Term time holidays and residential school trips

[shebird]

Sorry another rant about term time holiday fines.

DCs school have a residential trip in years 5&6 to an outdoor activity centre at a cost of approximately £250-£300. The trip involves a week out of school in the middle of term. My understanding is that if your child does not go they get fobbed off to another year group and probably won't learn much while their classmates are away. While I'm sure my DCs would love this, I am a bit annoyed that schools can choose to take a week out of school to build rafts and call it education but if I wanted to take my DCs to visit another country or roman ruins I could face a fine or prison? AIBU to send a letter to the school reminding them of the importance of education quoting statistics on attendance and GCSE failure rates?

I was badly bullied in school, I remember the residential primarily for the fact that a lot of kids were not constantly horrible to me (I think I must have been bunked away from all my school). This was very confusing, but maybe a good thing to teach me that not everyone else would always be horrible to me.

Struggle to remember anything else positive about it.

I have 4 dc's so school trips have to be rationed as I do not have an unlimited budget. I do think that skiing trips are a bit ridiculous! What's educational about that or a trip to Disneyland? However, am paying in instalments for my eldest to go on his Y6 residential trip despite his SEN causing a bit of concern. If I couldn't afford it I would be asking to have him out of school for the week as not being in his usual class with his usual assistant would drive him crackers!

Worrysigh, just because you haven't had positive experiences doesn't mean that others won't, so dismissing it as rubbish it ridiculous.

And I clearly remember a residential trip from when I was 7- perhaps you/your children have memory issues?

There are positives and negatives in any school experience, but decent schools/teachers offer as wide a variety as they can.

My DCs are not interested in football- should the school stop doing it as part of PE?

It really upsets me hearing so many parents complain about school trips (residential or otherwise) being a waste of time. Are some of you really so joyless that you think school trips should be done away with?

I sympathise with those whose children have SN- I appreciate that makes things difficult. I hope that your schools are working hard to provide enrichment experiences that suit your children.

A decent school would also do their best to ensure no one was excluded on the grounds of cost.

Sorry to repeat what I have said on skiing threads, but OP, YANBU.
We have taken DGCs out of primary school twice and in our family party we had a serving head (different county, different half term) a retired head plus our friend an OFSTED inspector. Kids enrolled all day in ski school, opportunities to practise French and experience cultural differences. Perfectly legitimate to mark this as 'Education Off Site', just like the school ski trip, taken in school time, at the middle school DGC1 now attends. Not done it this year because of SATs.

winkelwoman - does that mean that you could count a 5 day trip to Barcelona as education off site. dc's doing Spanish GCSE or is it only skiing that counts for this? genuine question. did not know that you could ask for say a visit to an exhibition as education off site rather than unauthorised absence

Yes, I would count such a trip as education off site, but that does not mean your school will. Unfortunately since September, discretion on this sort of thing has been removed from Heads or at least made very difficult. As I said, we did not do it this year.

They don't 'call it education' it is education.you will look a bit silly if you start quoting attendance rates and GCSE failures.

YABU to write the letter, it sounds a little childish tbh.

However the level of education provided to children left behind whose parents can not afford to send them. That's a worthwhile letter to write.

YANBU, Do it!!!

You can if you want to give the staff a laugh!

Where the option is residential or stay behind and do colouring in there is no real choice. I am more than happy for my DD to go on a residential but the burden two years in a row is just a bit much. It is not a matter of being 'joyless' about school trips I would just love to say yes to everything. I know my DD will have a lovely time but I am not convinced about the education value. Certainly they a great experience and a nice thing to do but they are not the only opportunity for children to gain 'life skills'.

I'm absolutely dreading when ds is old enough to go on residentials. I remember the few I went on as being horrific, as I was badly bullied at school and didn't fit in at all, and yr3 ds is heading the same way I feel :( The residentials I didn't go on, I was bullied worse than ever for not going (weirdo, think you're better than us, you're too poor to come... Etc etc) and the ones I went on were horrendous as I was contained, day and night, with the bullies. I was a bed wetter til 15 (ds still wets every night at 8) and I hated being away from home because of this as well.

It is a huge mistake to transfer your experience onto your DC, it is a different time, a different place and they are not you. The adults generally see that everyone bonds well.
It is a good idea to save early.Get the second hand baby clothes, pram etc- the baby doesn't care- use it later when they do care.

I really dont like the 'whole year' residential trips which primary schools seem to have gone for in recent years.

Many children arent emotionally ready for them. I know my DS wasnt ready but felt forced into going because the school made no provision for those who didnt go.

For many families these trips are a huge expense. It isnt just the cost of the trip but all the extra clothes/sleeping bags/luggage which have to be paid for. Just saving up and borrowing clothes is not an option for all. If you have no spare money then it doesnt matter how much notice you get. Zero multiplied by a thousand years is still zero.

Not everybody wants to share their financial situation with the school. And why should they have to? These trips are only a current fashion.

Hi I think all school trips should be provided out of school term but I do wonder how many of these dedicated teachers would give up some time out of thier excessive holidays!
The most logical answer to solving the ' holidays in term time problem ' would be to give every teacher and pupil 6 weeks holiday plus bank holidays per year, these being bookable with the head teacher at a time agreeable to both party's as a normal person who has a job has to do, this would solve all the problems created

My 3 DCs experiences re school trips were all different.

• DD1 went on 1 in primary, 1 in first year of secondary and had no inclination to go on any more.
• DD2 went on 1 in primary, asked not to go on any more. Hated the obligatory one in the first year of secondary and wouldnt even show me the letters about trips from then on in case i sent her! No bullying, just hated school trips.

• DD2 refused to even contemplate overnight trips in primary. She's done 2 in secondary - moaned about both of them, and now talks in amazement that her school is offering trips away costing literally hundreds and hundreds of pounds. We and many of her friends parents are struggling with the basics these last few years. I am so proud of my DD3 (15 now) when i ask her if she's ok with being one of (the majority) who cant go - she just flaps her hand and says ''meh ... no big deal, wouldn't fancy spending two weeks with Miss X, Miss Y and Mr Z (teachers) 24/7 anyway thanks''.

Anyway my point is: none of my kids lives were enhanced by residential trips. If you cant afford it dont feel bad. And - IME more and more kids parents cant afford it these days, so your child will be just one of quite a few not going, and there's no stigma. Trust me.

I don't think parents should be required to pay for any education their children receive as a part of the school day, nor for anything that is required for them to be a part of the school day (such as the residential or travel aspects of a school trip). School budgets need to increase to cover these residential trips if they are necessary for good education.

I think it's a different thing from taking your child out of school for a holidy though. Even if you did the same activities it wouldn't help build the learning environemnt the same way going on a trip with your class will.

*Parents shouldn't be required to pay outside of what they already pay in tax.

Really Boom? It what world should residential trips be paid out of school funds? Would you be happy with your taxes going up to cover it or should we take the money away from another public service?

I'm really surprised that the majority view here seems to be anti school residentials. I understand the money aspect of it. But I really don't understand not wanting them to go. Obviously if they have got SN that you feel won't be catered for or you think you child couldn't manage, then that's fair enough.

May be all school trips should be cancelled then.

As for the person who complained that their child who was left behind was sent off to work with younger children, what would you like to have seen instead? Assuming that their teacher an most of their class was on the trip what should have happened to them?

bodyshaper teachers on these trips are already away from their own families 24/7 for several days and put in loads of unpaid hours in preparation for them. I don't think I know where to begin explaining how unworkable your proposal about holidays is.

pipbin i think there is allot of variation in the way different schools deal with the children who don't go on trips.

In our primary the head would set aside those days and personally lead the group, with a parent, and their one to one TAs if they had them, on walks to the woods, or a nature rambles by the river/along the canal etc. Gentle, fun outings with their headmaster (lovely, lovely man) was seen as a real treat.

Sad to hear that in some schools are foisted off with being sat at the back of older/younger years classes.

I think Yabvu!!

No one except your own pride is forcing you to send your child on this trip! You have no evidence that the learning will be less by being left behind and are basing it on Heresay.

Teachers are not to blame for holiday fines. They have no control over it and it has been introduced by the government so if you are going to write shirty letters then at least have the courtesy to get your facts right