Is this usual for a secondary school outing?

[Janesput]

Walking back from the pool today, pupils from the local secondary were walking there. Probably 30 of them with one adult.

Perfectly well behaved and it's a very short walk, less than half a mile, the the teacher was leading them and wouldn't have known what was going on at the back.

By that age is it assumed they don't need much supervision for a walk in the local vicinity?

I know the children are perfectly capable of walking to the pool unsupervised, but I was surprised at a school taking the "risk" when they have responsibility.

I've no idea what age. They were secondary age and looked like children rather than young adults.

Secondary school pupils travel to and from school unsupervised.

Are schools expected to fund an extra member of staff to walk to a swimming lesson less than half a mile away?

You must have some clue as to whether they were 11 or 17?

Secondary school pupils travel to and from school unsupervised.

Yes, but my point is, during the period in question the school are responsible for supervising them and I was surprised to see no back marker.

I haven't once said they "should" do anything.

Well yes, I thought I'd covered that will looked like children....

My secondary school used to run round a local reservoir for PE in the summer time. 60 kids 2 teachers spread across a 3 mile route by ability to run (spoiler alert i was near the back!)

Secondary school children are likely to get to and from school indepently by bus or walking.. I cant see what is surprising about a group out with one teacher..

God, the secondary school age kids in my town travel between school sites (3km) and bike 7km to the next town for certain PE lessons (athletics track is there) completely unsupervised (PE teacher drives there). For PE if they don't want to do the planned activity (this annoys me a bit, they shouldn't be able to just not take part in the sport or whatever) the teacher just sends them off on a walk or a bike ride, again no supervision (but they have to have a sports tracker with GPS on their phone so the teacher can check they actually went the route they were supposed to go, usually 5k around various landmarks)

Even primary school children get sent off to do cross country running or skiing without a teacher with them the whole time

There would be no repercussions for the school if one of the wandered off. By secondary age , unless SEN, they wuld be viewed as having chosen to absent themselves. Schools aren't prisons.

At secondary age the students are responsible for getting themselves to h the r next lesson.

most secondaries put in a lot of support in the first few days - teachers check the class knows where their next lesson is, they generally move as a class rather than as individuals, the tutor will go through the lessons of the day each morning and get them to talk through the routes, they’ll be given a map of the school, they’ll be told to ask if they are lost etc.

there is absolutely no come back on the teacher if a child does not make it to the next lesson. The register is taken electronically so office and pastoral staff know someone is missing.

in the first week it’s normal for several year 7s to get lost so pastoral staff and SLT will be out each changeover.

after that it’s unusual and if a child who has been previously marked in school is not there then pastoral staff will put a boat into your room to check they actually are missing and then go hunting for them.

Exactly.

The pupil would be roundly told off and punished for just buggering off.

And rightly so.

I wouldn't blink an eye at that but then a local secondary schools has a split campus and pupils walk between the two parts of the campus between lessons on the public road unsupervised from year 7.

I think it's also quite common for playing fields to be away from the main school campus and pupils have to walk there - although they are generally supervised in this case.

Boat? Nose!

I'm guessing a Nordic country or Switzerland right?

In Switzerland they walk to school without parents from the age of 4.

my friend was terrified of this but her Swiss friends told her she was being English and over protective and her kids were fine.

I don't t know why you're getting a hard time OP. All the schools round here have been fenced in suddenly, in the last 3 years or so, so children can now no longer wander off site during the school day. In practice they'd been able to do so for decades before.

Our Y7s go to a theme park every year. They are let off in groups and told to check in a few hours later. The line with no back marker seems proportionate to this, though I've not seen many trips run with just one staff member. Sports fixtures are the only ones that spring to mind, and then they are going in a minibus and normally will have staff from the other team there for the match.

We used to make our own way to the pool when I was in high school. This was early 70s though, when secondary school kids were trusted to be able to walk half a mile without a chaperone. Our teachers drove there and met us 😂

Yup, Finland.

I see yr 6 Junior school children walking to swimming lessons. There are several staff members accompanying them , front , middle and back.
The Secondary school DS attends stopped doing cross country running in the fields and housing estate during PE lessons as too many absconded. Lots went home as probably ran past their own homes.

But your point isn't relevant to the point people keep making - that kids this age are able to get themselves around without supervision. Just because someone is legally responsible doesn't render the kids incapable of getting themselves around and doesn't mean the school has to paranoiacally overstaff a local walk.

You might worry yourself to the extent that you need an extra person at the back to stop your adult walkers wandering off, but schools will have risk assessed and decided that it's better to credit the kids with some nous and teach them to take responsibility for themselves at that age. If it's an SEN school with more helpers, then fair enough, but the average class of secondary school kids will be just fine.

Actually I'd just remembered.

My local secondary school has an upper site and a lower site.

Kids regularly walk the 15 minutes between the two for various lessons, and this involves crossing a major junction with 2 sets of traffic lights.

There is no adult supervision and considering most of the kids have managed to get themselves to school in the first place, it's unnecessary.

I used to accompany a group of mixed aged secondary students in the summer to the local cinema. Ratios for local trips are 1:30 at secondary school. Registers are called at either end. They are expected not to wander off.

ETA usually a minimum of 2 teachers, though.

We used to walk to our local swimming pool for lessons when we were at secondary school. We were expected to walk there during break time to arrive in time for normal lesson start and it was lunchtime when we got back. As far as I remember the teacher didn't escort us, they may have even driven down. It was about a 15 min walk.

I've got a child in secondary school. If they took off on a school trip I would see it as my child being at fault, not the school. Unless there's a disability, in which case the child should have an individual risk assessment, eyes aren't needed on secondary school children at all times.

Walking to the pool or to the hockey pitch or similar won’t be seen as a “school trip” it’ll just be seen as walking to the pool.

so a school trip has it’s own risk assessments and ratios etc. if it’s a normal part of the school day and students do the walk once a week or more often then the risk assessments will reflect that.

We had tennis at a local indoor club during the winter term( we had our own courts but outdoors and not for winter use!) Half a dozen of us would walk the 30 minutes to the club and back on our own. My son chose squash as a sports option as the courts were a 20 minute walk from school but near home and he could go home straight after! No supervision by any one!