To think the school were neglectful?

No, it is unlikely to be down to dehydration or heat stroke. Dehydration symptoms are more along the lines of feeling dizzy and lethargic, dry mouth and eyes, not weeing or having too strong wee. Heat stroke is similar but with sweating, flushed skin, rapid heatbeat etc.

Thankfully most parents (I'd hope) are grateful and understand that trips are hard to organise and run. Sadly it's the idiots that tend to stick in the mind and make schools decide to stop doing things like this.

Kids are rubbish at recognising thirst. Parents and teacher should always be aware of this. Thirst causes irritability, inability to concentrate, headaches and tantrums and is easily avoided. The trip was high risk due to the extreme weather conditions, so staff should have been particularly alert.

I probably wouldn't complain, as it's not completely neglectful, but you need to train your child to drink a certain volume of water at regular intervals and recognise that hot weather + exercise is not safe without hydration.

Why does everyone keep talking about 1 adult and 30 children? Do you actually think one adult takes 30 kids on a trip alone? There will have been likely 3-4 adults there and I actually don't think it's that difficult for one adult to make sure 10 children have all had a drink. As a previous op said, a 5 min rest with a drink, make sure you've seen each of your 10 (or less) children have some.

I think teachers should have insisted on hat wearing and reminded kids to drink. Sure they can’t force them to drink but it’s not hard to say remember to drink every time they needed a drink themselves

Oh, and there are several kids who point-blank refuse to take their jumpers off in this weather. It can be a sign of neuro-diversity although not in the case of the 8-year old I had the debate with on Thursday. He was purple in the face and eventually took it off but 10 mins later had put it back on as he "was cold."

I am so looking forward to our school trip next week, where I'll work an extra six hours for nothing and spend my time trying to convince kids to do obviously sensible things they need to do to avoid becoming ill.

Nothing clear about it. I expect she was repeatedly told to wear her hat and to drink.

But the child is eight. What are the staff supposed to do, force her to drink? If there is a reason she isn’t drinking after being reminded then that is something she is choosing to do which is an issue for her parents to deal with. And as for wandering off, believe me, on a school trip you spend the day counting the members of your allocated group.

Oh, and as a teacher, I would be ROYALLY pissed off if a parent came into complain because their child hadn't worn the hat/drunk the water that was in their bag, and told their dm fibs when I had told them a billion times to do so.

Also, is diarrhoea a symptom of over-heating? (genuine question - I've not had it).

No suggestions from those who think the school should have done more to suggest what the school should have done beyond what the school would have been doing anyway!

I think they should have done more. I think they should have stopped regularly and watched the children drinking, to make sure it was done. Not 'reminders' and then assuming all the kids were doing it ad hoc. I also think they should have been aware of who had a hat on or not.

Yesterday was exceptional - sun safety should have been a massive priority, even if it might not normally be. The adults should have been on tip of this -- and quite clearly they were not.

Don't you teach your child to drink when it's very warm? The teachers will have reminded the children on numerous occasions to have a drink and put their hats on if I were you I would teach your child that when it's warm have plenty of water to drink and when an adult asks them to do something to follow their instructions instead of ignoring them after all and 8 year old is not a baby.

People are to quick to judge teachers when they should be looking at their own short comings.

I'm still curious as to how the OP knows that her dc wasn't reminded to wear a hat/drink water.
DC: I don't feel well
OP: You were out in the heat today. Did you wear your hat/drink water?
DC: No, because the teachers didn't remind me to.
OP: WTF? Didn't you KNOW you were thirsty?

Makes no sense.

You have made your own child incapable of thinking for herself by blaming everyone else for her shortcomings. All of this is her fault. All of it.

But you're presuming no one noticed and said anything, you're taking the OPs word for it that her child didn't drink anything, didn't wear her hat, didn't get reminders, didn't have her water bottle refilled etc. The likelihood is if she's the only child unwell she's the only child who didn't follow the specific instructions and reminders or she's coming down with a bug.

Why do you presume no one noticed?

It wasn't a 2 hour walk. It was 40 mins walk, time in a cool museum, 40 mins walk. Perfectly fine for the temperature.

The problem is that several people are saying the school should have done more, reminded the childen whatever and the risk assessment should be updated.

The only update you could make to the risk assessment would be "as there is a heatwave, children should be encouraged to take more frequent drinks and wear their sun hats".

The children would still have to follow the instructions to have a drink or put on their hats.

No suggestions from those who think the school should have done more to suggest what the school should have done beyond what the school would have been doing anyway!

At my school, "It's hot, don't forget to remind the children to drink!" is the sort of thing the HT would say as we were walking through the door. And we'd all privately roll our eyes because we had already considered that. But we'd also know he was only saying it in the way you tell someone to "drive safely" and not because he seriously thinks we wouldn't do it without his parting words.

I'm sure you're right. But no one noticed that OP's daughter wasn't doing it. That's the problem. At no point should there have been so many children and so few adults that no one noticed her hat wasn't on / she wasn't drinking when everyone else was.

If a child had wandered away from the group and no one noticed would a few little pep talks along the way have excused their oversight?

I’m really struggling to believe she didn’t drink any of those two water bottles all day.

Maybe neglectful about the hat if they didn’t have all the children put them on their head. Which I’m also struggling to believe they didn’t line the children up and ask them to go to the toilet and have them put hat on before they left the classroom.

Feel free to ask your child’s room teacher about a run down of the day, but make sure you have a chat with your daughter about drinking the appropriate amount of water a day.

Unfortunately, making sure kids are safe in extreme temperatures is absolutely part of the job. Citing other stressful things doesn't negate that requirement.

It doesn't matter whether you think 8-year-olds should be doing x y or z - you have to be aware when they're not.

@KittyPup .Exactly this.

” Listen up everyone [waits for silence] we’ve got a long walk and it’s very hot today , so I want to check some things before we start. Has everyone got a bottle of water? Well done . I want everyone to have a drink now before we set off. Good, if you need more we can fill up the bottles at the museum so don’t worry about running out. And has everyone brought a hat? I’ve got some spares if anyone has forgotten theirs. Excellent. Now, stay with your partner, keep up and keep together, we’re going to have a lovely day.”
………..
”Have you got a hat Littlefrogs head? Well it won’t do you much good in your back pack will it! Put it on please.”
……………
”Has everyone had a good drink? It’s important to drink lots of water on a hot day like today. If you need to fill up your water bottle before we set off back to school then the water tap is over there. Keep your hats ON please, I noticed a few people on the way here who weren’t wearing their hats. So I’d don’t want to have to remind you all again.”

Of course I wasn’t there, but I am willing to bet that the teachers/ helpers all said something similar to the class during the day.

Just thinking outside the box- are you certain her bottle wasn’t refilled? I have led numerous trips with overall responsibility for 60 4-5 year olds and 10 adults. Water bottles are often re-filled. Also, if her bottle was left behind/temporarily lost then I would pour bottled water into plastic cups for anyone without a bottle, which a parent wouldn’t see.

We always reminded children to drink regularly and provided spare sun hats for anyone who forgot. We reminded as much as possible.

I’ve actually been out on 2 trips myself this week as a parent helper. Staff did remind regularly about water. However, the trip we did earlier in the week would have been far too long, open and hot if it had been on the day of the second trip in my opinion, and I would have considered cancelling or adapting it, as happens with Sports Days with heat. Risk assessments are very thorough for trips, so moving forwards I do think schools will need to consider and be open to adapting to increasingly hot weather.

Sorry to hear your child is ill, that’s never nice.

I'm not sure what you expect the teaching staff with an entire class of kids to get to and from the trip safely to do.

I'd expect them to get the children there safely. All of them. That didn't happen here.

Nobody necessarily needs to be strung up for this but lessons do need to be learned. PPs complete refusal to acknowledge that there were cracks here that allowed this to happen is absurd.

Absolutely this!
I don’t think that people who don’t work in a school, have any idea how bloody stressful all the planning/risk assessments/medication/ etc etc etc, goes into a school trip.
But hey, the staff have got time to babysit 30+ 8 year olds and help them on with their hats and get their water bottles out of the bags for them. Jeez.
Or how about the parents teach their children how to behave in hot weather.
Infant school children, fair enough, they need a lot of reminders but year 3/4? Not so much!

Absolutely you can't force water down a child's throat. But that's not what's happened here - if it were the case that OP's daughter had deliberately refused to drink despite specific requests from an adult then that would have been mentioned as an incident. As it was, it seems the adults were just not aware of the situation.

That's the problem.

If we are to believe that 1 teacher had full responsibility for 30 children, as has been offered as the reason it went unnoticed, then that's a problem.

If they were just too busy to be able to make sure everyone had a hat on or was drinking when directed then that's needs review.