Kids excluded from free trip

My daughter was recently invited to an after school club on Wednesdays just an hour after school.
only 7 kids going to it. When I picked her up I noticed all the other kids were two sets of siblings. One from a family who don’t treat their lice and wash their clothes and the others from a mum and all her kids have different dads and she constantly has a new boyfriend.

I was kind of insulted my child does well at school and is always clean and presentable I was 15 when I was pregnant with her so I think that might be why she was invited can’t think of another reason. Kind of insulted but she’s enjoying the club so ill leave it.

But this isn’t about children or families not being ashamed of being poor, it’s about you being pissed off that some other children got to have something for free and your child didn’t. Now it’s been pointed out that these children were most likely PP/ young carers/ SEND you have tried to turn it around.

I work in a secondary school in an area of high deprivation. Some of the pupils get frustrated when the “bad kids” get food or trips or “treats” that they don’t get. We can’t and wouldn’t tell them the circumstances that leads to these things as it’s confidential and often very personal. We support young people that are young carers, care experienced, have lost parents and/or siblings, have fled war, have parents with drug or alcohol addiction and many other ACEs. Yet others only see that some kids get “extra”. I promise, missing out on a trip to the bowling alley or a residential is significantly better than experiencing what these young people have experienced. There is a reason but it is often private.

Years ago I remember a woman in work getting angry because she found out the NHS funds people with chronic illnesses like diabetes 1 and epilepsy. She felt she was being cheated because no one in her immediate family needed expensive care. She had a point, I suppose, but most of us feel it is worthwhile us all chipping in to support each other in case we fall on hard times ourselves.

Incorrect..it happened at my kids school as well

It’s not objectively fair but neither is life. Your child might get picked next time. Everyone has to learn to cope with disappointment.

That’s a bit of a contradiction considering you just flipped your lid at children of different circumstances (although you can say what) getting an opportunity your kids didn’t. Yet ‘why shouldn’t rich SEN kids pay.’ Which is it? Why do you think your kid should be included in a free trip that you have the money for but others shouldn’t?

Sorry just posting to say I love your user name 🤣🤣

That's been happening for years, I started teaching in 1970 and even then it was usual for the trouble makers to get day trips out while the well behaved stayed in school and all the children knew about it. They used to complain, They get to go canoeing as a reward for being badly behaved and we get to stay in lessons for behaving ourselves. I've always hoped that the time spent in lessons allowed them to have a successful future.

I think you might have been had here. Most schools do the AT trip to reward good behaviour…as parents we still had to pay!

OP I'd be interested if you'd feel the same if it was based in merit and reward? For instance, the kids who had excelled in English travelling to take part in a junior parliament, or the sportiest kids getting trophies at a school celebration? Sometimes the money gets spent on things like these, and sometimes it gets spent on kids who never get recognised for these things, to increase their self esteem and show them that they have the ability to do great things too.

Honestly you sound absolutely insufferable. Just because you gave the school a tenner here and there you think you should have oversight of every bit of personal information relating to vulnerable kids, and if they get bullied hard luck.

I would say if you are that interested become a governor but I’m not sure I’d want to inflict that on the board.

If you have so little confidence in the school then you should move your kids. Otherwise why not celebrate the school doing something nice rather than all
of this “me me me” narcissism.

My children receive pupil premium and get ‘extra things’ at school although we are high earners as a family but they are service children. The pupil premium recognises the extra strain and needs they are often under.

Shouldn’t think so. It makes for some very economical “enrichment” - ie nobody ever gets anything much.

@AbiGabi

this question has been answered re the trip BUT I am going back to your earlier post about pots and specifically saying what for and I completely agree.

four kids.

we started by giving to parent council events (I am now chair and get it). But felt things needed more. So we gave cash to the class teachers, for, example, the Christmas show.

four years in, do you know what they need? Specific pot help and lots of money and shouting about it.

two examples.

loose parts for playground. Oh parent council can give x amount.

NO. Let’s go to local business places and ask and deliver. Planks. Crates. Tyres. Start a specific Facebook appeal. We need x and G.

now I’m in the library. Do teachers have time for this. Nope. Or resources. Nope. Or a focus to start?

so I said to local people, business or otherwise.

we need.

this this and this.

it’s amazing how many were happy to buy
one bean bag.

rather than as you say fifty quid.

The teachers don’t have the time for this, the local authorities don’t give a flying monkeys about this and the fundraising from parent council is so needed for the individual school projections. Here things like, swimming, transport, a school trip.

I took a small group of children on a similar trip which we received funding for. The children were all care experienced youngsters and the funding was through that particular stream and I had applied to a grant and got lucky.
We shared that children had gone on a trip but we certainly didn’t broadcast to the entire school community that these children had experienced care or were on a compulsory supervision order.

Do you want the pupil premium kids to be highlighted in future? They are usually the ones with the brown bag lunches on trips if that helps!

I don't want my financial circumstances broadcast to the world and that would apply regardless of how much money I had.

Without knowing the criteria I default to thinking you're being unreasonable because I can't imagine the school didn't have a good reason for selecting the pupils they did.

Maybe they have health difficulties or SEN, maybe they are especially talented at nature-based activities or sport, maybe they've shown exemplary behaviour, or maybe they have difficult circumstances at home, but the school obviously felt that this trip was of particular benefit.

I remember looking longingly out of the window in maths at some select kids doing a fun inflatable assault cause day on the field, with paint ball and all sorts of tram activities. They were children in really low sets struggling and from disadvantaged backgrounds, it was a hugely positive thing for them.

I and two other students went to the Himalayas on a trip that we had to raise money for ourselves in entrepreneurial ways, but which was organised with a charity via schools across the county, as part of the gifted and talented programme. A bunch of us applied and our three names were chosen based on our essays. The year after the kids went to Africa.

There are so many reasons for not everyone to take part in something, and it's not always funded by other parents.

There are criteria for PP expenditure. But yes indirectly PP children could benefit from a broader activity or extra tuition being funded from that pot.

How expensive do you think coaches are exactly?

Just ask what the selection criteria was. If names were pulled out of a hat, then it’s a fair process and you simply bought a £50 raffle ticket and lost.

OMG OP, too right the school should be more upfront about why the children were chosen. Surely the school should have captioned the photos to let you know.

“Here are Milly and Jake enjoying the zip wire, Milly’s single parent mother doesn’t work and so she, Milly and her four siblings all live on benefits since none of their absent fathers pay a penny for their upkeep.”

”Edward loved the sleeping accomodation, he couldn’t get over the luxury of having clean sheets and a duvet and not sharing with his bed wetting brother”

Would that have helped sooth your outrage?

I accompanied the Geography field trip last year, trip to a poverty stricken area, which I thought was a bit mad, as did the locals the kids stopped to answer surveys ‘Don’t you know there are dangerous drug addicts round here?’ asked one bloke they stopped!

I run a very popular trip and literally did the random name picker spin. I thought that was the fairest way. The year before we were told we had to prioritise the PP kids, didn’t bother me, but I did have a couple of queries from parents saying that they knew naughty kids had been chosen over their little angels, think it was 7/40. The PP kids all had the maximum £350 paid last year, but this year, I was told they would not receive this.

This would be completely unacceptable.
you can’t say ‘all these kids who were chosen are pupil premium’.