Planning your education visit

Cadw is committed to welcoming Educational Visits to our sites, but we expect these to be undertaken in a safe and informed way.

Cadw offers free pre inspection / familiarisation visits. This provides the teacher / risk assessor the opportunity to attend site before the educational visit in order to plan learning activities and assist with populating your educational visit risk assessment, ready for submission to EVOLVE (where applicable) and separately to Cadw. We strongly encourage that you to take up these visits prior to bringing a group on site.

Cadw staff on site will be happy to share their knowledge of the site with teachers during familiarisation visits, which also offer the opportunity to purchase a guidebook and other resources. And don’t forget to browse through the individual site pages that give information on facilities, layout and hazards at site.  These will be really useful in helping you plan a safe trip.

Risk Assessments

Teachers and group leaders are responsible for carrying out risk assessments prior to the visit, in accordance with guidance issued by local education authorities. If multiple site visits are being booked, only one risk assessment is required by Cadw as long as the circumstances of the visits are similar e.g. group size, transport to site etc.

All schools are required to develop and maintain educational risk assessments, so there should already be educational risk assessments developed for your establishment and existing ones may be sufficient for submission as part Cadw’s booking process, however, for those that haven’t any currently, or who want to make theirs more relevant or robust please use the template below.

These are some of the hazards we would expect to see considered and covered off within your RA, in terms of the site visit element:

• travel to and from the monument (bus/walking)
• safeguarding
• first aid
• managing medication and medical needs
• managing behaviours at site (absconding, confrontation to others)
• weather - sun, ice, rain
• lost pupils
• managing pupils at historic monuments – slips and trips, high wall-walks, steep uneven steps, towers, areas of low lighting
• contact with animals (birds, dogs) – bites, stings, contact with guano, faeces
• undertaking any planned activities at site.

Cadw can provide upon request to Cadw.RAMsSubmission@gov.wales, a site risk assessment to inform yours. Cadw is not able to provide the specific risk assessments for your group, as we have no information about the activities you plan to undertake whilst on site, and have no knowledge of your pupils.

Please note, we cannot complete third party forms such as LOtC for schools, but be reassured, as an agency within Welsh Government, we comply with DPA and GDPR; We are self-insuring; have Health, Safety and Emergency Policies and controls for our sites, and; there are strict HR controls and vetting of staff.  

Please check site facilities on our Days Out pages. Toilet provision and disabled access at some sites is limited. Please check with the site that facilities are adequate for your needs before booking your visit. There is very little shelter at some sites and the ground is often uneven. Please ensure that everybody in the group brings waterproof clothing and wears appropriate footwear.

If you have any specialised queries around your Risk Assessment, our Head of Health, Safety & Wellbeing will be happy to advise – email Cadw.RAMsSubmission@gov.wales  

Further Information

The Learn area and Resources page on this website are a good starting point when planning your visit activities. There are a wide range of materials for use before, during and after your visit, including curriculum linked resources that will as they expand over time, support Expressive Arts, Health and Well-being, Humanities, Languages, Literacy and Communication, Mathematics and Numeracy and Science and Technology, digital competency and more.                                                                                              

Adverse weather conditions occasionally cause sites to be closed at short notice. We apologise for any inconvenience caused but it is not possible to give teachers advance notice on these rare occasions. Please keep an eye on the main Homepage | Cadw (gov.wales) and individual site pages for latest updates on entry.  You may also want to link to our social media Twitter / YouTube / Instagram / Facebook to keep updated.  And Sign up for our newsletter.

Click here for full Educational Visits Guidance on the Welsh Government’s website.