To think the school were neglectful?

Oh, they would have been reminded!

I'd have a polite conversation with the school/teacher - saying she's been unwell and you think it's down to dehydration so what happened.

Could she open the bottles, did she ignore reminders to drink, is she a child who doesn't get thristy and needs a special eye kept on her going forward.

I'd go in with a polite calm what happened and how can I prevent this happening to her again.

Even if the museum is free entry for normal visitors if they’re going for an educational visit there may well be a charge, depending on what they’re doing (eg hands on learning, demonstration) and whether they’re using a facilitator at the museum.

Even if it is free a lot of time will have been spent on preparation, doing risk assessments, working out the timings of the day and getting parental consent which would all be wasted if they cancel because of a bit of hot weather.

ideally teachers could have reminded them but 8 is old enough to take responsibility for drinking when thirsty. Hope she feels better soon.

This is why I wish parents would volunteer to come on school trips. Trying to keep 30 kids safe when there are only 3 adults is no mean feat. We can tell them to wear their hat/drink water/keep hold of their bag/go to the toilet till we're blue in the face, but there will still be those that refuse to wear hats/lose hats/refuse to drink/lose their bag/refuse to go to the toilet. 🤷🏻‍♀️

40 min is ridiculous to make kids walk in the heat. That part yanbu about.

the only person you need to be angry with is your dd. She’s 8. 8 years old enough to know to wear a hat
and drink water. This is why kids are so so unable to do basic functions , as they need to be babied. I’m certain the teacher would have told them. If she ignored then unfortunately these are the consequences and I would tell her that.

Your child is 8, not 4. Teachers can’t go around every kid and force them to drink and put their hats on. Other than reminding the children to, which not all kids will listen to, what can they do?

It wouldn’t have entered my mums head to complain to the school if I hadn’t drank enough on a hot day.
Parents today are something else!

DD2 used to forget to drink - she still does now at 16 if pre-occupied. She has ASD and ADHD though we didn't know when she was 8. I wouldn't expect teachers to stand over them and make them drink but a little reminder would be nice as it's hardly an uncommon thing, it could be 6 or 7 kids plus in a class of thirty.

Do they die due to a 40 minute walk when they have a hat and water with them when they're not even walking at the hottest point of the day?

In hot countries additional numbers of people die from the heat

I live in Spain. The hot part. Here schools finish 18-22 June every year rather than in July, because it's hot. By the time it gets to over 30C on a daily basis, so June and September, they don't have to wear uniform and half-days are implemented. Because of the heat.

By June, there are no more school trips. There's no way our school would even consider a trip that involved walking for 40 minutes with a temperature over 30C. School trips happen in May but hats are mandatory, also suntan lotion and water drinking. We just wouldn't do this trip in June.

And I don't know if diarrhoea is an official symptom of heatstroke but when the weather does warm up a lot here, there's always a load of kids off with diarrhoea. Mine certainly get diarrhoea from the heat and so does my husband.

I get that the UK isn't used to these temperatures but people - and particularly schools - need to adjust.

Other schools are cancelling trips and events in this heat - my son's primary has just done so. I think that's too much walking in this heat, so while I agree that teachers can't watch 30 kids' water intake, the decision to do a school trip with those characteristics in this heat wasn't wise.

They would have lost the opportunity for a trip, it's not easy to rearrange trips this late in the school year or get parent helpers at short notice.

There were choices here. You chose to consent to the trip, you could have withdrawn consent but chose not to so you must have felt she was adequately prepared. And she chose not to drink the bottles of water she carried around all day.

For what it's worth, my yr 4 kid had a similar trip on Thursday in London. She drank her water, filled it when she was given the opportunity and drank some more. Simple.

Anecdotally as a teacher, in the dozen or so times in the last decade or so that a parent has made a complaint about ‘not keeping their child safe’ , the only end point has been their own child missing out on stuff.

Assuming you knew about this trip, that they were walking and lets be honest we all know when its hot, why then did you allow her to go? If you know that at 8yrs old she is not capable of drinking her water, then keep her at home with you for future school trips or perhaps go with them, and support them rather than trying to blame them !

Precisely.

It's pretty baffling that she had two bottles of water with her on a very hot day and hadn't the wit to drink them without someone at her elbow "encouraging" her.

What's your daughter's explanation for failing to wear a hat when told to?

Not recognising thirst and not drinking anything at all on a hot day is very unusual behaviour from an 8 year old unless additional needs.
Also agree Op hasn’t said actually got heatstroke. Headache fair enough.
Diarrhoea isn’t a symptom. More likely to have an upset tum due to sandwich not being packed with ice packs or girl eating lots of her friends sweets etc.
Walk presumably would have been beginning and end of day not hottest part. If museum is old it could have been cool inside.
Think about it from teachers point of view. They want the children comfortable so they aren’t moaning, usually there will be breaks, lunch at usual time and plenty of loo stops factored in.

My childrens school insist on water, suncream and hats for the children however stress that the child is responsible for topping up suncream, wearing hats and drinking water as needed. We are advised to ensure the child can do this independently (unless SEN) If you felt uncomfortable with the trip due to the heat could you not have retracted the consent given for your child to attend the trip? My children's school took a 40 minute walk to a local church via the woods this week and we were informed if we would rather our child stay at school to let the teacher know.

I wouldn't expect a school to force an 8 year old to wear a hat. It isn't necessary as long as proper sun protection is applied to the head.

She hasn't got heat stroke though.

I grew up in australia and I am with you - the uk weather is extraordinaryly hot at the moment - not down to an 8 year old to realise its hotter than usual. school should have cancelled really but very least insisted kids wear hats they had / took water breaks. heat stroke does kill; it heats up organs.

Our school is strict on hats and it’s a very easy spot to see if someone doesn’t have one on.
No hat would have meant that they wouldn’t have been able to join the trip if one could not have been borrowed.
The drinking is down to your own daughter, she shouldn’t need someone to tell her to drink and it’s not something the teachers can easily police unless they walk around 30 children shaking the bottles to see how much was left.
The teachers should have made everyone had a hat on their head at the start of the walk there and at the start of the walk back, but anything else ie taking them off during the walk or drinking is down to your child’s responsibility.
My reception age child went on a school trip this week, they were outside having a picnic lunch etc every child had a hat on, they were all told to make sure they had a drink with their picnic but it wasn’t policed.

To be fair to the op her original post focussed on the fact as she saw it, reported by her child, that no adult during the whole course of the day had reminded her child to drink or to wear her hat.

I think the consensus is that the child, and all the other children, would have been reminded, probably more than once, to do both things.

I'm not a teacher but when DS was in primary school I volunteered on many school trips in all weathers. We would stop for breaks, tell children to drink, make sure they eat their lunch, put things on/take things off e.g. gloves, hats etc in colder weather and invariably you would get back and there would be an angry parent because someone hadn't worn their gloves and hands were cold, hadn't drunk enough water or their lunch was barely touched and child was hungry, headache etc. I remember one child took their socks off and ended up with blisters - our fault apparently because we should have known tht their shoes rubbed and that was why they had the socks on in the first place. You can supervise children to a point but there's an age where they should be able to do as they're told by the teachers and their parents.