To think the school were neglectful?

I firmly tell my students to drink water. I remind them constantly in this heat. As do all the teachers and staff. Constantly.

We also put water stations out at lunctime for children who 'forget' to take their bottles outside.

And we ask their parents to suncream them before they come in and send hats.

You can only do so much.

Are you sure they didn't re-fill water bottles during the day? We are refilling them constantly at school and on trips. We were at a museum last week with a couple of classes and we were able to refill water bottles while we were there.

You must live somewhere lovely. Where I live, the schools I work in and the school my children go to the parents would be kicking off, demanding refunds (which the school wouldn’t be able to get from the venue) and slagging school off on social media.

Surely you had to give consent for the school to take your child on the trip? If you didn't want them to go you should have withdrawn that consent.

Of course they did. I must have heard every teacher in school shouting for the kids to get a drink yesterday just at playtime. Even if you had a very poor teacher that didn’t, the chances of having a shit TA as well are almost zero! Most are parents / grandparents and actually care about the kids but people just believe whatever shite their kids tell them to enable them to be angry at teachers and blame them for everything!

You need to talk to your daughter and find out why she didn’t wear her hat or have a drink on a very hot day. Explain that is why her head hurts.

The school can’t police the drinking of 30 8 year olds. They have water, the assumption at that age is if they are thirsty they will drink. Why didn’t your daughter? She’ll know for next time.

This!
I'm on a UK break with 17yo DS. Yesterday was 31°. He was wearing jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, and a hoodie.

I told him he wouldn't need that hoodie on - but, "just in case".

Just in case of what? A freak snowstorm?

Daft thing is, he'll happily head out in the winter without a warm coat on.

I find it almost unbelievable that non of the staff, at any point in the day said ‘right time for a drink’, or encouraged them to put on hats.
Did they not have a lunch break? How can she possibly have managed to go the whole day without realising that she was thirsty? An NT 8 year old is able to be responsible for their own hydration. My year 3 class do nothing but ask for their water bottles. At the very least she would have been surrounded by a load of her friends who where all taking regular drinks.

My daughter is in Reception and comes home every day with a full water bottle, I struggle to get her to drink enough and that's without 20-30 other kids to look after. I don't blame the teachers at all and she's only 5.

Good learning opportunity for your daughter, this is what happens when you don't drink enough.

Aarghhhhhh!!!! This is the 2nd post I’ve seen with ridiculous expectations of teachers! My son is autistic and younger than your daughter and I still wouldn’t expect that they enforce this. Other than shouting ‘make sure you’re drinking your water guys’ ‘keep your hats on’ ‘stop running, it’s too hot’ what do you think a teacher can do? Between safely navigating roads, enforcing toilet visits and head counting every 5 minutes there’s little time to check each and every child has had adequate fluid consumption! There’s no wonder kids hate us teachers, parents clearly do too. Maybe next time you’re at work doing your actual job you should be held responsible for making sure everyone else in the office is adequately hydrated and see how easy that is. Of course you still have to do the job of actually teaching so the teacher and TA should spend all day checking water bottles rather than talking about why they’re there and pointing out interesting facts, I assume it’s an educational trip so you have to actually talk about the art etc. Oh and don’t forget the photos that parents have come to expect and complain about if their own child doesn’t appear in at least one. We need brooms up our arses! Tell your child that she is ridiculous for not drinking her water and leave the poor teacher alone - neglectful my arse!

How do you expect the staff to make her drink?

Exactly. At 8 a child is old enough to follow the advice of their parent, drink their water and wear a hat. This perpetual blaming of teachers who had many children to look after and will no doubt have issued appropriate advice is tiresome.

But they can't force her and it's not hot enough that short walks need to be cancelled. In fact a short walk and then a cool museum sounds better than being stuck in a classroom on a warm day. Honestly, the drama over a short heatwave is incredible. Just tell her she must do as she's asked and drink her drink next time.

Instead of looking to blame someone else, use it as a learning opportunity with your daughter. She should be able to keep herself hydrated by age 8, and should have known to wear her hat in the sun.

This - and they get worse as teens! This week we our trips and the amount of teens in jeans, hoodies, long sleeved tops was unbelievable. 33 degrees at Alton Towers and they’re dressed for winter despite being told to dress appropriate to the weather!

OP, when you volunteer to help on these trips, then you can complain. As you say, you weren't there so you don't know how often your daughter heard the words "Make sure you have a drink, kids" and "Put your hat on, daughter of frogs head". It's up to you, as mother of an 8 year old, to make sure your child knows that she should wear a hat when out in the sun for any length of time and to drink regularly. Would you really have cancelled the trip, disappointed the children and wasted all that money because it was a hot day? I think, if you're honest, you wouldn't have.
And 40 minutes is a very precise length of time - who told you that? Once again, you weren't there.

But I’d be surprised if they didn’t actually do this. I imagine they did but your daughter didn’t take as much as she needed.

I think it’s responsible as an adult to remind kids to drink water in a heatwave. I would always do so instinctively. I would be surprised if the teachers didn’t though.

She was safe. She just didn’t drink enough water.

this is what I would have done;
I would have explained to my dd that her head hurts because she didn’t drink enough water or wear a hat. If she was interested I might have even explained the science. She would then remember to drink more water and wear a hat in the future.

this is what I wouldn’t have done…
blamed someone else rather than doing a tiny bit of parenting of my own child.

I bet they were regularly encouraged to and she chose not to. Anyway, if she had a drink before she went and then plenty when she got home she should be fine in no time. The walk wasn't all that long really and she'll have been cool in the museum.

We tell our kids at school to have a drink . Remind them regularly. But you can't force them.

if you are taking a group of kids to walk in the blazing sun you need to schedule short stops in shade for water breaks. No, of course, teachers can’t physically watch every child drink but they do have to create the expectation and the space.

peoplE say she is 8, she is old enough to remember to drink water. Adults don’t even always remember when they are distracted.

Snowflake society…

She's 8- old enough to listen to instructions. Hopefully she's learnt a lesson.

They might have lost the money but surely a museum trip isn’t going to cost a lot and parents would support that; ours cancelled a trip due to the snow last winter and every parent supported that. The weather’s been forecast to be hot for a while so they had time to make plans