Poems About School Trips KS2 🚌 | Turning Adventures into Verse
School trips are some of the most memorable parts of the school year — and the perfect inspiration for poetry!
Whether it’s a soggy picnic, a chaotic coach ride or a teacher who takes a tumble, pupils love turning those funny, dramatic moments into rhyming stories.
Through Poems About School Trips KS2, children can:
🌟 Recount real experiences creatively
🎭 Build confidence performing humorous poems
📝 Experiment with rhyme, rhythm and repetition
💬 Reflect on teamwork, excitement and adventure
👉 In my Poetry Days in primary schools across the UK I work hard to get the children excited about writing and performing their own poems. I visit over 100 schools every year and I’d love to work with your children and teachers.
📅 You can book me for:
-
In-person Poetry Days across the UK
-
Online Poetry Workshops (affordable and flexible)
➡ Secure your date here: Poets in Schools – Ian Bland
💡 Why School Trip Poems Work So Well
Children remember trips vividly — the funny, chaotic, noisy, “real-life” moments that lend themselves perfectly to poetry.
By writing about shared experiences, they develop observation, vocabulary and storytelling skills while learning how to turn life into art.
🔗 Related: Funny School Poems KS2 | Performance Poetry KS2
👩🏫 Poem Example 1: Mr Drake – The Teacher Who Fell into the Lake
by Ian Bland
A school trip we’ll remember well
The way he stumbled, lurched then fell
Was he pushed or did he slip?
A loosened stone that made him trip?
A spectacle we won’t forget
Our teacher drenched and sopping wet
Laughing made our stomachs ache
When Mr Drake fell in the lake…
When he took an early bath
You should have heard the children laugh
We all looked on with shock and awe
As duckweed dangled from his jaw
Sopping trousers squelchy shoes
It really was fantastic news
More drama than we could take
When Mr Drake fell in the lake…
He tried to take it in his stride
But this crisis dented Drakey’s pride
And to add to all his dripping woes
He didn’t have a change of clothes
He thought the jokes would never end
Now the ducks were his new friends
It certainly jolted us awake
When Mr Drake fell in the lake…
💡 Activity Ideas
1. Performance Extravaganza 🎭
Perform Mr Drake with comic timing and echo reading.
Pupils chant “When Mr Drake fell in the lake!” as a class refrain.
Discuss how rhythm and repetition build humour and energy.
2. Class Recount Poem ✍️
After your next school visit, work as a group to write “The Day We Went to…” poem.
Each child contributes one funny or dramatic line.
3. Visual Literacy Link 🎨
Illustrate the “splash” moment as a comic strip.
Add speech bubbles and sound effects for onomatopoeia (SPLASH! SQUELCH! QUACK!).
🤒 Poem Example 2: Mr Granville – That Teacher Who Is Always Ill…
by Ian Bland
A boil on his back the size of an egg
He recently recovered from his fifth broken leg
He was off for a month with a varicose vein
Sometimes we think we won’t see him again
Shingles, arthritis, bird flu and gout
It’s a wonder he’s ever allowed to go out
Lockjaw and leprosy, malaria, lice
Conjunctivitis – he’s had that twice!
Our school trip was ruined by his asthma attack
He went to the doctor and never came back
Diphtheria, cholera, appendix that burst
TB and tapeworm – the poor man is cursed
The symptoms are vicious, the prognosis dire
Mr Granville is hopeless – he needs to retire!
💡 Activity Ideas
1. Character Comedy Workshop 😂
Talk about how exaggeration creates humour.
Pupils invent a character poem in the same style – “Miss Crumbly – the teacher who’s always clumsy” or “Mr Beanie – the teacher who forgets everything.”
2. Rhyme and Rhythm Study 🥁
Highlight internal rhymes and quick pacing.
Use clapping or percussion to keep the rhythm lively.
3. PSHE Connection 🧠
Discuss empathy and caring humour – laughing with, not at.
Reflect on why children find these playful exaggerations funny.
🚌 Poem Example 3: Coach Ride Chaos
by Ian Bland
We’d barely gone five minutes down the road,
When someone shouted, “I’m gonna explode!”
The coach was packed, the bags were tight,
Something didn’t seem quite right!
A whiff of crisps, a game of tag,
Miss tripped over someone’s bag.
“Are we there yet?” – a hundred cries,
Rain poured down from greyish skies.
At last we stopped — hooray, the zoo!
We’d made it there (though minus two).
And even though we made a fuss…
The best bit? — The coach ride back for us!
💡 Activity Ideas
1. Soundscape Performance 🎶
Create a coach-ride soundtrack: laughter, songs, squeaky brakes, chatter.
Perform the poem over these sounds for assembly.
2. Recount Poetry Frame 🗒️
Give pupils a 6-line structure:
-
Setting off / excitement
-
Something goes wrong
-
Someone’s reaction
-
What they saw
-
The journey home
-
Reflection
3. Cross-Curricular Links 🌍
Link with geography (field trips), history (museum visits) or science (nature walks).
Children can write poems inspired by where they went.
🧠 Teacher Pedagogy Notes
Curriculum Links:
-
English: Poetry performance, descriptive recounts, rhythm and rhyme.
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Spoken Language: Performance, expression, timing.
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PSHE: Teamwork, shared experiences, humour and empathy.
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Cross-Curricular: Geography, History, Science (linked to visit topics).
Differentiation:
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Support: Sentence starters (“On our trip we saw…”, “Then something funny happened…”)
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Challenge: Extend into narrative poems or mixed-form performance pieces.
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Extension: Create class poetry anthologies titled “Our Trips in Verse.”
Engagement Tip:
Use the poems as end-of-term activities when classes are full of energy – laughter keeps learning alive!
🌟 Final Thoughts
Writing Poems About School Trips KS2 helps pupils capture the excitement, chaos and fun of real-life adventures.
They build vocabulary, teamwork and confidence – while celebrating everything that makes school life memorable.
🚌 From coach rides to catastrophes, school trips make the best poetry!
👉 In my Poetry Days in primary schools across the UK I work hard to get the children excited about writing and performing their own poems. I visit over 100 schools every year and I’d love to work with your children and teachers.
📅 You can book me for:
-
In-person Poetry Days across the UK
-
Online Poetry Workshops (affordable and flexible)
