Would you send a 3yo on a school bus trip?

[spaghettina]

DD has been at her new nursery school for just over a month and is settling in quite well. We are very new to the area and I don't know any other parents to discuss this with properly.

The teachers are planning a 3 hour trip to a farm next week. It's about a 20 minute drive from the school as far as I know, and they will be taking the class of about 20 kids of mixed ages between 3 - 5, on the school bus. There will be 2 teachers going to supervise.

When we asked if parents could go along too, we were told it would be disruptive for the other children,who might play up, and that our DD would not benefit really as it would be like going out with her parents rather than going on a school trip with the group (which I totally get).
They also don't want her to be taken and picked up by us instead of going on the school bus, something to do with the school's responsibility during school hours.

DP is very anxious about the whole thing and not convinced that she should go at all unless one of us can go with. He doesn't think that 2 teachers are enough to control the whole group.
I don't want her to miss out on it and future trips of this kind, but am more concerned about road safety than anything else. The school bus has no seat belts
Just curious to know what others would do in this situation, and whether this would be considered "normal" for kids this age (3.5) in the UK.

BTW we are in southern Italy so UK health and safety standards etc don't apply!

The adult/ child ratio would concern me, as would the statement that parent volunteers would be disruptive. I would not let my DS go under those circumstances.

I am not pfb at all but but that's not enough staff for that many small ones.

I wouldn't have let my dd go on a bus with no seatbelts at that age.

I wouldn't be so concerned about there only being 2 teachers though as I guess they are experienced at taking trips with those ratios?

It's a shame they won't let you take her and pick her up

I may be flamed but at this age I kept my children off on school trip days if I couldn't go too, then took them myself the following weekend so they didn't miss out.

I don't think there's enough adults on that trip and my child wouldn't be going. It's not necessary at that age imo.

They did this often in my dd's Belgian school. Sometimes we never even got told in advance . They were EXTREMELY well organised though - the lack of seatbelts would concern me more.

Wasn't normal for our school nursery. The only trip ours had requested as many parents as possible and they ended up with one adult to two children. I wouldn't like the ratio either.

I wouldnt let my three year old go with no seatbelts!

The no seatbelt thing wouldn't bother me as we take city buses all the time and he takes the school bus without one.

But that isn't enough staff.

Thanks, am reassured that we're not being totally precious and over-anxious - my DP is very protective and anxious compared to most British parents so sometimes I get confused as to how much is him and how much is just reasonable concern.

Yep PortoFiendo, the lack of seatbelts worries me more than the ratio as I think it's a pretty safe place they're going to, an enclosed farmstead, but of course the ratio is far from ideal - we are already peeved that having had 2 teachers in the classroom the first week, now they take it in turns morning and afternoon, and there's only 1 at a time in the classroom. This is due to financial cuts in the Italian education system made under Berlusconi (surprise surprise)

They already took them out for a walk to the park a couple of weeks ago (2 minutes from the school), without telling us first - apparently they had them all hang on to a rope as they walked along, so they wouldn't go astray!
This is small town Italy though, and in some ways - good and bad - it's like being back in the 60s.

When my DDs were at nursery they requested that the parents went, and most did. DD3 is at a small pre-school now and last Christmas went to a farm without me. There were less children, more adults supervising (I think it was one adult for every 2 children) and the mini bus definitely had seatbelts as I had to strap her car seat in.

I don't think I would be happy with the situation that you describe.

The ratio would leave me feeling uncomfortable tbh.

I wouldn't be worried about the seatbelts, or not going withe the children, but I think a 1:10 ratio is not enough. I'd say 1:3 would be more appropriate at that age. Having said that, we're talking about Italy, and lots of rules are different in different countries. The phrase "when in Rome..." comes to mind (no pun intended), and if you try to apply British rules to Italian organisations, your DD probably won't ever go anywhere.

not a good staff to child ratio at that age.

Well yes indeed, when in Rome :) Same goes for lots of other things here, don't get me started on Catholic-centric Religious ed. etc...

The seatbelt thing doesn't seem to bother parents much in this area of Italy, and lots of adults refuse to wear them. I see most babies being taken around on someone's lap in the front seat, and older kids just allowed to kneel, stand or climb around in the car, often in the front seat with hands up on the dashboard.
So obviously parents aren't going to kick up a fuss about the school bus not having belts!

Slightly reassured by the fact that it's an "educational farm" where there will be staff to lead activities etc. and not just the 2 teachers alone amidst herds of animals or dangerous farm machinery!

In a UK nursery school the adult:child ratio would be 1:8 to 1:13 (qualified teachers can have 13 children) in the school. I would expect most would go for a 1:4 or 1:6 ratio for a trip out.

For seatbelts, I'm not sure - most minibuses and coaches would have seatbelts, but on a school trip children wouldn't be in carseats.

Your nursery doesn't have enough adults. It doesn't matter that there will be staff to help with the education bit. They won[t be any help at all if some of the children wander off as they don't know the children and presumably have to man their stations and take care of whatever other groups of visitors there are.

None of the normal yellow school buses my DCs went on in the US had seatbelts. I sent them off all the same, from age 4 on.

However, there were always parent chaperones as well as teachers -- they aimed for 1:6 ratio for the littlest children (to age 6 or so), and as a further aid to wrangling them all, the children wore a garish school-issued tshirt over their clothes to identify their group.

The DCs also regularly went out to parks and the local conservatory and library with their teacher and teacher's aide, but the group was at most 14 children with two adults. They sometimes did this on an impromptu basis, and the way they got over the permission thing was to have parents sign a general permission at the start of the year. They also kept a supply of spare hats, scarves, mittens and boots taken from the school lost and found box in case someone came to school without the necessary cold weather items for the harsh winter weather and they were all going out for an unannounced walk, which they did with a rope to hold onto.

Lost this bit somehow:
They assigned about 6 children to each adult and took care not to assign children to their own parent.