OEAP’s National Guidance comprises a set of documents providing information and guidance.

There are three fundamental documents that will help you to understand National Guidance, and which should be read by all users:

There are three ways to find information on OEAP’s National Guidance website:

1. Browsing the Contents

The OEAP’s National Guidance documents are organised into eight folders each covering a broad theme. You can scroll down the National Guidance page or select National Guidance Contents in the National Guidance menu, to find links to each folder.

There is also a link to View all documents. This shows all the documents in numerical order, which may be useful if you know the number of the document you are looking for.

2. Browsing by Role

Some of the documents have been identified as essential reading for different roles. To find the documents that are essential for your role, use:

• the View roles link on the National Guidance page;
• or the Guidance for Your Role list on some other pages;
• or Guidance by Role in the National Guidance menu.

3. Searching

Use the Search National Guidance function on the National Guidance page to enter the word or phrase you are looking for.  A search will find all guidance documents containing your search term in its title or on its information page.  If you don’t find what you are looking for, or if the search produces a lot of results, you may need to use an alternative or more specific search term.

To learn about your own responsibilities, a good starting point is the document in the following list that most closely fits your role:

3.4a Director of Children’s Services
3.4b Lead Member for Children’s Services
3.4c Outdoor Education Adviser Line Manager
3.4d Outdoor Education Adviser
3.4e LA Teacher Adviser / Health and Safety Coordinator
3.4f Member of a Management Board or Governing Body
3.4g Head Teacher/Manager
3.4i Manager of an Outdoor Learning Centre or Facility
3.4j Educational Visits Coordinator (EVC)
3.4k Visit or Activity Leader
3.4l Assistant Leader
3.4m Helper
3.4n Guidance for Parents
3.4o Volunteers

The OEAP’s National Guidance is constantly updated to ensure that it reflects current good practice, government guidance and law. You can keep up to date by:

• reading National Guidance news in the National Guidance menu;
• checking whether any particular document has been updated by using Updated Documents in the National Guidance menu – this shows documents that were updated in the previous month, and has a table of all updates;
• following OEAP on Twitter, Facebook or Linkedin.

If you print or save a document for later use, you should check on the website that it has not been superseded. If you wish to create a hyperlink to a particular document, you should link to the document’s information page rather than to the document itself – this will mean that you will always be directed to the latest version of the document.

The information page is the page you see when you use the blue information (i) button by a document’s title on a contents page.

Essential Reading » 

Visit Leader » 

Assistant Leader » 

Parents »

Educational Visits Coordinator (EVC) »

Head / Manager » 

Governor / Trustee / Director  »

Employer » 

Outdoor Education Adviser » 

Local Authority Officer »