Teachers, where have the little trips gone?

[missjeanbrodiee]

My DD is getting into teaching so can’t ask her yet. But when she was little (21) they had a lot of trips which were just a walk to the park to gosh, or catch tadpoles, or pick flowers.

Is it too much paperwork? higher levels of supervision needed? Too much on the curriculum so not enough downtime?

I’m interested

Curriculum time

Required supervision levels & levels of need / behavioural need make lots of trips really risky. Even when you have plenty of adults.

Time to organise when workload is already really high.

We do a few little trips to library etc but mainly it’s the time out of curriculum and lack of available additional adults. With the needs in my currently class I need trained adults rather than just parent volunteers to keep a lot of the dc safe.

DS started reception in September and has already been on a number of little trips like this. They're also going to see a pantomime in a couple of weeks and a visit to a local nature reserve. I imagine it makes a difference that it's a private school, but I find that very sad.

My kids got a little seasonal walk to the local park and woodland area and and 1 big trip a term in infants. Juniours had day trips but was more focussed on residentials with 1 per year group gradually getting longer. Change in head means they've cut 2 year groups, so tbh i think it's all about the priorities of the head, the depth of pockets of the parents and therefore the pta who subsidise trips.

Not if you attend a private school.

I'm 36 now, I remember when I was 11 my class teacher owned a small pub down the road, he used to walk us down there every couple months and give everyone a free bag of crisps and a glass of lucozade and we'd hang out on bar stools or in the pub booths feeling cool while he was busy catching up on paperwork or getting the place ready for his evening opening or whatever! It was in no way educational but we thought it was the best ever.

My kids big london primary does lots of these local trips - 4 local trips and 2 tube journeys in y1 for instance.

They still happen in a lot of schools. During covid all of this was stopped, so I guess some schools never picked it back up, or massively reduced it and it might also depend on the area. Schools around here are back to normal with trips to the park,the woods, the local shops, the local area , to post a letter etc. Part of the issue might also be that normally they would be linked in some way to the curriculum/their learning and there have been several changes on that in the past years too.

My 5yo does more than I did. They do six weeks of shared education (NI) forest school with another local school, each school taking it in turns to host. They get two parent helpers for the walk.

That hasn't started yet this year but they've had a day out to forest school, a pizza making trip and a walk to the local park. Shared education will be after Christmas I think, and there will be a couple of other little bits.

All we did was go back and forth to the local church!

My dc are now in their 20s but they attended a local village primary and had lots of trips out. We were fortunate that there was an Arts Centre in the village and they did lots of stuff with that, also there was a nature reserve they went to.

I always appreciated the effort the staff went to. My Mum has a primary HT and I know the paperwork involved back then, and can only imagine its far worse now.

Yes, another problem is cost. We had to cancel our adventure day trip a couple of years ago as three parents (one with twins) didn't pay and the school just could not cover it. It's the bus that costs the most for the day trips,

Paperwork

DS is in reception, they've been to the beach so far this year (walkable) and there's a post box letter to Santa walk in a couple of weeks. Older years have been on a few local trips, harvest festival to a local OAP accommodation, an outward bound type thing, juniors are taking part in a young choirs thing at the local theatre. They also have outdoor learning for a whole day once a fortnight. It's a big school (4 form entry) in a fairly urban area, not a little village primary, so there are still schools that do it.

My kids' school has 2 teachers to 60 kids and no TA, in some years it's two teachers to 64 kids.

I do think there's economy of scale, 120 kids per year, if a few don't pay you can probably still run the trip, having said that there's been no charge for reception yet other than £1 voluntary donation for children in need non uniform and a couple of tins for harvest festival. Parent volunteers for the post box walk. There are also two full time TAs (one with SEN specialism) and a teacher for each class of 30

Not even staff

Yep.
It's incredibly tiring not having an extra pair of hands.

I take my hat off to anyone that teaches nowadays. I really don't know how you put up with everything that is demanded of you.

My school does take Yr5 to London for the day (from Yorkshire!!). I really admire the staff for that one. They leave at 7.30, get back at 9.30. I'm guessing they aren't paid any extra for it, but put in a lot of extra effort to make it happen, including a special fundraising event to make it more affordable

It might disappear soon due to transport costs. Its £50 a head, got down to £35 a head. The PTA pays for a few children who really couldn't afford it, but others struggle.

I'd just like to say thank you.

I don't have children in your school or elsewhere but people like you and your colleagues are nut just teaching you are bringing up the next generation.

They do a lot of trips in my DC’s state primary. But there are always lots of keen parent volunteers to provide extra help when it’s asked for.

When I was in year 3, (1980s) it was a lovely sunny day and the teacher announced first thing that it was a pity to be indoors and we were going out, so get your pack lunch if you had one. He'd bought a basic loaf of bread with him for anyone else.

We wandered round in the country all day with him showing us different nature thing. I remember us all one by one climbing up to look in a bird's nest, and his showing us the difference between stinging nettles and dead nettles, and why one stang and the other didn't and other things. We shared our pack lunches at lunch time, and arrived back half an hour late at the end of the day having walked round all day with one teacher to 30 children. We'd all had a great day. Parents weren't aware until the end of the day.

When dd1 was little, when in reception, (early 2000s)if they'd been good, the teacher with the TA used to walk them round to the enclosed playground next door to the school and let them play for half an hour at the end of the day. We had to sign a form at the start of the year giving permission for small trips like that.

7 years later with ds, they couldn't do this because they needed one adult per 4 children, and permission from parents.

I wonder which you would have preferred for you, and which you would prefer for your children.

It depends on the school, we still do this.

Paperwork and staffing, compensation culture means that schools have been sued repeatedly and now every foot outside the door has to be risk assessed with masses of power work which is kept for 25 years.

So that's off putting for a quick walk to the local park.

Plus if a parent does raise a complaint the first thing that is thrown under the bus is the teacher's career.

It’s so sad to read some of these. I feel very fortunate with my kids’ primary. ‘Enrichment’ is a huge part of the curriculum as is ‘Community’. They have a dedicated enrichment co-ordinator (HTLA) and the kids are taken out of school at lot - beach school, frequent park trips, theatre, museums, farms, libraries, churches, mosques, synagogues, residential care homes etc. It’s a large state primary in the NW with a mixed demographic skewed more to the deprived end of the scale.

Our school do these kinds of trips quite often, because they recognise that it's a massively underprivileged area and want to open opportunities to all children that their parents either couldn't afford or just wouldn't do. Museums, libraries, theatres, watching sports matches etc. are all regular occurrences, at least once per term, per year group. As they get older they start doing these further afield on day trips to large cities so it's not the local museum or library every term for 7 years.