Kids excluded from free trip

Where I teach schools have to fund all extra
curriculars and not allowed to ask for contributions so all trips are cheap nearly free.

Our school sends youngsters to Outward Bound for 5 days but the school have no say in the number of students as I know it is our Council (education dept ?) that hire Outward Bound for the duration and allocate x no. of youngsters from several schools in the Council catchment to fill the whole centre. The youngsters get to meet the other schools while there and interact.. Our school pay nothing towards it as youngsters asked to pay their transport there themselves. A wonderful opportunity.

As an aside, and what a previous poster said, I used to work at a remote hostel. Older youngsters from a large city would come for a week to stay - many had never been out the city, seen the beach / water / hill walked etc. The change in these young people over a week (language included) was amazing. They will never forget the experience.

I’m slightly concerned that your donating to school building fund is seen as a semi direct investment in your child. It’s actually a charitable donation to the school building fund and if yours is anything like the majority they are all in great need. Government money for buildings in particular is risible.

I work in a school, I concur with previous posters, it was most likely paid for by PP funding for PP kids. I wouldn't begrudge kids having fun. They can't take everyone and school budgets are up shits creek. I'd like to add after seeing your other posts, the school are unlikely to advertise it was selecting PP kids. No one wants kids stigmatised the same with SEN.

Do they still do coursework trips? I thought coursework had mostly gone. Was thinking of that as an example of something that took the piss a bit! But yeah, not so much if they did need to be there.

I was going to say, the only thing I can think of that I'd be against is it as an award for 100% attendance.

Schools get SEN funding to spend on SEN kids, so that's fair. Now if the selection criteria was something stupid like 100% attendance and paid from the core school budget, that's different.

I would see if you can edit your OP, because there's going to be dozens more posts about how this is probably pupil premium.

From your update, I'd say it still depends on whether it was something to do with relative disadvantage or not. If it was, there may well have been other sources of funding. Probably not so if it were a rewards trip, or taking the GCSE geography class away to spend a few hours studying erosion and the rest of it doing fun activities in the Welsh hills.

The school my children went to would take a small group of children to the local theme park for the day. The criteria varied from year to year. Some years it was children with additional needs, some years it was a reward for exceptional effort, and I wouldn't be surprised if some years it was names pulled out of a hat. I had five children in the school for four years each and only one went on the trip. It was never expected and never complained about when some went and others didn't.

Why shouldn't they?

And how do you know it was funded by the school?

Because it is funded by EHCP’s or a specific SEN pot of cash?

Free trips in many schools are based on a couple of criteria:

1. vulnerable children who don't normally get the nice stuff, could be young carers, could be kids who have specific SEN which means they're often marginalised.
2. kids with 100% attendance
3. kids with highest positive points

Is it either of these things? If so, no, I don't have a problem with vulnerable kids or kids who actually show up every day and do their best getting a reward.

So you know what the selection criteria was, and your children didn't qualify. Without knowing what it was its hard to say if you are being unreasonable or not.

They very much make it their business now.

Part of the stats they are judged on is the progression of children who qualify for pupil premium.

But I'm assuming you didn't donate £50 to the school? Hard up people can't afford to do that.

They probably used pupil premium funding.

Your kid cannot be excluded from something they didn't qualify for in the first place.

My son goes to an all male grammar school. recently there was an opportunity for a couple of kids to attend a weekend of Maths at Cambridge Uni, all expenses paid. It looked fantastic and lots of the kids wanted to go, including DS.

Of the two who were chosen, one is from a single parent family and lives in a high rise in a local city. The other fled the war in Ukraine.

Disappointing for some? A bit, BUT I can absolutely see the school's reasoning.

I think most people are happy for kids who are used to getting very little or who have been through something awful to get the odd opportunity thrown their way.

That’s a strong assumption. No school my children ever went to knew just how hard up I was as a single parent.

If the kids weren’t all pupil premium or funded kids then it’s highly likely at least some parents were asked to contribute to the bus.

also depending on what the funding was it may have come with travel. DS’s school recently had a trip some kids went on. The residential part was funded by the centre and the bus was funded by another company as part of it

YANBU - yes the children who benefitted may not otherwise have had this opportunity, but why not offer to all at a charge and then allow those in need to attend free?

People commenting about transparency - school policies around SEND and PP spending strategy, as well as various other statutory policies, are all published on each school’s website. It may well be that the published policies already reference how the school selects certain children for certain trips, it’s just that no one (except the school’s governors - I am one!) reads those policies.