Playbook, university
A teacher asks whether they can bring a year group
This is not an enquiry from a prospective student, and handling it as one is the failure. A teacher planning a visit needs a date that works against a school timetable, somewhere for a coach to set down, staff to pupil ratios, whether lunch can be arranged, and paperwork a head of year will want before anything is approved. The university holds all of it, usually in an outreach team, and almost none of it is on the page a search returns.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for group bookings holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- The person asking is a member of staff planning against a school calendar rather than a young person choosing a course, so the useful answer is logistics and lead time and not entry requirements.
- School visits are normally run by an outreach team on a separate programme from the public open days, with different dates, and sending a teacher to open day registration puts a year group into an event designed for individuals.
- A coach needs somewhere to set down, somewhere to wait and somewhere to turn, which is a real constraint on a city campus and the single commonest reason a requested date does not work.
- Schools need paperwork before a trip is signed off, typically a risk assessment and a statement of what supervision the university provides, and a visit that cannot supply it will not happen however enthusiastic everybody is.
How it arrives
- can i bring a school group to visit
- do you do campus tours for sixth formers
- where can a coach drop off and park
- do you provide a risk assessment for school visits
- how many students can you take at once
- can we hire a lecture theatre for our event
What has to be indexed for this to work
| The schools and outreach visit programme, as its own page | What is offered, which age groups, the lead time and how to request a date. The team behind it plans a year ahead, which is convenient, because so do the teachers writing to you. |
|---|---|
| Coach access and drop off arrangements | Where a coach may set down, where it waits, and any height or width restriction on the approach. This is the constraint that decides whether a visit is possible at all, so it belongs at the top rather than in a footnote. |
| What the university provides and what the school must | Supervision, ratios, whether a risk assessment is available, catering, and the wet weather plan. Written as a division of responsibility, so a teacher can take it straight to whoever approves the trip. |
| Room and facility hire, kept apart from the visits programme | A request to bring a group and a request to hire a lecture theatre look identical typed into a chat box and go to entirely different teams. Separate pages are what let the assistant tell them apart. |
The reply
School groups are handled by our schools and outreach programme rather than through open day registration, and the page sets out what is offered by age group and how far ahead to ask [1]. Coach drop off is restricted, and those arrangements are on the same page because they usually decide the date [2]. The visit paperwork, including what supervision we provide, is available for your risk assessment [3]. I cannot hold a date or check availability. Leave me your name, your school and an email and the team will come back to you.
It moves the teacher off the open day route in the first line, because that is where they would otherwise go and it is the wrong event entirely. Coach access is raised before dates, since it kills more visits than anything else. And it asks for the school name, which is the first thing outreach needs before they can look at anything.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor names a date, a number of pupils, or asks for anything to be reserved, and any request to hire a room for an external event.
I cannot check a date or reserve anything. Tell me your name, your school or organisation, an email, roughly how many people and when you had in mind, and it goes to the team who run visits.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never confirm a date, a room or a number of places, since nothing here can see a calendar.
- Never state a staff to pupil ratio the university requires unless the visits material publishes one.
- Never say a coach can park on site without the arrangements page saying so, because a coach turned away has a school group sitting on it.
- Never treat a room hire enquiry as a school visit, as they go to different teams and a misrouted hire enquiry usually goes cold.
Questions
- Can it book a school visit?
- No. It cannot see a calendar or reserve anything. It explains the programme, the lead time and the coach constraint, then collects the school name and a contact so outreach starts from something usable rather than from a bare enquiry.
- Should school visits sit on the open day page?
- Linked from it and written separately. A teacher and a sixteen year old ask the same question in the same words and need different answers, and one page trying to serve both sends the teacher to a form built for individuals.
- What if we charge for group visits?
- Publish that on the same page. A teacher whose budget will not cover it needs to know at the enquiry stage, not after a trip has been approved and a coach provisionally booked.
Keep reading
- Everything for a universityApplicants and enrolled students ask different things. What a university assistant can answer about entry, fees and visas, and what it must never predict.
- Handling group bookings in generalNearly always a handover, and an expensive one to fumble. Collect the date, the numbers and the requirements before it reaches a person.
- A student says they want to leave. Which of these do they mean?Interrupting study is not withdrawing, and neither one ends a room contract. What a student has to do, and who has to be told.
- Tuition fee questions, where the right answer depends on who is askingFees change by nationality, year of entry and course. Here is how an assistant answers without giving the wrong figure to the wrong applicant.
- Open days, tours and visit days, and how to route each oneOpen days, campus tours and applicant days are three different things. An assistant that can explain each one saves the enquiries team most of its inbox.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.