Every school trip carries risk. The question is not whether risk exists, but whether it has been thought about properly, by the right people, at the right time. ISO 31031 is the international standard that sets out how to do that for youth and school travel.
What is ISO 31031?
ISO 31031, Managing risk for youth and school trips, is guidance published by the International Organization for Standardization. The current edition was published in 2024. It takes the principles of ISO 31000, the general standard for risk management, and applies them to the particular world of trips involving young people: residentials, exchanges, expeditions, sports tours and study visits.
It is written for everyone involved, from schools and youth organisations to the travel providers and suppliers they work with.
Guidance, not a certificate
One point causes a lot of confusion. ISO 31031 is guidance, not a certification scheme. No one can be “ISO 31031 certified” in the way an organisation can be certified to some other standards. What a school or provider can do is design their planning in line with it, and show how.
So if a provider tells you they are certified to ISO 31031, it is worth asking what they mean.
The big ideas
You do not need to read the standard cover to cover to benefit from it. Its core ideas are practical:
- Risk management starts at the beginning. Risk is considered while the trip is being designed, not added as a form at the end.
- Benefits matter too. The aim is not to remove all risk, which would remove much of the value. It is to balance real learning benefits against risks that are understood and managed.
- Roles must be clear. Who is responsible for what, before, during and after the trip, should be written down and agreed.
- Suppliers need checking. Transport, accommodation and activity providers should be assessed, and those checks recorded.
- Plan for when things go wrong. Emergency procedures, communication and escalation should be in place before anyone leaves.
- Learn from every trip. Incidents and near misses are reviewed and fed into the next journey.
Questions to ask any travel partner
ISO 31031 is a useful lens when you are choosing who to work with. Try asking:
- How do you check the suppliers you book, and can we see those checks?
- Who is responsible for what while students are away, and is that written down?
- What is your emergency plan, and who can our leaders reach at any hour?
- How do you handle students’ medical and personal information?
- What happens to feedback and incident reports after the trip?
Clear, specific answers are a good sign. Vague reassurance is not.
How BFC works with it
We design our planning in line with ISO 31031. Our approach page maps each part of our work, from programme design and provider assurance to safeguarding and review, to the guidance. We also built Ildána, our trip-operations platform, so consents, medical needs, risk assessments and supplier checks sit in one place for every journey.
The result should feel simple for teachers: the rigour sits behind the trip, so your staff can concentrate on the students in front of them.
Planning a journey? Tell us what you want students to learn and we’ll design the trip around it. Start your brief.