. They chose challenging projects and have learned skills such as business planning, time management, interpersonal skills and contingency planning. Many intend to seek a career linked to the tourism industry and this experience was indicative of what it would be like. They have been a pleasure to work with, they did really well and I am enormously proud.”
Meanwhile, at the London Road campus, Level 3 diploma Travel & Tourism students put on an Industry Networking Breakfast to build relationships with local businesses. Seven students used this opportunity to let business owners know what they are capable of in the hope of opening up doors for work experience placements.
The breakfast was held in the campus’s commercial Origins Restaurant with companies like Shropshire Festivals and Stan’s Cycles taking part. Students informed the guests of the work experience they had done so far and Charlie Griffiths, 18, from Bishops Castle shared her success story of when her two week work placement at Castle Hotel, turned into a full-time job.
For more information on A Levels, visit www.ssfc.ac.uk or call 01743 235491. For more information about vocational courses and Apprenticeships call 01743 342342.