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 ?

I run the annual ski trip, and if I don't take DS, then it doesn't happen. I'm a single parent, and I'm not giving up a week of school holidays to take other people's children to the snow and leaving my own son behind. I actually pay for my own trip and my son's. I've never actually skied myself when on the trip because I'm too busy dealing with all the little issues that young children away from home have to deal with. Do you know how much extra I get paid for the week? Not a cent. I get the cost of my petrol paid, because I'm the only one who goes that has a 4WD and we need a vehicle in case of emergency. So I pay for my trip, pay for five dogs to go in to kennels for a week ($840 for the week), miss a week's planning, sleep for about three hours per night if I'm lucky, AND I NEVER GET ON THE BLOODY SNOW!

Quite frankly, if a parent came in and started sulking about my DS going with us on trips, that would be the last trip I ever organise. Although to be fair, our head would tell you to bugger off before I even got to say anything.

Those bastard teachers eh. Taking our children on holiday.

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.

Then send your ds to the local comp and you can be sure the gpteachers there won't be able to afford trips to SA

I've just caught up with this again and I'm still raging at the OP
Please come back and explain your comment about professional teachers not being able to afford foreign holidays. What exactly were you getting at??

My mum is a teacher. When I was a student, I would regularly go on her trips as a supervising adult, as its often difficult to get enough suitable people to accompany them. I was (still am) regularly CRB checked, and went all sorts of places - was 'loaned out' to other teachers too, when they were short of helpers. I never paid a penny, but I did a day's work, supervising groups of small children, and never received pay for it. I think that's a pretty good deal! Oh, and my dad went too sometimes - it can be really hard to get enough men to go as supervisors sometimes too. So, OP, YABU!

as for the comments about it not being OK if the wife was not CRB checked, FGS, do you suppose they also asked every other member of the public to show an enhanced disclosure before entering the zoo on that day?

she obviously was not there as an extra supervising adult if she had her own DC to look after. maybe folk think she needs a CRB/DBS check to look after her own Dc on an "official" trip?

plenty of times trips at our primary have only gone ahead because staff have supplied their own teenagers/mums/aunties or DHs to assist on trips, because there were not enough parent helpers signed up - is this also Not On?

This is normal and permissible. In my school, there is even a part on the risk assessment for families of the organiser.

It will be to do with ratios, and it will be to do with needing an adult of each gender. IME trips are always at the limit for staff ratios, as the school don't want to release a member of staff. So an extra hand is always helpful. I used to take ds on our school trip to Alton Towers years ago

YABVU.

As a capable adult it is 't as if his wife needs his supervision or support and on a trip to the zoo I can't quite see how her taking her kids round would impede his professional involvement. Maybe them paying for spare places on the coach kept the price down!

You sound over invested in this, bitter, jealous, suspicious and looking for things to criticise. Do you have other dissatisfactions with the school, or are you projecting some upset on to his being happy to have his family around him?

maybe the wife is REALLY HOT and the OP is worried about their kids "feelings" , or that the teacher was sneaking off for some nooky behind the monkey house

haha!

if he had taken his kids without his wife ywnbu. She was there to supervise her dc and he to accompany the trip.

Is there anything that teachers can actually do? Is there anything that won't get them a slagging off? OP withdraw your son and home ed then you can accompany him at all times.

This is ridiculous. YABU.

And teachers are paid above the average annual salary. My DH and I are both teachers, have a lovely 4 bed detached home and foreign holidays every year, so not entirely sure why people are being so scathing with the "teachers can't afford x/y/z." We may not earn like investment bankers, but we are degree-qualified professionals and are paid as such.

1. 13yo's do not need to be closely supervised in a zoo. (Never mind why a zoo trip for 13yo's) My DC were allowed free-range on Y6 school trip to amusement park
2. There are usually x number of free places on school trips for the supervising teachers
3. Your DS goes to a fee-paying school - the HT can choose how to spend those fees (possibly paying for/subsidising family)
4. It is none of your business unless there was a serious accident shown to be down to lack of supervision

YABVU

Congratulations to the school and other companies whose families are encouraged to accompany them.

I find it a bit odd to be honest.

I also find the justifications along the lines of "teachers work really hard, they often do work out of the classroom and late in the evening" bizarre. This is the same for everyone I have ever known with a salary and a career rather than an hourly paid job.

I hope this is just an instance of mean-spirited attitude towards teachers and not an indication of how the OP regards her son.

He is 13! He should not need constant supervision at the zoo. If he does, then there is something you have forgotten to teach him. So be thankful that the school does.

I dont know.

I think you have to be careful of saying that nothing happened so that's all right then.

All too often emergencies or crises are just a perfect storm of small oversights. One of these can be inadequate supervision.

Okay, not a lot will normally go wrong at a zoo but what if it does? A fire in a building, an escaped animal (happened in Rotterdam Zoo), a vehicle crash.

Instinctively will the teacher look first to his family or the students?

As a parent I would want to know how the group was going to be supervised. If all the teachers were taking their families then while it might make a lovely group at the same time I might be rather concerned that should the worst happen would I be happy that my own DC would be looked after?

WorrySigh, surely those things could equally go wrong when the 13yo is making his way to school, or popping out to the shops or going to the cinema with a friend?

Or are you really saying that 13yos should constantly be under the eye of a designated adult in case something goes wrong and he needs help?

(and how could you even kow it won't be the adult needing help instead?)

We are talking 13yos. Youngsters who (if in state education) would be doing their work experience next year. Youngsters who might well be bigger than their teacher and in the case of fire are just as likely to have to help the teacher out.

And yes, I have a 13yo. He went to a football match the other night. With a friend and no adult. In case of emergency I would have expected him to do what the other fans did: to make his way to the exit. And lend a helping hand to anyone who needed help. Or if anything happened on the way home, call emergency services on his mobile. Which I know he is well capable of, as he has already assisted at the scene of one accident. He is 13 and not 3.

He is doing his school trip to Belgium next month. Which I know will involve a walk around the city centre unsupervised. Not much different from walking round the city centre here, which he does every weekend. Except that I pity the natives who have to try to make sense of his French.

To clarify: the teacher is needed as a point of contact, to provide advice in emergencies and make sure everybody gets back to the bus on time.

But he will hardly be required to help every individual child to the loo or walk around with them or carry them to safety.

So most of the time, he will be required as a presence, not actually to do anything or say anything. He could bring a book or an iPod. Or an adult to talk to. Won't make much difference.

The OP's initial comments were about supervising ratios.

Does it matter whether some posters were gallivanting round London or Grandparents were down 't pit at the same age?

It does matter about what is considered normal for 13yos today.

And from anything I can see, for 13yos to be out and about without immediate adult supervision is normal. They make their own way to school, they go shopping, they hang out with friends. It is a normal important part of growing up.

Next year, they will be expected (if in state education) to go round looking for a job placement, to actually organise a job and to function for 2 weeks in the workplace. So it's not about going down the pit in ye olden days: it's about what society expects from 13yos today.

Schools are usually very aware of the need to foster independence and try to accommodate this- hence the details of ds' school trip to Belgium.

Supervising ratios are age related and take into account the level of indepence that can normally be expected at different ages. As posters have pointed out at this age that would be 1: 20+. So the teacher is not doing anything wrong if he is in charge of his class and the wife is in charge of the children.

This is how the world of work used to run though... when I was a newspaper reporter a colleague would pick up her two school age children at 3pm and bring them back to work a few times a week. They would mess about on the computer, do home work and mooch about.

Yes all very unprofessional etc but it did allow my colleague to work full time and really wasn't an issue for anyone else.

My mother put me school nurseries as a toddler as it was the only way she could do supply and get childcare. MIL - a nurse - was telling me how she put SIL to bed in the childrens ward during nightshifts as she was breastfeeding.

Why shouldn't his family go with them to SA.? You do know that that teacher is doing this in his own time? Teachers are not paid 24 hrs a day?
The family will have paid for themselves you seem to have an agenda