No snowboarding on school ski trip

He does realize that his Olympic level snow boarding daughter will be stuck in snow board school with a bunch of beginners?

I did a school trip once doing the one sport I was actually good at. I thought it would be amazing and finally my moment to shine. Actually it was shit as I was so bored and of course everything was constrained to be as safe as possible.

I never ever made that mistake again. School trips are not like family holidays.

Dd has been on a school ski trip and at least one if not two teachers were with every group on the slopes. So if there was only one (or even a few) boarders you’d need extra staff

That’s never been the case with any of our trips - you get dropped off with your ski instructor and then are free until dinner time at 6pm. Which is how all the high jinks happen (buying alcohol in the supermarket in Andorra aged 14, etc).

"It’s about 50/60 kids a year but I don’t know how many are in the lessons."

You're saying that 50/60 kids from the school go on this skiing trip every year?

That seems a huge number to me. Where I come from only about 10 or 15 ever went on a skiing trip. That is from a school with around 1,700 pupils. I imagined it was something similar, but 50-60 is a huge number.

If you've got 50-60 kids going on the trip then there are clearly going to be very different levels and there are going to be multiple different groups for lessons.

In that situation I would be surprised if snowboarding was not an option.

School trips are by their nature restrictive.

I see; thank you, I missed that.

I think it's rather restrictive to insist inly skiing can be done. Snowboarding has been around since the '90's fgs.

I’ve been on about 20 ski holidays and I ski and snowboard. Dd has been on a school ski trip and at least one if not two teachers were with every group on the slopes. So if there was only one (or even a few) boarders you’d need extra staff.

Ultimately teachers volunteer for this, if no teacher wants or can board then there is no boarding.

No but he's a penis

Yep, even back in the 90s our school trips were about 50/50 skiers and snowboarders. I can do both, but it literally wouldn’t occur to me that you wouldn’t be able to snowboard on a ski trip.

Much higher rate of injuries skiing as well, IME. Lots of knee and ankle injuries.

I mean I think if OP put that snowboarding is way easier so she's surprised they don't offer it then this man will probably be OUTRAGED

Plonker. He can complain all he likes. If he’s signed up to the school ski trip then he needs to accept their itinerary. He’s free to take his daughter himself and the trip’s not compulsory. I’m a teacher and parents like this are a nightmare.

I'm in this position, in as much as DS is a moderately advanced snowboarder but a beginner skier, and his school trip is skiing only. Sure, it would be great if they were able to accommodate snowboarding, but I completely understand why they don't and I certainly wouldn't complain about it. It's not like it's compulsory!

To be fair to the dad here, if their school has previously always offered snowboarding and it wasn't made clear that this was no longer an option, I'm not surprised he is a bit pissed off IF he has already paid a deposit (or more). It's no excuse for the aggressive language though.

And if they're not yet committed to the trip, he is just being a twat.

Are you a teacher at the school?? They would be heaving a sigh of relief to be rid of his poor daughter and his pretentious gripes.

If she is not as advanced at skiing then this will be an excellent opportunity to advance her skiing skills. I hope the school continue to ignore his request.

Yes there would be a difference in ratios. The ratio for high risk activities is 1:10 at high school.

20 kids go on the trip. 19 want to ski. 1 wants to snowboard. 2 staff needed.

The ratio is then 1:1 for the snowboarder and 1:19 for the skiers. The ski group are then out of ratio because of the snowboarder.

Oh goody I hope he does

Ultimately he should have clarified the situation before booking.

Contrary to my username, I was on skis as soon as I could walk, we went evey year as kids and I've continued to ski regularly as an adult. I still think he's being a dick.

Whether you're an expert skier, or you've never been on skis in your life it shouldn't be too hard to understand that schools, not parents, determine the activities on offer on school trips.

Well there you go, if there’s no teacher who can board then that explains it. The risk assessment will say a teacher needs to be there. If they did put boarding on the amazing dd would spend her whole week on a nursery slope watching a beginner teacher fall over. 😂

In that situation though you read the trip information and decide whether or not to send your child.

Not send your child and then moan, complain and threaten until the details of the trip are changed to suit your child.

My children are too young to go on ski holidays with school yet. But I would he disappointed if they didn't offer snowboarding when my kids are that age.

Yes snowboarders are more likely to break wrists but skiiers are more likely to tear their ACL so I can't think that is the reason. Make wrist guards compulsory and this would pretty much do away with the wrist issue.

Why is it they are offering skiing and not snowboarding. There would be no difference in staff ratios so I don't see why they couldn't have both ski and snowboard lessons. It doesn't make any sense to me.

What a dick.

He should take her snowboarding. This is a GROUP skiing trip.

No, my sons always go on their school ski trips (we are keen skiers and they have been skiing since they were tiny), and it’s made clear they not only have to ski but they have to do the morning ski school lessons. Now obviously my boys don’t go in ski school on our family ski holidays and haven’t ever done as I taught them when they were small, but I don’t complain and tell everyone they are too good for the advanced group. I just tell them to have fun, be well behaved and polite to the instructor. They get to do free skiing in the afternoons, but part of the trip is fitting in with what has been arranged and if I wasn’t happy with that, then I wouldn’t pay for them to go!

It sounds like the man is just trying to boast about how great a snowboarder his daughter is - sure he knew what he was signing up for? I would have thought he’d be pleased she was getting an opportunity to improve her skiing without it taking up their precious snowboarding time on family hols!