Benchmark 7 of the Enrichment Framework and school trips

The Department for Education published the Enrichment Framework for schools and colleges on 15 June 2026. It is non-statutory guidance for schools and colleges in England, and from 7 September 2026 Ofsted's school inspection toolkit refers to it. This guide covers benchmark 7, the one about outcomes, and how trips and residentials can show what it asks for.

The framework in brief

The framework groups enrichment into five categories: civic engagement; arts and culture; nature, outdoors and adventure; sport and physical activities; and developing wider life and future skills. It sets eight benchmarks:

1. A strategically aligned enrichment offer
2. A broad and well-rounded enrichment offer
3. A well-communicated enrichment offer that celebrates participation and achievement
4. An enrichment offer shaped by the school or college community
5. An accessible and engaging enrichment offer
6. An enrichment offer that works in partnership
7. An outcomes-focused enrichment offer
8. A continually improving enrichment offer

Trips sit across several categories. A museum or gallery visit is arts and culture; a residential is usually nature, outdoors and adventure.

What benchmark 7 asks for

Benchmark 7 says a school or college identifies the pupil and student outcomes its enrichment offer aims to achieve, and tracks these over time. Its two indicators make that concrete.

Indicator 7.1 asks the school to consider outcomes when it designs and delivers its offer. Its examples include social and emotional development, physical and mental wellbeing, school belonging and essential skill development.

Indicator 7.2 asks the school to use “effective systems (appropriate to their educational setting) for collecting and monitoring outcome-related data”.

For a trip, that means two things decided before it runs: what the trip is meant to change for the students who go, and how the school will know whether it did.

What Ofsted looks for

From 7 September 2026, the school inspection toolkit looks, under personal development and wellbeing, for enrichment that is “purposeful and varied, having regard to the enrichment framework (where applicable)”. An inspector can ask what a trip was for and how leaders know whether it worked. Benchmark 7 is the part of the framework that answers that question.

Tracking a trip's outcomes over time

The simplest method that stands up is to ask the students who travel the same short questions at three points: before the trip, just after it, and some weeks later. The first answers are the baseline. The second show what changed. The third show what lasted.

Three rules keep the figures honest. Ask the same questions each time, or there is no change to measure. Match each student's answers to their own earlier ones, so the change is within each student rather than between two different groups. Where you can, ask students who have not travelled yet the same questions at the same times: their answers show how much of the change would have happened anyway.

Report figures only for groups large enough to mean something. Small groups swing on one or two answers, and in a small group a student can be recognised from their answers.

What to keep for an inspector

• The outcomes each trip was meant to change, written down before it ran.
• For each trip, the before, just-after and weeks-later figures, with the number of students behind each.
• What the school changed as a result, which is benchmark 8's concern.
• Who took part and who did not. Indicator 5.2 asks for systems to monitor participation, including pupils at risk of missing out.

The other benchmarks a trip touches

A trip run with an external operator falls under benchmark 6, whose indicator 6.2 asks for “clear and proportionate processes for feedback and review of work with external partners”. Students' feedback on how the trip was run gives the school that review. Benchmark 8 asks the school to gather feedback from pupils, parents, staff and partners, and to improve its offer on what it learns, including its impact on agreed outcomes.