Child left on coach on school trip!

[ButterflyBiscuit]

Has anyone else seen this?!

The poor child. (They went to a show in London, drove to hotel, child was left locked on coach alone overnight , not noticed til the next day)

Child must have been terrified. And to think they had no idea they were a child down. What if something worse had happened- or he was wandering in London. They wouldn't have known.

I'm truly shocked this could happen in these days and can't imagine how the school can run trips in future...

It is shocking and obviously their processes need reviewing. But I would say that the child was not harmed and that I am in awe
of teachers who give up their time to take children on trips - my DC have been able to go abroad for the first time ever this year because of teachers giving up their time so I’m very grateful to them. It sounds like a terrible mistake and hopefully not indicative of any wider problems at the school re their procedures.

I hope they fell asleep and just woke up in the morning to see people.

It would have been cold. My child would have been terrified if they woke up alone on a locked coach.

Agreed it's not just one teacher miscounting one time for the child to be missing all evening and into the morning it would have been all of the teachers and the coach staff who were negligent. One miscount is a mistake of being human but this is just way past the level of a simple error.

That kid must be a deep sleeper! 🙄

A sleeping child could not have been missed by both the bus driver and the multiple adults. At least one person from the school combs the bus row by row, and the drivers do too, mostly to check for mess!

A sleeping child would have been identified. Someone hiding deliberately with a pal answering the register and saying 'they're just in the toilet miss'... I know my theory.

I really cannot see how this could have happened if they were following their normal risk assessments / policies.

Even taking 10 Year 11s on a day trip we registered them in school, escorted out to the coach, head counted on the coach, head counted off the coach, head counted going in the venue, agreed a lunch time assembly point head counted again, when we left the venue, when we got on the coach, when we got off the coach, walked them back into school, final headcount then let the go.

It is just standard practice.

I found a pre-school child left behind at a local farm park a few years ago. The incompetent thickies running the nursery later claimed it was because she'd taken her hi-vis bib off. Nursery later closed.

It doesn't matter if it was 2 kids playing a joke though it doesn't make the staff less negligent. These things should be caught asap. If the child isn't physically seen the staff shouldn't just be moving on because someone else said they were there or in the toilet.

Even if the kid was hiding, a count off the coach, and a check that everyone was in their rooms should have taken place, so it's no excuse.

This is why I track my older kids that have phones, and air tag the smaller ones on trips, do not trust schools at all!

This is shockingly poor, I imagine they counted the children onto the bus and so just didn't think to count off the bus. But even so someone should be doing a quick check of the coach and checking them all into the hotel. As a teacher it's drilled into you to count, count, count. Wtf happened?

I'm a teacher, & have done any number of residentials over the years.

Yes, we'd count them off the coach, plus they're in groups with a teacher responsible for usually 10-15 kids. Nearer to 10, I'd've thought, with this age group.

They might then be spread over different floors of a hotel to sleep, & the groups supervised by each teacher might be different over night because of male/female rooms.

Eg: I am responsible for a 'day' group of 12 kids, probably selected based on friendship or behaviour or activity options.

I supervise them all day, & get those 12 safely on the coach after the last activity of the day, off it back at the hotel, & send them to their rooms.

I am then responsible for a different 'night' group of 16 girls (one member of staff gets a night off each evening). They are in four bedrooms - hopefully on the same floor & close to my room. I make sure they're all in their rooms & patrol until all is quiet.

You'd have to have more than one staff member being really slack to lose a kid overnight - even if it's a dare & their mates are in on it. Practically impossible if not.

So the 'day' teacher counting heads off the bus is told 'oh Joe's already run in, miss, he was desperate for a wee!' & doesn't follow up by checking the room, AND the 'night' teacher checking Joe's room is told 'he's in the shower, sir.'

Meanwhile, the coach driver hasn't checked the vehicle either...

It does sound like no one was checking the checks were done. But I'm still suspicious that it could happen without the other students noticing an empty bed.

Normally they love a midnight 'OMG sir miss sir Ellie's been kidnapped miss sir!' drama...(Ellie turns out to be in her mate's room because she desperately needed a loan of her straightners at 1am).

I've looked at the local Facebook (now morbid curiosity) and there's a mix of people trying tk avoid going to the school now, and people already there saying it's a good school!

Wow! I run a trip to France for 80 pupils every year and cannot imagine how this could happen! Each group leader (10 pupils) has overall responsibility for their pupils and checks they are all on the coach and then the coach leader (40 pupils) also then double checks. I do a register each time we leave somewhere as well as counting a few times. The kids call me Miss Countalot but I’m okay with that as we’ve never lost a kid! 😮

Having run language trips to Europe, I used to be sick of counting to 45 (and checking rooms to ensure no bed hopping!!). How no one noticed, the mind boggles.

I’m amazed no-one noticed at all. I’ve done bus checks on school trips (as volunteer) mainly to check no bags etc left but assume I would have noticed a child! Why didn’t room mates notice their mate was missing

I've done my share of trips, I really can't understand how this happened.

DH is a teacher and just laughed.

As in laughed at the incredulousness of it, not that he thought it was funny it happened!

Good grief this is bad.

Fucking hell.

This would be my worst nightmare. As a mother of a child who is primary age who goes on school trips; I am “ that mother “.

This is scary shit what happened here.

There was a nursery in our old village where they took the children out for the day for a trip and left a 2 year old locked in the nursery alone all day!

Needless to say, they ceased operations shortly thereafter. Well, actually Ofsted shut them down for staff training and a review of record keeping practices and then they were allowed to re-open a few months later, and at a surprise inspection, they still weren’t keeping a register of who was attending each day (which is why they forgot the child to begin with), so then they were promptly shut for good.

While I can see having a child missing as you get off the coach I don’t see how they were missed checking into the hotel.

Surely the rooms will have been allocated already, so it would be Billy, Elliot, Oscar and Jack in room one etc. How did someone not notice that there was a space? And how come no other child said that their friend or roommate was missing.

And why was the parent happy for the kid to continue on the trip.

I see on Facebook they've posted all about the trip with photos each day etc.

I find it odd any parent would allow their child to continue on the trip to be honest if they found out the staff running it had not been aware of the child's location and the fact they were effectively missing for many hours!

I mean honestly surely the trust has gone at that point no matter how apparently bemused the child was or how much they wanted to continue.

Someone I know got left on Mont St Michel on a school trip. They had to wait for low tide to get back over the causeway