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Expo City Dubai School Group Visits - Health and Safety

Expo City Dubai is committed to protecting the health, safety and wellbeing of all staff, contractors, service providers, and visitors. This commitment is central to our operations and embedded within our planning for school visits as well.

Now that the Expo 2020 Dubai site has transitioned to Expo City Dubai, a number of venues are open to the general public. Guests visiting the site as part of a school trip are free to explore Expo City on their own responsibility as individual tour guides are not available to escort them around the site. However, for health and safety reasons, we recommend that school groups stick to their booked journey, especially during warmer months.

PART 1 of this document outlines the roles and responsibilities of Expo City Dubai to ensure the safety of school groups during their visits.

PART 2 of this document outlines the school’s responsibilities to ensure adherence to school and Expo City health and safety guidelines, while visiting the City. The school and school staff’s support is essential to keep school students, staff, and accompanying adults safe and comfortable throughout their visit to Expo City Dubai.

PART 1

Role and Responsibility of Expo City Dubai

Expo City Dubai is committed to ensuring the health and safety of all visitors through a variety of procedures and precautionary measures that have been put into place:

A. Trained Staff to Maintain Health and Safety Across Expo City Dubai

All staff working at Expo City Dubai have been background and security checked prior to joining the organization, and are trained on their roles and responsibilities to:

  • Ensure health and safety across the Expo City Dubai, identify hazards, implement controls, and report hazards to the responsible party;
  • Follow Expo City Dubai policies and procedures to ensure seamless operations;
  • Complete necessary safety and role-specific trainings outlined in their job requirements;
  • Report incidents immediately and participate in investigation of incidents as necessary.

Each attraction included within an Expo School Journey (i.e. Terra, Alif, Vision, and Women’s Pavilion) has First Aiders and Fire Wardens, and are trained on emergency protocol and evacuation.

Nurses and/or paramedic staff are available on site either within the venues or in close proximity.

*Expo City Dubai shall be discharged and held harmless from any loss, claim, liability for any loss, damages or injuries that might arise directly or indirectly from the actions, negligence or omissions caused by a student(s) and/or the accompanying adult(s); *

B. School-Specific Health & Safety Measures

School Operations at Expo City Dubai have been planned diligently to ensure safe and seamless journeys for school groups. Details of these operations are summarized below:

  • Dedicated Bookings for Schools:

  • Expo City Dubai has established an attraction booking system which enables staggered arrival times to reduce crowding and optimize the flow of school groups depending on each pavilion’s capacity.

  • The booking system captures relevant information required for school visits (e.g. group size, People of Determination, lunch spaces to ensure all school groups are provided a safe journey).

  • All school visits to Expo City Dubai must be pre-booked through an Expo School Programme representative directly.

  • Arrival and Departure of school buses have been carefully planned with dedicated bus-drop off, pick-up, and parking spaces for schools, ensuring safe and seamless operations.

  • Each journey to Expo City Dubai has a dedicated load zone (for dropoff and pick-up of school groups). We will provide each school with directions to their drop-off location prior to the arrival to ensure a safe and efficient arrival. For drop-offs, school buses will have a dedicated area close to their booked attraction’s entrance to ensure the group walks an average of 5 minutes only.

  • During warmer weather, school groups will be shuttled to the entrances of the attractions in trains and/or buggies. A similar process will be followed at the end of the school visit, for the pick-up of the school groups. Fifteen minutes prior to pick-up, the teachers accompanying the school group must call their bus driver, informing them that they are ready to depart.

  • Security is a key priority within Expo City Dubai. Any security issues relating to visitors will be handed over to Expo City Security and/or to Dubai Police where required.

  • Expo Security Team and Dubai Police will be present across the Expo City Dubai site to handle any security issues that may arise, ensuring the safety of staff and visitors and managing lost and found visitors and items.

  • Public Photography policy: In accordance with the safeguarding of children, please note that Expo City Dubai is a public place, and while we take all necessary measures to stop any general visitors from taking photographs of children visiting as part of a school trip, the responsibility remains with the school staff accompanying the school group; Expo City Media staff may approach the school group seeking to take pictures but they will identify themselves and seek approval from the group’s accompanying adults prior to taking any pictures and/or footage.

  • Identification Items will be provided for all students within a school group to ensure their safety. The color-coded identification items will be used to identify the exact drop-off location where each school bus would have parked for their particular journey. In the event that a student gets lost, the item will serve as a visual aid to reunite the student with their school group as quickly as possible.

  • Inside the attractions: Our hosts and explainers are available at key points throughout the journey. These staff members are fully trained and equipped to deliver the school journeys safely and seamlessly. Training modules cover safeguarding, health and safety training, site and exhibition knowledge, and incident management.

Lunch spaces will be provided to school groups within the attractions they are visiting. During pleasant weather, school groups are welcome to enjoy their lunch outdoors.

All attractions are inspected daily by Expo operations teams to ensure that any hazards are eliminated or controlled prior to welcoming visitors.

Group Sizes are allowed to be between 15 to 30 students, with a minimum of 2 accompanying adults, as per the group ratios below.

Grades/Years | Ratio (Accompanying Adult:Student)

  • Nursery-KG / Year 1 | 1:5
  • Grade 1-Grade 7 / Year 2-Year 8 | 1:10
  • Grade 8-Grade 12 / Year 9-Year 13 | 1:15

Any additional students will require additional tickets, which must be booked in advance to ensure space availability. Any additional adults not within the ratio allowance, will be charged an additional fee.

C. Accessibility
Accessibility has been enhanced across the Expo City Dubai site to ensure full access to People of Determination (PoD). More information about accessibility within specific attractions is available upon request.

PART 2

Roles and Responsibility of the School and Accompanying Adults

*The School shall be held liable for all students with medical history that require special attention and shall be responsible and liable for any complications arising out of or in connection with any medical complications during the trip including but not limited to allergic reactions.

The School shall ensure that the students arrive safely, are returned safely and/or are handed over to the students’ parent/guardian at School. Expo City Dubai shall be held harmless from any liability, losses, damages, injuries, claims, demands, lawsuits, expenses and any other liability of any kind, incurred upon the School or the students, whether directly or indirectly arising out of, or in connection with the transportation, pickup and drop-off of the students. *

An Accompanying Adult is the school representative that arrives to Expo City Dubai with the school group and who is responsible for supervising them and ensuring they stay together at all times. The accompanying adult can be any individual(s) that the school assigns to accompany the school group during the trip to the Expo site.

It is mandatory for each school group to be accompanied by at least two Accompanying Adults, regardless of the number of students. This is to ensure that there are sufficient accompanying adults who can carry the responsibility of the school’s health and safety at Expo City Dubai.

Each adult is responsible and accountable for their own school group’s health and safety at Expo City Dubai; In order to avoid walking long distances and to ensure the comfort of students, it is recommended that school groups remain within the area booked for that particular visit. The City has a large footprint and tour guides will not be available to escort groups around the City.

The role of the accompanying adult is key in ensuring the health and safety of the school group. Each accompanying adult is required to:

  • Stay with their school group at all times
  • Where applicable, take the contact information (including mobile phone numbers) of students beforehand, so they can contact them in case of any lost student or staff incidents
  • Ensure that students are wearing their school id cards (where applicable)
  • Ensure that students have the contact information of their parents and/or teachers, in case they get lost within the City
  • Ensure that when students visit the restroom, they are accompanied by an adult and ensure that they return to the group safely. Expo City staff are not allowed, under any circumstances, to accompany students to the restrooms at Expo City Dubai.
  • Complete multiple headcounts across the journey to ensure the school group stays together and no student is separated from their group.
  • Ensure that visitors do not bring restricted or prohibited items to the site, as outlined in Expo City Dubai’s terms and conditions
  • Ensure the group remains together for the entire duration of the journey and does not enter restricted or unauthorized areas.
  • Instruct the school group to follow instructions and signs that are posted across the attractions at all times.
  • Ensure that students do not climb over barriers, fences or temporary structures.
  • Check the school bus when they are dropped off at Expo City Dubai to ensure no school students are left behind on the bus.
  • Ensure that school groups use designated pathways or routes near parking areas.
  • Ensure that school groups remain seated while the bus is in motion. The school group should not disembark the bus until directed by Expo City Dubai’s on-ground staff
  • Ensure that any food consumed by students while at the Expo City Dubai site is free from allergens