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

This reminded me of a little trip out my son's class went on in year 5. Just the class teacher, with his shotgun, into the woods to identify plants...or something. Trip was cut short due to the suspected bear rustling in the bushes. Pretty sure there was no risk assessment knocked up for that little outing.

Just in cover costs - the reason they are so high is that it’s all been outsourced to private companies instead of LEAs having lists and directly employing supply. A supply teacher would - at best - get half of that £250 (in Wales it’s a legal requirement they get M1 pay, even if they have years and years of experience).

I'm a teacher and I don't mind the paperwork so much but it's so hard to find enough adults. I teach KS1 and we need 1 adult to every 6 children and I have a child who needs a 1:1 (and to be honest can't be trusted to stay safe even with a 1:1 - we cannot exclude her from any trips so it's easier not to go). We have no spare adults in the school who could come as there are so few TAs now compared to in the past. I would need at least 4 parent volunteers. Almost all parents work now or have younger children at home. They might be able to take time off for one trip a year but not for multiple trips.

@Sherrystrull - for KS1, 17 pupils, 1 teacher & 2 TAs; for KS2, 29 pupils, 1 teacher, 1 TA & usually additional school staff (Head, Secretary, etc) if needed.
When it's a whole school trip all staff go.

That's a very generous amount of staff. Ks1 wouldn't need to borrow any extra staff for a 1:6 ratio.

I have 1:31 on my own with a shared TA with the other class of 31. It's a very different situation.

@Sherrystrull yes we're very lucky to have such a high staff/pupil ratio - one advantage of such a small school. Plus we only need one coach for whole school trips which keeps costs down. The most we as parents have had to pay is £10 for any trip bar residentials.

Too many health and safety issues, too few staff/parent volunteers to help supervise, too much at risk if a child gets injured.

I was really fortunate with my kids primary school that they did a lot of little trips, but now that TA staffing has been cut, I don’t know if it’s still the case.

Also, it can be a lot of stress for the teachers - on one trip (a local walk), one boy just decided to do a runner and the poor teacher had to run after him. So if you have any kids in the class who are a ‘flight-risk’ it really limits what you can do.

Then some parents don’t want their children doing certain types of trips so that adds to the complexity as then school have to make alternative arrangements for those kids.

At my DDs secondary school there have been very few trips which is a shame, but then looking at how much the parents complain about everything, I am not surprised!

It was a source of sibling jealousy in my house that the eldest sibling had hardly any school trips and the younger sibling was out multiple times a week. Eldest at a mainstream school so all the issues of staffing levels and funding. Youngest at a special school with the staffing levels to match, none of the curriculum restraints and a positive push to try and ensure children got to practice social skills out in the community. Also the necessary insurance and permission to use cars and several minibuses of their own.