To think the school can allow one week out of the timetable

[noplay]

Ds is year 9 at state secondary. The school is in an area with some difficult issues and works hard to give kids a decent education to try to break the cycle.
I appreciate all this very much but I think they are taking it too far.

Since ds started at the school he has not been on a single school trip or activity. Every June, once the exams are all over, pupils are told that they have now moved into the next year and will begin the new work accordingly. So e.g. at the end of year 7 they will start year 8 work and timetable and then carry on in September.

Ds's friend also yr 9 goes to a different state secondary, one of the 'top-performing' in the area. He has been on a number of trips throughout his time there. Additionally, at the end of June every year they hold an 'Enrichment Week' where pupils can choose from a range of activities from expensive residential trips to free in-house activities such as film-making/sports/music/drama etc etc

I have asked a few times at ds' school if they could also do an Enrichment Week and each time met with the response that there's not enough time in the curriculum to allow it. I think it is excessive not to allow the pupils one week away from the timetable - AIBU?

But yes, in house enrichment opportunities are completely different.

Not forgetting the Camp Everest Trip - this was apparently needed for CV enrichment for uni ..... he was 6 weeks too young for that >phew< (((Summer babies)))

Yes, noplay it is a valid reason not to have them, because if your teachers are busy organising trips they are not spending that time marking or planning or doing other things that might help improve the day to day education of the students.

I don't doubt things take a lot of organising but is that a valid reason not to have them?

yes, especially when the school knows that a lot of parents can't/aren't willing to pay for them. it might be an academy, but they're not there to give out free school trips to everyone, these things are expensive and take a lot of organisation, even if they happen in-house.

personally, i would rather my child studied in school and took trips at the weekend or during the holidays. i'm sure there are plenty of youth clubs or organisations that your DS could join which do trips.

We have an activities week in July. It is bloody hard work to organise, parents complain about it, money for trips doesn't come in and needs subbing from overstretched departmental budgets, and it bloody rains during the 5 mile walk every sodding year. I'd rather be planning and teaching a full week.

The kids do enjoy it, which is why we flog ourselves to put it on every year. Organising enrichment activities for 2000 pupils is a nightmare, just having enough room for the coaches on the road outside school takes military precision. When you take a trip out you get no breaks at all - just going to the loo involves complicated rotas.

I would question the quality of the teaching if a school felt they couldn't slot in a couple of days per year group for enrichment activities or trips.

I was a bit meh when ds1's trip last year was to the Peak District (we are right on the doorstep and go all the time) but for quite a lot of his class it was a huge deal and afterwards, I felt really ashamed of my previous attitude. They prepared for the trip in class by learning about the history and geography of the place they were going, and afterwards used the trip as a springboard for activities in science, creative writing and art.

DS1's school has a very mixed catchment and school trips are wholly funded by the school, so each year group only gets one per year (excluding residentials for which each child has to pay or not go). The school do a lot of school based enrichment activities though - visiting authors, science week, in house theatre companies. I think the more difficult the background of the children the more important these are, and believe it enhances 'traditional' learning, not detracts from it.

Actually that's another good point i'd forgotten Barbarian - we live in Devon, very close to Dartmoor and the Coast. I have gone there a lot with ds but I wouldn't mind betting a lot of the kids at his school have never been there, even for just

I teach in a very high achieving comprehensive in a wealthy area. We would never have an enrichment week, there is just too much work to be done. We have had a day here and there, but never a whole week.

Neither management or the parents would support it.

*even for a just a couple of hours.

noplay my department used to organise a trip for a whole year group to go bowling, just for an afternoon (with educational purposes). It was a 20 minute coach drive. Probably even more straight forward than your trip to the coast.

Fucking nightmare to organise. An afternoon off timetable and the teachers of the lessons they would be missing were not happy. SLT were not happy as they had to arrange cover for the teachers that were going on the trip. Getting the money in was a pain. Some kids didn't get permission and so arrangements had to be made for them to stay behind.
And there was always one sodding kid who forgot his inhaler and had to be booted off the bus.

We don't run it any more.

Also with academies, just because they have wealthy sponsors, it doesn't mean that they are wanting to dish out money left, right and centre. They will want to know how the trip will help educate the students.

Even a simple trip to the coast is a night mare to organise, and still requires a risk assessment, insurance, travel, etc.

The free in house stuff still comes with cost.

If you think it is easy to organise, contact the school and tell them that you are willing to organise everything. You will even convince parents and sponsors that not only is it all a good idea, but they will cough up money and time to help you organise it.

How is the school performing. If it's just coasting along, sponsors and the school will be less eager to do off timetable things because sponsors want to see results, and they will see it as a waste to spend on off time table things.

The school is performing well on the whole. League-table wise they are above the middle. They have boosted their results by putting pupils in early for exams, starting in yr 9. That's another reason I feel they deserve a break by the time the exams are over and could do with something outside the day-to-day grind.

our school moves up a year in june so dd will go from 4th to 5th year before she breaks up for summer, I am really on the fence about trips tbh our school runs loads DD could have been on 5 this school year alone 5! it is far too much imo she is going on 1 trip for 5 days that is enough she is there to be educated not go on holidays and nice trips

but to have nothing I think is strange they usually run 'something' our school does a motivational thing it is a trip to a theme park it is free to pupils they could even run something like that for your school OP

YABU.

Enrichment week, what a load of tosh. It means getting a week out of uniform, doing stupid group activities and generally skiving about getting into trouble.

Work experience, now that's something worthwhile.

I once took some kids to a call Center they loved it, parents fed back v positively. I wavvteaching in quite a deprived area. I think it's horses for course re type of kids and area.

I can't tell you how much time it takes to organise a trip, even a half day trip for 30 kids is a few hours if running about re paperwork, some staff just won't do it, notably so she they brought in risk assessment a few years back, staff and schools can open themselves up to all sorts of associated problems.

As for a whole week, just planning the timetable for even one year group to be off usual lessons, organise staff cover, and correct number ratios for visits which are. Higher even for sixth form is a whole chunk of extra work.

It's sad but a fact that a lot of teacher when under pressure to mark books with detailed feedback, do pastoral paperwork, and plan lesson on paper this way that way they've been teaching for ten years anyway do not want to plan trips out. They just don't.

I speak as an advocate of trips.

At primary, DDs school normally has 2 or 3 trips per year, contributions were always voluntary, but most parents contributed; however I know of a few parents who didn't pay but could have afforded to, one didn't pay because it was always an argument between divorced parents as to who should pay, but their kids were allowed to go anyway. This seemed so unfair to the parents who do pay! . The school pays for trips for children who receive free school meals etc which seems fair.

However a friend in a neighboring school had their DDs school trip cancelled and no further organised as there were "insufficient contributions".
On balance, I think my DD got a better deal, even if the school/other parents had to subsidise the few who didn't pay.

Don't they have lunchtime and afterschool clubs for drama/photography/sport etc ?
I would imagine lots of parents would just book a weeks family holiday in enrichment week. I certainly would

I'm wondering if poppypebble teaches at my DCs school as they have a five mile walk on the last day of enrichment week each year.

They reduced the choice of ours quie a bit last year and ranges from completely free in-house stuff (drama, musical theatre, film-making, mural painting round school, cake decorating, science workshops, chess club, pe lucky dip) to trips out. Plus there are some out on residentials.

But again, it is a high achieving school.

Wouldn't this have been something you could have checked out when you picked the school? Or did you not really have a choice to send him there?

I don't know. I tend to have an old fashioned attitude and think that the school tends to make these decisions for the good of all it's pupils and to trust the school and support it's decisions.

Of course they can and they should, all the more so for DCs who's parents don't provide 'fun'.

DCs have to go to school, trips and a bit of interesting enrichment acknowledges and respects this fact.

Trouble is the children who most need this respect are the ones who's parents can't afford it and the most likely to misbehave.

Thus unto nice middle class pupils shall be given trips to the castle that they've been to with their parents already and to the WC pupils another day in a stuffy class room in the June sunshine.

Holly-Like the way you just go for pure boast, fuck stealth! [hmmm]

Holly-Like the way you just go for pure boast, fuck stealth!

I am a secondary school teacher and I am on the fence with this one. I do agree that dc in deprived areas need this sort of stuff more than those in affulent areas, who are likely to get all manner of experiences with their families. Also, I do believe experiences are different when they with families, and being with peers/teachers can bring a new dimension. When I was young, I was really reluctant to try anything physical and with my family would mooch aroud with my head in a book, grunting at people . However, I remember one field trip to North Wales where I was persuaded to take part in all manner of climbing, caving-type things, due to good old peer-pressure!

I know what a total pita this sort of stuff is to organise, though, and that is partly the reason we don't do it. Expectations are so high these days that few teachers have the time or energy to dream up and organise something worthwhile that will also be fun. Moreover, expectations that pupils have are pretty high too. We have had experiences where something 'fun' has been planned and pupils have been a bit 'meh'. That puts you off from ever bothering again (I teach in a deprived area, though our intake is more mixed now after a good OFSTED a couple of years ago.)

However, I absolutely hate the starting of the 'next' year during the summer term. It just feels like we are on a treadmill and, ime, it does not stop most of the faffing that happens in September - it just moves it to June/July (when we are too tired to deal with it effectively)- as pupils 'forget' their new timetable over the summer, and if there are staff leaving it becomes even more of a nightmare. There is nothing worse than coming back in September and, instead of starting something fresh and new, having to chase up stuff done weeks ago, finish bits offetc Hate it, hate it, hate it! We're not doing it this year . I just don't get the idea that nothing worthwhile can be done unless they go up a year.

Rant over - sorry, went slightly off topic!