Teacher's family accompanying school trip

[Trifle]

DS1 (age 13) went on a school trip today to the zoo. One of the 6 teachers accompanying the 104 children on the trip took his wife and two young children.

Does anyone know what the legal ratio of teachers to children is for this age?

I think it is highly unprofessional to do this as the teacher spent the majority of time with his family and not supervising the children.

If the ratio is 1:17 then he should have been acting as a teacher first and foremost. If it is 1:20 then, fine, but really, a day off at the zoo just because a school trip happens to be going somewhere fun for his kids.

I'm pretty peeved at this as I had to pay for the trip and wonder if I am paying for his family too.

What would you do ?

[iklboo]

Wife might also work?!

[gobbynorthernbird]

littlemiss my OH works away lots and there is always the option for the family to join him. We'd have to pay for ourselves, and amuse ourselves while he was in meetings, but there's nothing to stop us going. In fact, the company encourage it. The fact that I can't spend a week in California, Singapore, wherever because of my job is not the company's problem.
Unless your OH is doing a tour of Afghanistan, you could easily join him if you wanted.

[BonaDea]

Yanbu.

Once again, a prime example of teachers taking the utter piss in a way no other professional would ever dream of. Entitled entitled entitled.

(Am donning flame retardant pants)

[vj32]

As others have said - if you don't like it, complain to the head, after all, in a private school you are paying for it! However, if they do bring in new policies etc, expect there to be less trips.

[SilverApples]

Well, you know the private sector is full of backhanders and bribes and the network of Good Old Boys. He probably got complementary tickets from Carruthers of the First XV who was always a reliable chap.

[KeemaNaanAndCurryOn]

Teachers must get paid a lot more than I thought if they can afford to pay for their wife and two children to accompany them to places like South Africa.

Are you for real. The teacher did a good thing by taking kids to the other side of the world for a cricket tour, in his own time, unpaid, and because folk have told you you're unreasonable, you're now snarking that he must be paid too much.

There's times I really am glad I don't have to meet mners in real life and this is one of them.

[clam]

I can assure you that he wouldn't have been paid extra to take those boys to South Africa on a cricket tour. So he was on duty 24/7 for the duration of the trip.

So, another "prime example of teachers taking the utter piss"

[KeemaNaanAndCurryOn]

BonaDea, you don't need flame retardant pants, you just need an anti-arse hat.

[Maryann1975]

Littlemiss, Comparing a teacher taking a group of children on a trip is slightly different to the military going away though. I don't think you can compare any job to the military, it is unlike any other form of employment I can think of. (I assume your dh is in the military?). One of the hardest things for my husband when he was away (raf) was that he couldn't come home to us, even when on an exercise a few miles away from home. I don't get why you would want other people to suffer that. Especially when they are not being paid for the extra work they are doing and have volunteered to do something good for other people.

[Bowlersarm]

My DCs are at private school (not sure whether it's relevant tbh whether state or private).

I would not give this a second thought. Other than to ask the wife, if I saw her, whether she and her DC's had enjoyed it .

[thebody]

so glad my dds teachers and families accompanied my dd on a school trip.

the teacher was killed, his wife seriously injured along with other if the adults and many children.

the teachers dd rescued many of the girls and is an absolute heroine.

I find your post mean and offensive to many wonderful teachers.

[ubik]

Our teachers used to bring their children on school trips too..in fact I recall several trips with my dad's school which was very exciting. In those days I also went to work with my mum and dad - from age 2 I was going into whatever nursery was attached to the school where my mum was supply and I recall going to dad's school and having a lovely time choosing punishments for naughty boys.

People didn't seem to have rods stuck up their arses in the 70's

[littlemisswise]

gobby I can not join my DH, ok? It is not possible.

[IceCreamForCrow]

Yanbu (but I'm not surprised you are being told otherwise)

My dh gos away on work trips but my presence and dc's are not part of the expectation. Then again he's not a teacher.

[ravenAK]

You're absolutely right, Bonadea.

Complete flaming liberty for me to pay full whack for my ds to join me on a school trip for which I was giving up my Saturday in order to supervise 90 teenagers in London for precisely £0.

Can't imagine what I was thinking....

[bearleftmonkeyright]

OP, I really don't understand what you expect from teachers. They are expected to accompany your children on a trip thousands of miles away for no extra pay? And leave his young family behind? You are the one who is entitled by virtue of the fact that you can afford private education. You seem to think teachers are your staff.

[thebody]

some parents are unbelievably entitled and mean spirited. Shane on them.

[enjolraslove]

Teachers salaries are not a secret. There are national scales look them up if you are bothered. Though if it is private they may be different but you will get a ball park.
As for 'another example of teachers taking the piss'. A few other jobs I have come across where spouses/children accompany on trips are - academia (often there are even special activities for spouses during conferences), marketing, law and most recently a doctor.
Honestly think about stuff a bit rather than just leaping to a cliche about teachers having it easy.

[Spinkle]

Any idea how stressful it is being in charge of other peoples kids, en masse, out if school. I do not, for one minute consider it a 'family day out' for him.

I do not sleep at all the night before a school trip. I come back (late, no overtime) with a few more grey hairs.
YABU

[bulby]

Some posters are completely missing the point that when teachers take a group of pupils out of school in anything other than normal school hours they are doing it totally voluntarily. You cannot compare it to 'my husband goes over seas 2 weeks at a time and I can't join him'. Well that is because he isn't working 24 hours a day for free!

[morethanpotatoprints]

Trifle,
I know many teachers who take their oh and dc on residential trips.
I really don't see what your problem is.
My friend and her dc went skiing with her dhs school not long ago. Its a cheap holiday for them, a perk of the job. Ffs teachers don't get many perks

[curlew]

I notice the OP is ignoring the point about 13 year olds not needing supervision at the zoo. And the question about how she knows he spent the majority of the day with his family, and not supervision the children.

[teacher123]

I have been on lots of school trips both at home and abroad. I have on occasion taken DH (a qualified teacher but now in a different job) as an accompanying member of staff when I wasn't able to get anyone else to attend with me to make up the ratios. He has been CRB'd and is more than capable of supervising children.

If he took his children to SA he will have paid for them. His wife will probably had a free ticket as she will have been added to the ratios. School trips are not holidays. You are responsible for other people's children 24 hours a day. I have dealt with head injuries, a mass outbreak of norovirus, children's rooms being broken into whilst children were asleep, homesickness, bullying, drunkeness, 32 hour coach journeys.

Teenagers are hard work. Even the nice ones. I love doing school trips, I love seeing the kids develop responsibility, independence and initiative, and forming relationships with each other that they wouldn't in the classroom. But it is not the same as someone working abroad, or on a business trip. When meetings are over you go back to your hotel room, it is unlikely that you'll be woken up at 3am by a frightened homesick teenager who can't sleep because they miss their mum.

[Bue]

This is totally standard. DH took a group of his students to Africa for a month this summer (a month of his own holiday) and I was asked to go as the second leader with him. I couldn't, and another teacher went instead, but had I gone I would have been one of the adults in charge and as such been paid for. Someone has to be the adult in charge, so why on earth not me?

Our headmaster's university-aged daughter accompanied us on a trip to Paris when I was 14. So what? It amazes me that people care about such petty things.

[youbethemummylion]

Is his wife accompanying trips in a capacity as a female adult for the girls to seek help from. We used to go on ski trips all the adults were male and ones wife always used to come in case girls felt uncomfortable approaching the male adults for certain things.