Name changed for this as may be very outing. Penis beaker, Scottish mummy, Korean granny etc
Bit long, sorry.
14yo brought letter home and was really enthusiastic for a school trip to a theme park.so I booked and paid, bit expensive but I don't want them to miss out.
3 days before they started saying they didn't want to go, basically because they wanted to see a special showing of musical the other end of the country and tickets had come up on twickets. I said no to their new plan, it would have cost a fortune anyway for hotel and travel.
14yo still complaining 2 days before trip. Night before trip they came home from school and proper kicked off about how they hated theme parks, weren't going, had nothing to wear (humourless lol at that) and had said all along they didn't want to go (double humourless lol), why was I so stupid to pay for it and so on.
It was turned 4pm and the reception staff had finished so sent a panicked email to the organiser to say 14yo had refused to go slightly glossing reason, not knowing if it was too late and teachers would be wondering where they were at silly o'clock the next morning. Luckily the organiser picked it up.
9-10pm ish, it must have sunk in that expensive theatre trip wasn't happening and rude, spoilt 14yo had another kick off demanding to go. Too late, nothing I could do, you can't mess people around like that anyway. 14yo threatened to just turn up but I explained the teachers couldn't take them because they were no longer on the list which didn't go.down well but tough.
Next morning I got them up and out to school for the normal day despite strenuous attempts at refusal. 14yo has to learn that choices have consequences, this would be a very mild consequence. The theme park trip had long gone by this point.
So - expected 14yo to be safe in school all day.
14yo got home from school and it turned out they'd been offered a place on an alternative extra-curricular, not linked to schoolwork, smaller off-site trip and they said yes... I knew nothing about it, hadn't paid and obviously wouldn't have authorised it anyway.
This really is long!
Massive safeguarding issue, if anything had happened 14yo wouldn't have been covered by insurance. Contacted school immediately. Teacher had felt sorry for the little so-and-so left behind and asked them. I am not happy in the slightest and made that clear. Also had to pay for this bloody trip after wasting theme park money, that's by-the-by because it should have been used but I didn't want a further bill.
I get the impression the school wants to sweep the safeguarding aspect under the carpet as all communication from them has very carefully skirted around this issue. WIBU to follow this up in no uncertain terms after the holidays? I get that the teacher felt like they were being kind and don't necessarily want them punished for being nice but I'm really not happy. Anything could have happened but luckily didn't and they should have at least asked for permission before taking 14yo off site for an extra-curricular.