A checklist can look impressively professional and still be completely useless. This week's proof is an "ultimate guide to organising school trips" that can't even keep track of its own Step Four.

Before we get there, though, we wander off into the story of Jack Wild, the Artful Dodger from Oliver!, and the way celebrity encounters slowly evolve into family folklore until someone is convinced their dad was one casting decision away from Hollywood. From there, it's school productions, choir memories with Harry Secombe, and why the smallest performances often become the stories people remember for decades.

Eventually—unlike some recent episodes—we remember this is supposed to be a podcast about secondary education. After a brief disagreement over this week's postcard, we set about dismantling the list.

This week's victim is a school trips checklist that promises to tell teachers everything they need to know. Instead, it:

• Skips crucial steps,
• Muddles the order completely, and
• Somehow makes one of the most complicated parts of teaching sound like assembling flat-pack furniture.

We pick apart the advice, discuss what actually goes into organising a successful school trip—from risk assessments and parent communication to medical information and logistical chaos—and ask whether some educational guidance is written by people who've ever organised a trip in the first place.

If you've ever planned a school trip, spent hours chasing consent forms, or found yourself shouting, "That's not even the next step!", this episode is for you.

Leave us a review, and while you're there, tell us about your best (or worst) school trip memory.

• Email: bandjcdb@gmail.com
• Website: benandjamescoulddobetter.com

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