DD school trip in 2 hours. Woke up to a lot of ranty msgs from another parent

[BackwardsGoing]

Who has just twigged that the kids are not allowed phones for their 2 nights 3 days away.

School has communicated this in emails, letters and F2F meetings for most of the year.

Ranty parent (RP) wants all parents to stand in solidarity against the no phone rule. This morning. While the kids are getting on the coach!

AIBU to say this is (a) bonkers (b) far too late and (c) bonkers.

BTW children are year 6 / 10-11 yo and the school has promised regular updates via Facebook.

My thoughts exactly @MyOtherProfile. Being ‘bored’ and making up your own games and singing are part of the fun!

I work in a school. It's pretty standard that children are not allowed phones on trips/residential visits for safeguarding reasons. I understand that parents like to hear from their children but it's part of the whole residential trip thing that children are away from home for the duration. They'll be having too much fun to want to phone home!

I went on a residential in yr 6 to Wales. Would of been about 1996. They had a phone cascade to relay a message that we got there ok. We sent a post card whilst there and that's the only communication our parents had with us. We were fine.

Why cant the children be given an allocated time to contact their parents? A lot can happen in 2-3 days and tbf the world has changed a lot since we went to school. I would be anxious if I couldn't at least speak to my child to see how they are, not because I am bonkers but because I give a shit and generally do not trust anyone but myself and their father 100% with their care. Each to their own neurosis though.

How many year 6 kids even have phones? Bonkers, ignore. Hope she has a nice time.

I would be anxious if I couldn't at least speak to my child to see how they are, not because I am bonkers but because I give a shit and generally do not trust anyone but myself and their father 100% with their care. Each to their own neurosis though.

But that is bonkers, even if you say it isn't.

How can you send them to school every day if you don't trust they are taken care of? If something happens, the adults will surely let you know.

So if 50 out of sixty kids go . standard 2 form entry school.

And each child was allocated just a five min slot to call home that's still over 4 hours.

If you dont trust them to look after your kids dont send them.

I would be anxious if I couldn't at least speak to my child to see how they are, not because I am bonkers but because I give a shit and generally do not trust anyone but myself and their father 100% with their care. Each to their own neurosis though.

It is voluntary to send them on these trips thoug. However I would strongly advice that if you have that level of neurosis/distrust it will benefit them greatly to go away for once.

Wow if you don't trust anyone else with your kids perhaps you had better keep them home. HE and don't let them go to anyone else's house.

It's really important to let them go bit by bit and build their independence. Otherwise how will they cope with anything when they're older? They don't suddenly hit 18 and become able to go off to University or whatever without step by step building their independence skills through school trips, residentials, camps etc.

How did parents deal with school trips back in the day before phones ruined our lives?

How did parents deal with school trips back in the day before phones ruined our lives?

EVERY residential I went on from age 9 to 16, we were encouraged to bring money to use the pay phone.

I actually had more contact with my parents during a residential, than DD does now.

That's such a ridiculous thing to keep saying. What we did in the olden days is of no relevance now. Do you still run your washing through a mangle? Scrub it on a washboard? Do you send your kids down the mines? Of course not. And if someone took your asking machine away and you had to do all your washing by hand then you'd undoubtedly be a bit pissed off.

I'm a child of the 70s. We didn't have mobiles and we never came to any harm. My DD1 is on a residential now without her phone. I wouldn't dream of sending her with it, it's against the rules and I think it's good for them to be away from screens for a week. Doesn't stop me worrying about her or wishing I could text her. But please stop trotting out the olden days arguments, the world has moved on and the way we all think and live has moved on.

*washing machine

I remember using my last 50p to call my mum from a service station and she didn't pick it up in time, so I lost the 50p as the call was connected to the answer machine 😭 turns out my mum broke a toe trying to dive to the phone before missing it. Dangerous times ha.

And yes, my 10 day trip to Wales in the dark ages had a pay phone, and we were told to bring 20p coins especially for it.

That's such a ridiculous thing to keep saying. What we did in the olden days is of no relevance now.

Of course it's relevant. Looking back makes it quite obvious that things like mobile phones have given us many advantages but also made us unhelpfully dependent. Looking back and realising that children were happily sent on residential trips without a phone 20 years ago reminds us that there is no reason not to now. Forgetting how we used to do things is a pretty stupid idea - who knows when we might have occasions when we need to cope without our gadgets.

Spoke to a friend last night.
Friend - Lucy is on a school trip this week.
Me - Lovely, where has she gone?
Friend - No idea, she's with the school though.

My child has just been on a school trip. They are secondary kids and were allowed to take phones. I really wish they hadn’t been. Few days in I get several late night missed calls from my daughter and so does my husband. I have no reception (rural) so run out of the village up a hill to try and ring her back. No answer. This continues on for a while and i start to worry that something serious has happened as the calls are frequent and it’s late. Finally ring her from our landline at great expensive and turns out her room mate has lost her hair straighteners and they can’t find them. 😳 Not sure what I was supposed to do about it from 979 miles away. Once they were all home it turns out the room mate didn’t even pack any hair straighteners in the first place. 😂

I would be so anxious if my child was going on a Y6 residential where phones were allowed.

That phone is unlikely to be called to use for any kind of emergency.

But what will definitely happen is: phones used to take videos/photographs of other kids which may then be used to bully or taunt; phones used to take photos/videos of teachers to make fun of them; phones used to show other kids inappropriate material eg pornography or horror clips; expensive phones are lost or broken leading to a heartbroken child; phones used excessively so that kids don’t sleep or aren’t paying attention to the activities.

It will do them so much good to be without phones. Taking phones on the trip is pretty much guaranteed to cause harm of some kind.

And as for the utter dickheaded stupidity of some idiot poster complaining that the teachers don’t have to abide by the same rules as the children - honestly, what is wrong with some people? How can you lack the ability to think to such an extent????

Well pretty unanimous that phones and school trips don't mix. We had a couple of days away and ended up in a complete mobile signal blackspot so even if DD did have a phone she wouldn't have been able to reach us

Off to collect DD in an hour, looking forward to hearing how it all went and how PLB got on without a phone

Hope she's had a good time!

But we can't go back to it lazylinguist. We can sigh all misty eyed over the good old days but they're gone. Of course we can learn from them but taking the phone as an example, we're used to being able to contact people 24/7. If you rang your gran in 1970 and she didn't answer the phone, you had no clue whether she was shopping or lying at the bottom of the stairs but you shrugged and got on with it. Now we can track people and it makes (most of) us nervous if we can't. If my mum doesn't answer her mobile I start to panic slightly. That's just what we've become. Doesn't mean it's good but it's the way it's gone.

I've just returned from a residential with year 7 and 8 (am a teacher). We allowed phones (except overnight) and I bitterly regret it. Kids were messaging parents about every tiny thing, I had parents ringing me on the emergency number to complain about the position of child's bed (I kid you not), and every time they fell out (which tired and emotional 11 and 12 year olds will) the parents got involved. I had to speak to 6 different parents while away, none of whom had anything resembling an emergency to communicate, and all of which took my attention away from the children. the phones also intensified the homesickness massively for some. IF I can face doing the trip again (which I did unpaid and out of the kindness of my heart) I will be banning phones, and those who can't handle that don't have to come.

DD is back, very tired but had a great time.

Apparently a handful of girls smuggled phones with them, unbeknownst to their parents 🙄 but didn't use them to message, just for games etc.

Phones are a nightmare!

Glad she had a good time