Classic form

Excursion permission form

Consent only counts if the parent had enough information to give it, which is why half of this form is the school telling you about the day before it asks you for anything. The rest is the health picture for one Thursday and the four things parents most often say nobody told them. It is a classic form, because half of it is the school telling you things, and that reads as a page rather than a series of questions.

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Welcome screen of the excursion permission form example
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Year 5 excursion: the Maritime Museum

Thursday 12 March. Please complete this by Friday 28 February. It replaces the paper note, so nothing is lost in the bottom of a school bag.

What the day looks like

Year 5 is studying trade and migration this term. At the Maritime Museum the class works through the immigration gallery with a museum educator, then spends the afternoon on the restored ketch at the wharf, where they raise a sail and haul a line.
We leave school by coach at 8.45am and are back by 3.10pm. Mrs Ruiz is the teacher in charge. Four staff and six parent helpers travel with the class, all with a current working with children check. The school office is contactable on 02 5550 3300, which is answered until 5pm and diverted after that.
The museum is nine minutes from the nearest hospital and there is a first aid room on site. A risk management plan has been written for this excursion and any parent can ask the office to see it.
The cost is $28 per student, which covers the coach, museum entry and the boat session. Please pay through the school portal by 6 March. If that is difficult, ring the office and ask for Danielle Okonkwo. No child misses an excursion over money, and that conversation is confidential.

Your child

If you have named somebody else above, please make sure they know you have given us their number for this trip.

Health, for this day only

All medication is handed to Mrs Ruiz on the morning in its original container, labelled with your child's name, the dose and the time. A child can carry their own only when both you and the teacher in charge agree, which is normal for asthma relievers and rare for anything else.

What you are agreeing to

These four are the ones parents most often tell us they had not realised. They are here as separate ticks rather than buried in a paragraph, because each one costs money or changes the day if it happens.

Signature is required

Every field, and what it collects

The complete field list, in the order respondents meet it.

What the day looks like

Your child

Student nameNameRequired
ClassDropdownRequired
Options: 5A, Mrs Ruiz · 5B, Mr Adeyemi · 5C, Ms Zhang
The name they answer toShort text
Parent or carer completing this formNameRequired
Best number on the dayShort textRequired
A second number on the dayShort textRequired
Someone else we can call if neither answersShort text
Their numberShort text

Health, for this day only

Does your child have any of these?Multiple choiceRequired
Options: Asthma · Anaphylaxis · Diabetes · Seizures of any kind · Heart condition · Migraine · Travel sickness · Blackouts or dizzy spells · None of these
Any allergies?Multiple choiceRequired
Options: Penicillin · Other medicines · Foods · Insect stings · None
What should staff do about anything you ticked?Long text
Year of the last tetanus immunisationShort text
Will your child need medication during the excursion?Single choiceRequired
Options: No · Yes
If yes, name the medicine, the dose, and when and how it is givenLong text

What you are agreeing to

I have read and understoodMultiple choiceRequired
Options: If my child behaves in a way that puts themselves or others at risk they may be sent home, I will be told, and I will be responsible for the cost of getting them home · If staff decide my child needs to come home early because they are unwell, I will be responsible for the cost of getting them home · The principal may cancel or change the excursion at short notice for safety reasons or for reasons outside the school's control · The Department does not provide student accident insurance or ambulance cover, and I may want to arrange my own
Photographs on the daySingle choiceRequired
Options: Fine for the class newsletter and the school website · The class newsletter only · Please do not photograph my child
Signed by the parent or carerSignatureRequired

What makes this form work

The school does its half of the form first

Purpose, staff, travel, distance from a hospital, the risk plan and the cost, written out before a single question. A parent reading it can actually give informed consent, and the office fields far fewer emails asking what time the coach gets back.

Four acknowledgements, each with a consequence

Behaviour, illness, cancellation and insurance. Three of them cost the family money and one changes the day. Written as four separate ticks in plain language, they are the part of a permission form that parents remember, which is exactly the point.

The hardship line is named, not implied

A person to ask for, a promise that no child misses out, and a note that the conversation is confidential. That is three lines of a paragraph and it is the difference between a family ringing the office and a child staying at school on excursion day.

Questions people ask

What has to be on a permission slip for consent to be valid?

Enough for a parent to weigh the risk: what the activity is and why, who is supervising and who is in charge, how the class travels, when it leaves and returns, how far the site is from medical help, and what it costs. A form that only asks for a signature is asking somebody to agree to something they have not been told.

Should the medical questions be a separate form?

Schools often run them as two documents, one consent and one medical. For a single day trip that is two things to chase instead of one. Keeping the health section short and framed as "for this day only" gets the same information without asking a parent to restate a whole medical history.

How should the cost be worded?

Say the amount, the date it is due, what it covers and who to ring if it is a problem, by name. The line that no child misses an excursion over money is the one that gets the phone call made, and a hardship contact buried in a newsletter never does.

Why ask for two phone numbers?

Because the trip happens during working hours. One number is often a desk somebody has walked away from, and an excursion office ringing an unanswered phone from a museum first aid room is the situation the second number exists for. A third contact who is not the parent covers the rest.

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