EVOLVE Advice Digest - latest educational visits new, guidance and updates

14 July 2026

It may be almost the end of term but there’s still plenty of important news and updates from the world of educational visits, not least the publication of final guidance on allergy safety and the new edition of KCSiE safeguarding guidance.

In this week’s Digest:

Summer opening hours
KCSiE and Allergy Safety guidance – what you need to know
Updating your educational visits policy for 2026-27
Outdoor Education Bill
Funding opportunities
Keep your EVC and Visit Leader training up to date

We’d love to hear your ides for content you’d like to see in the Digest. Email marketing@evolveadvice.co.uk with your feedback.

Has someone forwarded this to you? Subscribe here.

Summer opening hours

While we hope you will be taking a well-earned rest over the summer, we’ll still be around to support you if you need us. Our hours continue to be Monday to Friday 9-5 throughout the summer and we remain committed to our ‘No Out-of-Office Promise’.

Email advice@evolveadvice.co.uk for advice and guidance or support@evolveadvice.co.uk for help with your EVOLVE system or other queries.

We’ll also continue to review and sign-off visits (in order of receipt) as usual.

Advice and guidance

New and updated National Guidance

In June, OEAP National Guidance published 2 new documents (in Welsh and English) and revised 5 more. Of particular note are:

6x FAQs Providers of Boat Trips. New. Considerations when choosing a provider for boat trips.

8.1t Overseas Provider Statement. New. This is a version of the Provider Form, but for providers based overseas.

4.4b First Aid and 4.4d Medication. Updated to include reference to adrenaline nasal sprays.

For a full list of new and updated guidance, and details of the changes, click the button below.

VIEW ALL NATIONAL GUIDANCE UPDATES

Updating your 2026-27 Educational Visits Policy

Over the coming weeks, EVOLVE Advice will be reviewing and updating our recommended Educational Visits Policy to align it with newly published guidance. We will send the new policy directly to our clients for you to review and implement/ use to refresh your own employer policies.

For support, please email advice@evolveadvice.co.uk

New Statutory Allergy Guidance for Schools published

From September 2026 schools in England will be required to follow new statutory guidance, Allergy Safety in Schools which sets out clear responsibilities around supporting children with allergies on and off the school site, including on educational visits.

Are you ready?

Read our AdviceONLINE article explaining the allergy guidance and how to ensure your visit planning, risk assessment and processes meet the requirements of the new guidance.

Your Educational Visits Adviser can support you with planning and risk assessing your visits to safely include children with allergies.

Download our allergy safety checklist and toolkit, including:

example wording for your educational visits policy and your school allergy policy
an allergy safety checklist for educational visits
training and resources

Safeguarding in schools guidance (KCSiE) now published for September 2026

>>DfE guidance: Keeping children safe in education 2026

The ‘for information’ version of Keeping children safe in education (KCSIE) 2026 has been published and will come into force on 1 September 2026.

Key updates to note for your educational visits are:

Guidance on gender and overnight accommodation (p52-53) is largely unchanged from the earlier draft version but is now finalised. It states: “schools and colleges must not allow a child to share overnight accommodation with a child of the opposite biological sex.” The guidance suggests that alternative arrangements “should not compromise the safety, comfort, privacy or dignity of any child” and suggests that this could include providing a separate room – this would need careful risk assessment.
On DBS checks and supervision (part 3) key points to note are the removal of the supervision exemption for volunteers and requesting DBS checks for self-employed contractors such as an activity leader or sports coach.
Read our AdviceONLINE article: New rules for DBS checks: what they mean for learning outside the classroom
Guidance on homestays (p99), including the suitability of adults in host families abroad is included in the document. The guidance emphasises liaison with partner schools abroad to establish a shared agreement on the arrangements in place for the visit, which should be clearly communicated to parents/carers.

Always refer to your employer’s policy and speak to your Educational Visits Adviser for advice on applying the guidance to your own context.

News

Outdoor Education Bill – the latest

A new Outdoor Education Bill was introduced to Parliament last week by Liberal Democrat MP for South Devon, Caroline Voaden. This is another positive step forward in highlighting the importance of outdoor learning for children and young people, and will help maintain momentum on calls for an entitlement to residential and outdoor learning experiences for all children.

Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin

Funding & Offers

Funding Finder - online directory

Don’t forget to check our online Funding Finder for open grants and funding applications that could support your educational visits. Please share any new opportunities you hear about so we can add them to the funding finder.

VISIT FUNDING FINDER

Loyalty Locker - savings for school trips

EVOLVE Advice clients can find exclusive offers from educational visits providers and brands in the Loyalty Locker including money off your visits, free places, discounts on outdoor gear and much more.

New offers have been added that your school families- and staff - can enjoy over the summer including 15% off Go Ape adventures and 20% off at Snocwentre Manchester.

Access the Loyalty Locker http://theloyaltylocker.co.uk/

Grants for educational visits - giving back to schools

We’ve had some enquiries about when the new Get Out Grants will be available. This year, we’ve used our available funding to subsidise school memberships to Council for Learning Outside the Classroom; provided training bursaries to schools and fully-funded an adventurous activity residential for young carers at the Brathay Trust (pictured) - read more about that in the EVC Magazine, here.

We’re able to do this through the generous support of advertisers and sponsors for The EVC Magazine and the National Educational Visits Conference – both of which are non-profit and all surplus is put into our funding pot for schools.

Look out for new opportunities for funding and grants next year – we’ll share them in this Digest and online.

Training and CPD

Is your CPD up to date?

We’ve added new dates and more availability to give you the chance to complete EVC Training and Visit Leader Training before you start taking trips out in the new school year.

New dates: 25 August, 28 August, 1 September, 4 September - perfect for INSET days.

Live courses (Northamptonshire): 30 September, 11 November

View all course dates - search by date or filter by type of course.

Immersive Visit Leader Training

Immersive training visit – applications now closed.

Applications for our Immersive Visit Leader Training Visit to France with PGL Beyond have now closed. There were over 70 applications for this fully-funded CPD visit. PGL Beyond has conducted its random draw of the successful applicants and will be contacting you individually to confirm your place. If further places become available, these will be filled from the eligible applications already received.

Read all about it!

Subscribe to these specialist magazines for more educational visits advice and inspiration. The EVC Magazine by EVOLVE Advice and School Travel Organiser Magazine by Yandell Publishing.

This publication includes a general summary of guidance. It should not replace advice tailored to your specific circumstances.