In 2011 the School Journey Association celebrated 100 years of providing outstanding, organised school journeys and visits. Introducing the young people of our country to new cultures, lands and languages.

In 1896 Mr G.G. Lewis from Bellenden Road Elementary School, London made the first English School Journey. Some fifteen years later in 1911, with G. G. Lewis as Chairman and Lady St Helier as President, the School Journey Association (SJA) was founded and grew rapidly despite two World Wars and major national economic hardships. In 1911 fewer than fifty school journeys were undertaken ; by 1959 the number had risen annually to well over 1300 as recorded by the two associated companies, SJA and Educational Travel Ltd.

‘Sir John Simon is of the opinion that exchanges of visits between British and Foreign schoolchildren and students is of the utmost value in fostering the growth of a better feeling between the nations concerned' 

– The Foreign Office, 1933