Taking students to a Model UN conference: a faculty advisor's guide and trip checklist

Get approval and register months ahead, then collect forms, brief parents and book travel, supervise on the day and debrief afterwards.

The faculty advisor is the teacher or adult who registers a school's group for a conference, travels with it and looks after it there. Some conferences call the role MUN director. A trip runs in five stages:

1. 1Months ahead. Get your school's approval, choose a conference, build your group, decide who goes and register and pay.
2. 2Once accepted. Collect the forms, tell parents, plan supervision and safety and book travel.
3. 3The eight weeks before. Students prepare with the session plans, and the readiness check shows who still needs help.
4. 4The trip. You look after the group on the way and at the venue, leave the debate to students and plan for when things go wrong.
5. 5Afterwards. A debrief in your next session turns the trip into learning.

Your school's trip process decides the paperwork, so ask the colleague who approves trips early. The trip checklist covers every step in order.

Every step from approval to the debrief, in order.

Skip the lines marked “Overnight” if the group comes home each night.

Months ahead

Once you are accepted

From the last week to the debrief

For a first trip, choose a one-day conference near you at your students' level: no hotel, no night duty and a lower cost.

Start with who may register: more than half of in-person high school conferences on mymun take school delegations. Then check these points on the conference page.

To compare, browse the high school conferences or the conference map. Each conference page shows when applications open, and you can follow a conference to get a notice when they do.

A small group, a tight budget or no overnight trips

Choose an online conference, or one that takes students who apply on their own: the list can show only those taking delegate applications. Before you pay for an online one, check who runs it, what the fee covers and its time zone.

Show students the workload before they sign up, and take as many as you can coach and supervise.

• Recruit. Tell classes about the conference, let students who went before pitch it, and invite your Model UN or debate club, if the school has one.
• Show the workload first. Before students sign up, give them the session dates, the paper deadline, the trip dates and the cost. Then nobody discovers the work after you have paid.
• Size. Take only as many students as you can coach one by one and supervise. The conference may also limit students per school, and the countries you are given set the number of seats.
• Too few students. A small group can still go. Choose a conference that takes small groups or students who apply on their own.

To spread students across committees and choose a head delegate, use placing students.

Publish your criteria before sign-up; asking for effort, with places kept for first-timers, is the fairest middle way.

When a conference has fewer places than your students want, someone stays home, and teachers choose in different ways:

• The strongest. A selected team prepares faster and can compete for awards. Some schools expect it, because awards carry the school's name.
• Anyone who wants to. First-timers learn the most at a conference, and a selection mostly picks students who are already confident. A lottery gives everyone the same chance.
• In between. Ask for effort, not talent: coming to the sessions, a position paper finished by the deadline and good conduct on earlier trips. Keep some places for first-timers, and offer students who miss out a local or online conference.

Whatever you choose, publish it before students sign up, and keep it the same for every trip. If cost could decide who goes, fundraise and ask about aid before you choose. Students who stay home keep coming to meetings, and a returner among them can chair the full mock session.

Register early, collect a deposit from each family, and read the refund rules before you pay.

Places fill, and an early date leaves time for forms and fundraising. The page for teachers shows how to register your delegation, add your students and pay.

Where a conference takes payments on mymun, you can pay for the whole group in one checkout, or let each student pay their own fee.

• Deposits and deadlines. Some conferences take a deposit first and the rest later, and some charge more the later you register. Put every payment date in your calendar.
• Family deposits. Collect a deposit from each family before you pay the conference, and match its refund date to the conference's.
• Refunds and changes. Many conferences stop refunds after a set date, and some charge for each substitution.
• Financial aid. Some conferences offer aid or scholarships, with their own deadlines, so ask early.
• Fundraising. The club guide covers school funds, events and local sponsors.
• Visas. If a student needs a visa, ask the conference early how its invitation letters work.

Bring enough adults, agree the rules with students before you go, and know who to call.

• Forms. Your school's trip process sets the paperwork, usually a consent form and medical details from each family. Some conferences add their own consent form in the application on mymun.
• Adults. Take enough adults that one can leave with a sick student while the group carries on. Overnight, that means at least two.
• Rules. Agree the rules with students before you go, including the curfew on an overnight trip, and point them to the conference's code of conduct.
• Free time. Agree where students may go during breaks and evening events, and when they check in with you.
• Emergencies. Agree a meeting point, and keep your school's emergency number with you.
• Insurance and access. Check what your school's cover includes, especially abroad, and tell the conference early about access or dietary needs.

What to tell parents

Tell parents the plan before the forms are due, through your school's usual channel or a short meeting. They mostly want to know:

• The dates, the cost and what it covers.
• When the group leaves and returns, and how it travels.
• Who goes with the group, and how to reach you.
• Where students sleep and the rules they agreed to.
• What students do at a conference, with your first MUN conference to share.

You look after the group and meet it every morning and evening, and you leave the debate to your students.

What you do

• Arrive early. Collect the badges at registration and go to any advisors' meeting, while another adult or the head delegate keeps the group together.
• Meet the group every day. Each morning, check that everyone is there and go through the plan. Each evening, ask about problems and check that the next day's speeches are ready.
• Keep your phone on. If something goes wrong, the conference's staff and your students call you first.
• Watch a session where the conference allows it. You will see your students do things they never try in class.
• Follow your students. Where the conference runs MUN Command, you follow your countries across every committee from one read-only view. You can export their speech, motion and activity history for the debrief.

Outside sessions, you can explain a rule or talk through strategy at lunch. Some conferences also give advisors a role: at THIMUN The Hague, teachers can sit on the panel that approves draft resolutions.

What you do not do

• Coach during sessions. Some conferences bar advisors from coaching students in session, and all leave the debate to students, so save coaching for the breaks.
• Draft or debate. Leave the resolution's paragraphs, the speeches and the caucuses to your students.

Most trips go smoothly; for the few things that do go wrong, these are the first steps.

In your first session after the conference, each student looks back on their goals, and you name one strength and one change for each.

Talking it through while the trip is fresh helps students see what they learned. Where the conference ran MUN Command, start from your countries' exported speech history.

1. 1Each student answers three questions in a short online form: what went well, what was hard and what they learned.
2. 2In pairs or as a group, each student shares one answer.
3. 3Each student checks the goals they set before the conference.
4. 4You name one strength and one change for each student, in a short message they can keep.
5. 5Together, choose what comes next, such as another conference, a harder committee or chairing at a school event.

Use the answers in a short report to your school, which helps the next trip get approved. If Model UN is part of a class, grade the preparation with the class unit's rubric, never the awards.

Keep the group meeting as a club between conferences, and record each trip so a colleague can lead the next.

Add each trip to the club file, so a colleague can lead the next one: contacts, dates, the budget, the risk assessment, incidents and reflections.

Keep the group meeting with club activities, and run weeks 1 to 4 of the 12-week plan for new members. The UN's free Model UN toolkit and Model UN pages, including getting started, help you plan.