To think the school were neglectful?

Your last paragraph is the crux of the problem.

Parents are sending their children out into the world without the most basic skills.

Your daughter didn't drink any water at all over the entire school day? And a day where's there's a heatwave and 2 40 minute walks, that's very strange OP. Are you certain the bottles weren't refilled at some point? Or did she leave her hat and bottles behind her or something
Tbh if you as her parent haven't managed to instill in her the importance of drinking and the simple think of putting her hat on her head in this weather 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.

If she has a headache and diarrhoea, maybe she was already getting a bug and so didn’t feel like drinking? This makes most sense to me, children don’t always feel like eating or drinking when they feel unwell. I doubt being out in the hot weather helped if she was already feeling unwell.

I don’t think the school were being neglectful. Perhaps they should have postponed the trip until cooler weather, but I’m sure like other PPs mention teachers will have repeatedly reminded the kids to wear hats and drink water. It’s probably tricky to effectively police that many children constantly though.

Having said that - as mums we all know it’s rotten seeing your DC suffering. OP posted after seeing her little girl come home feeling poorly, so no wonder she’s upset. It’s okay to have a bit of a vent in private, it’s not like she’s gone into the school shouting. How is DD now, OP?

@frogshead

You seem more angry about the fact that they went in the 1st place & have side-stepped the point that your daughter had both plentiful water & a hat with her but chose not to use either - that's on her! They would have sat & eaten lunch at some point - why didn't she have a drink then??

Do you ever take your child on holiday to a hot place and let her play on the beach for 40 minutes?

Yes. Because schools should not do things that make children ill if they can help it. By the way I was a teacher for many years, of 8 year olds. We also tell kids not to wonder off, cross the roads without looking etc but still have plans in place that recognise that they might.
It's not a biggie, no one needs to told off, but yeah they should have cancelled it and next time hopefully they'll know that.

Maybe go on a little trip and check she can manage bag, lunch box and bottle etc. I’m surprised how many parents send kids with things they can’t easily access or open.
In school hols get her to make packed lunch with you, put lunch and water in your own bags. Go to park. Is she drinking without prompting? Say let’s have lunch, get yours out. Does she get hers out or need telling.
On a brownie pack holiday lots had never poured own orange juice, poured cereal in bowl or own milk on cereal, buttered a pre cut roll and put a filling on, set table, washed and dried up. All things they loved doing.

I explain to my 9 year old every day that she needs to put suncream on at lunch and drink more water. She does neither. I'm not sure what else I can do, kids just don't listen. I'm going to show her horrific sunburn pictures later in the hope of scaring her.

Absolute ridiculous attitude to risk on a walk on a hot day.

The child was safe. She got a headache and diarrhea.

Lesson learned.

The school are in no way neglectful. She's plenty old enough to drink when she needs to, and it's vanishingly unlikely the whole group weren't reminded to regularly.

clearly general reminders / assuming 8-year-olds will drink didn't work this time. And the adults on the trip were seemingly oblivious to it. That needs rectifying

Out of curiosity how would you rectify this? If you remind children often, give specific children individual reminders and yet they still don't drink what's the alternative it's not really a situation you can rectify.

Could she be restricting her water intake to avoid needing a pee?

A friend's child did this, they
had an utter horror of using toilets other than at home.

"nobody encouraged her to wear her hat or drink anything all day".

How do you know this?

Of course they weren't. You need to talk to your daughter not the school. You should have made sure she knew the importance of staying hydrated in this heat and remind her that this is what happens when you don't drink water.

You seem incapable of differentiating between unforeseeable events and the duty of care to make sure all children are kept safe in a known heatwave. Not just assume: make sure.

If the teachers knew she deliberately wasn't drinking and didn't mention it, that's a problem.
If they just weren't aware, then that's also a problem and yeah, policy should be changed - clearly general reminders / assuming 8-year-olds will drink didn't work this time. And the adults on the trip were seemingly oblivious to it. That needs rectifying.

She must have felt thirsty. Have you asked her why she didn’t drink anything. Makes no sense!

What a ridiculous load of responses.

Of course they should have cancelled the trip. Of course some 8 year olds cannot be trusted to stay safe while walking for the best part of 2 hours in hot sun. If the teachers do not have the capacity to police the children's behaviour during a heatwave, they cannot keep them safe. So they keep them out of the sun.

It is not comparable to children living in hot countries who are used to / better adjusted to the heat and have grown up taking precautions.

I wouldn't have gone out for a 2 hour walk in the sun yesterday, so I find it baffling that the school did it. It's no wonder melanoma continues to sharply increase in the UK given the replies on threads like this.

Of she had come back sunburnt I would have said the school have been neglectful as even age 8 they have a duty to repeatedly prompt and remind of application... they should also prompt or have stops to have water as children will forget with excitement. I do think that schools need to be more mindful of school trips in heatwaves and ensure there is plenty of cover.

Sure, it could be - that's definitely one way to go. Could be COVID. Or a brain tumour. You just never know, do you?

My first child (now an adult) always needed to be told to drink and has always had a very poor sense of thirst, even now. Often complains of a headache and feeling dizzy and I ask when she last had a drink and she will be 'Oh, I haven't had a drink since yesterday, oops' so when my next child guzzled entire water bottles every time I gave her a full one I was worried they were diabetic. My next child was the same. They both always drink their whole water bottle at school with no prompting needed, another straight after school and for every activity they do.

My point is, most children don't need prompting to drink on a hot day, but there are a minority who do. If your child's teachers don't know that drinking is something that she needs prompting on then they won't know. And you may not know that other children don't need reminding so it makes sense you find it neglectful if you haven't had a child that prompts you to fill the water bottle instead of the other way round.

One stubbed a toe on the walk … quick review risk assessment,
one got scared of the sirens that whipped past …quick, update the risk assessment
one got hot, it was a heat wave and didn’t touch the 2 water bottles they were carrying …. QUICK !! Update the risk assessment !!!

omg … how do teachers / youth leaders have the will to live ? Let alone provide these enrichment activities with parents and people in society like this ???

I despair 😩

You can tell a child to put their hat on again and again but many of them will just take them off when you look the other way. It’s exhausting. Please bear in mind also that the adults top priority in a forty minute walk is the safety of the children. Saying that, I don’t think the trip should have gone ahead. There was no money to lose. We used to live in the Middle East and in the first year we lived here, ds1’s class walked to the local nature reserve on the hottest day of the year. He got heat stroke and he was used to hot weather. I felt terrible as I should have known better. We would never have done that where we used to live.

They might have booked a special schools session which can be hard to book and may have cost extra.
I do think at 8 they should know to drink. I’d be talking to your dc and working on her life skills, some parents just do everything.
I help on brownies trips (age 7-9) and we obviously factor in regular breaks and mealtimes and toilet stops and keep an eye. We check everyone has food and drink before setting off and will take spares or stop and buy them lunch if they haven’t got anything. We stop and say it’s time for a drink/toilet now. Some won’t listen or prefer to play with their friends. We can say are you having a drink ‘Katie’ but if they say I’m ok we can’t force them. In a big group it’s totally different to going with mum eg they may not be sat on a table with an adult. Last museum trip we ate sat on floor. I did a couple of walk arounds to check everyone ok and eating eg could open packets but I couldn’t tell you who drank.

I'd be giving my child a firm talking to about taking responsibility for themselves. 8 year olds aren't babies, they should be capable of drinking their own water when thirsty.

We don't even know for sure if they became unwell from this walk. Unless she's diagnosed with heat exhaustion or something, for all we know it could be an unrelated bug.