DD banned from NYC trip

[Chickenwinger]

Morning

DF (15) has been a pain at school recently I don’t dispute this. Last summer she went to France with the school and had a fallout with some friends. She responded by not following staff instructions:m/ being rude and the teachers had to call me.

there’s NYC trip later this year that she had signed up for. The Headteacher said he’d allow her to still go if she demonstrates positive behaviour between now and then.

last week she attended a day trip- a geography field trip. She had an another argument and basically walked off in the middle of the city as she sas upset. Staff located her promptly and it was clear that she’d been provoked by the other girl.

yesterday I received a call from the deputy head to tell me that her place on the New York trip has been cancelled. Apparently they aren’t confident that she’ll behave and staff aren’t willing to be responsible. They’ve refunded me way I’ve paid so far.

ste’s devastated and has cried all night. I can’t help but feel the school have been heavy handed. DH disagrees and thinks it serves her right!!

do I need to pursue this with the school as a complaint?

do I need to pursue this with the school as a complaint?

No. Your DD has had clear guidelines for behaviour and she's flouted them, putting herself in danger & placing her teachers in an almost impossible position. How would you be responding if your DD flouncing off had got into further trouble in an unfamiliar place - you'd be blaming her teachers then, I suppose?

What you need to do @Chickenwinger is to talk to your DD about productive ways to respond when she is "provoked" by other pupils (although reading between the lines, I doubt she's been completely innocent in these exchanges).

Rehearse with her what she should do if she finfs her peers annoying. What she shouldn't do is flounce off. Do you want her behaving in NYC like that?

Step up and parent her. And part of that is her learning there are consequences to her behaviour. 15 isn't too young to learn that lesson.

But goodness me, no wonder teachers don't undertake trips with pupils so much these days ...

I think it’s unreasonable to expect teachers/staff to be responsible for your daughter knowing she is likely to run off in a huge city or cause trouble for staff and students? Why should everyone else have to put up with her behaviour? She could possibly ruin the trip for others. She’s had plenty of catches to prove that she’s responsible enough to go, yet she has failed to do so.

I think this is a great chance to teach her that there are consequences to bad behaviour.

I wouldn’t be asking school to reconsider.

It doesn't sound like a punishment, OP, though obviously it has that effect. It sounds like a safeguarding issue for the school. If they took her to NYC with a history of absconding on trips out and she got lost or hurt, they would be liable and part of that would be the decision to let her go in the first place knowing her history.

Even if the school hadn't stopped her going on the NY trip I'm intrigued about the mindset of a parent who would still let her after the pattern of behaviour she's demonstrated. I would have thought most parents would have decided to revoke permission for her to go in the trip before the school said they wouldn't allow it.

Interesting that the OP hasn't responded ...

Purely anecdotal, but my parents on a trip away after I'd left home, my DH before I met him, and I all had three separate experiences of absolutely abysmal behaviour from French teenagers let loose while their teachers presumably smoked and drank in the pub. We'd never seen anything like it, certainly not anywhere in the UK. It was genuinely shocking.

devastated and has cried all night. I can’t help but feel the school have been heavy handed. DH disagrees and thinks it serves her right!!

I'm with your DH - would you really want her on another continent not follwoing instructions from adults there to keep her safe?

As upsetting as it is for her - I'd focus on her actions having consquences.

You can't relaly blame the staff not wanting to be repsonsible for a child who doesn't listen and marches off and does her own thing. It's just not safe for her and it's not fair on the staff and other kids.

Time to learn how behaviour makes other people feel.

School are right. She has shown that she can’t regulate and as a result outs herself at risk by storming off and used staff resources and time trying to sort the situation when they are needed to manage the other students.
gently, do you know what’s behind this lack of ability to regulate?

But she's not just innocently and happily "wandering off". She has full scale tantrums where she fights with other pupils and runs off in a temper. I too went on 80s school "activities week" type of events, no phones, nothing, and we knew damn well not to put so much as a finger out of line.

As a matter of fact, we did have a week trip to Yorkshire, 1988, and our friend Helen did innocently get lost, and she was in enough trouble for that, alone. And that was without the intent of op's daughter who has a history of deliberately running away.

The school are fight. It’s for her own safety.

There's a lot of focus in many of the posts on your DD's 'bad behaviour', but as some posters have said, this comes down to safeguarding rather than bad behaviour per se.

The same decision is regularly made by schools for children who, because of their SEN and not intentional bad behaviour, have a history of wandering off, especially when in 'fight or flight' mode. That is, unless a 1:1 could be provided but although that should definitely be considered, it isn't often feasible.

Times have changed!

Over 25 years ago we and the other set of parents allowed our 13 year old dds to go on a day trip to Calais on their own - trains from outer to central London, to Dover and the ferry - and back again.

I won’t pretend I didn’t agonise over allowing it, or that I wasn’t having kittens until they were safely back, but absolutely NO WAY would I ever allow it now - Calais is a much less safe place than it was. And sadly too much of the world could say the same.

As for it being OK if the girl had her phone with her, what planet is that pp on? Do phones not get snatched in NYC??

And their first ever post. 🤔

Did she wander away from her classmate group? I did residential weeks like this in '80 and '81 when i was ten and eleven, and that would have been an absolute no-no!

Natural consequences you can’t say the school didn’t warn you and set expectations. Clearly nothing has happened in between to help your daughter grow up and manage conflicts without stropping off like a toddler.

I don’t think a complaint will get you anywhere. all that would happen is staff would refuse to go on the trip because they can’t be forced to be responsible for your DD’s behaviour.

Hopefully a life lesson in fuck around and find out

Wouldnt be taking a child ( any relative actually) to USA at this time anyway ...but to go with an erratic teenager would be asking for trouble. Keep her at home, actions have consequences lesson.

That sounds like a totally different scenario though - that you and another set of parents decided between you what your teens could do.
I don't think a school would ever have been OK with a pupil being a "flight risk" and taking off in the middle of a school trip!

Under this particular username. Quite conceivable that the OP has posted before under a different name but chose a new one for this for privacy reasons, no?

If you want your daughter to grow into a respectful and reasonable adult then the only response you can make is 'well dd you fucked about and found out' The school were very reasonable given her shocking and dangerous behaviour on previous trips and explicitally clear about the consequences of repeated behaviour. She needs to accept that and you need to back the school up 100%

Safeguarding protocols have moved on. A mobile phone tracker does not come close to being ‘safe’ 10 years ago I might have considered allowing my students (A level so 16+) a bit of freedom as you describe. But really, it’s not safe and those are other people’s kids!!! If one wanders off the teacher is in an impossible situation and we’re talking career ending stuff if the worst happens.

I absolutely agree with the school. You need a certain level of maturity / common sense and she’s not reached that point (hopefully she will in the future). Please don’t let her think that the other girl provoking her in any way justifies doing a disappearing act. She needs to learn how to handle situations like this in a more appropriate way and I’d focus on that, with a view to her being able to go on future trips if she proves herself trustworthy.

I am with your husband and the school.

Has anyone worked with your DD on her behaviour? Sounds like she would benefit some therapy and impulsive behaviour/anger management.

23 pages of fairly universal agreement that NO school isn’t being heavy handed and NO you should not be complaining.
I think you and your daughter both need to be having a good hard look at yourselves here and appreciate the entitlement you think you are owed.
No one wants to be responsible for your daughter who has constantly shown she can’t be trusted. Bit of a life lesson there she should of been taught by YOU when she was about 5 years old!

I mean, really?

Think what could happen if it was the middle of NYC, and not a geography field trip, where your DD tried on this kind of malarkey.
There will be risk assessments that the school has to draw up for all of these trips, and they have presumably deemed her too big a risk to accept, based on her performance in other locations. It sounds as if they do quite a lot off site, so they have a fair bit of experience. That's their decision.