Ypres & Somme: WW1 Battlefields School Trips

The trip covers the causes, conduct and consequences of the First World War through the ground itself. The Ypres Salient sites, including Hill 60, the Caterpillar Mine and Hooge Crater, cover trench warfare, mining and the reality of attrition. The Somme day deals with the 1916 offensive at the Sunken Lane, Newfoundland Memorial Park and the Thiepval Memorial. Remembrance and commemoration run through the cemeteries at Tyne Cot, Langemark and Essex Farm, with the Passchendaele Museum and the Somme 1916 Museum providing the wider context. Langemark also lets students consider the war from the German perspective.

Scale is the thing students cannot get from a classroom. Tyne Cot is the largest Commonwealth war cemetery in the world and Thiepval carries the names of more than 72,000 men with no known grave, and standing in front of those numbers lands differently from reading them. The ground itself is still readable too, with preserved craters and the shape of the battlefield still visible in the grass at Newfoundland Memorial Park. The Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate is held every evening and is often the part students remember longest.

Every trip is built around your group rather than sold as a fixed package. A typical battlefields trip covers return travel by executive coach from your school, the Channel crossing, accommodation, all transport during the trip, entrance to the visits you choose, and packed lunches where the itinerary calls for them. Trips are half board, with breakfast and an evening meal each day. The itinerary shown on this page is a suggestion, so visits can be swapped, added or dropped. Travel insurance is available as an optional supplement rather than being built into the price.

Every group receives Project Battlefields, our free student and teacher resource pack, written to the curriculum so students arrive with some grounding and you have material to work with afterwards. We also provide a wreath for your group's laying at the Menin Gate at no extra cost. Both are included as standard rather than charged as extras.

A specialist battlefield guide is optional but many groups choose to include one. Beyond the commentary at each site, a guide can search family and local regiment records, locate a relative's grave, and rework the itinerary to bring in sites connected to your own part of the country. That local connection is often what turns the trip from a series of visits into something students relate to personally. Tell us if you would like a guide included when you enquire.

The autumn and spring terms work best. September and October give reasonable weather for days spent largely outdoors at the cemeteries and memorial sites, and the sites are quieter than in summer. Groups travelling close to Remembrance in November find the atmosphere at the Menin Gate particularly strong, though demand for those dates is high. From January to March there is more accommodation choice and better availability, with colder and shorter days as the trade-off. Booking ten months or more ahead also secures £10 off every place.

Yes, and many groups do. War poetry sits naturally alongside the sites, particularly at Essex Farm Cemetery, where John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields, so a joint trip with the English department works well. If two departments want to travel together we will build an itinerary that serves both rather than adding one subject as an afterthought. Tell us which subjects are involved when you enquire.

Most of the trip is spent outdoors at cemeteries, memorials and preserved battlefield sites, so weather-appropriate clothing and sturdy footwear matter more than on a city trip. Sites are open and generally quiet, and groups stay together with clear meeting points. The Menin Gate ceremony is a formal act of remembrance held in a public space with crowds, so briefing students on conduct beforehand is worth doing. Every supplier we use is audited through TourTrust, our own safety management system, and you receive a risk assessment handbook and supplier safety information in one pack, along with a 24 hour support line while your group is away.

Senior leadership will usually want the curriculum rationale, the safety arrangements and the financial protection. Every supplier is audited through TourTrust and you receive a risk assessment handbook and supplier safety information in one pack, so most of what gets asked is already documented. Adaptable Travel is an ABTA member, membership number Y1241, and we have been arranging educational trips since 1994. There is also a 24 hour support line while your group is away. If your school needs something specific, ask and we will provide it.