To not let ds go on THIS school trip to...

[alltheworld]

...Toysrus...
Their theme is toys this term and have just had letter back saying this will be educational and enjoyable and they may take five quid spending money.

1. I fail to see how this is educational
2. It is commercial
3. We are broke and my life is spent managing dc's expectations down and I specifically avoid toy shops esp. At this time of year.

All my kids had a trip to B&Q in Infant school and loved it!

Seriously?

I'm speechless.

That it a truly SHIT idea.

There are the £1 section at toysrus. Plus clearance where you can pick up some fab things for under £1.

Just saying

Although given that 95% of our future workforce would appear to have nothing but minimum wage retail topped up by tax credits to look forward to, perhaps it is educational…work experience. That's their adulthood right there, staring them in the face. After university, naturally.

Pinot:
www.st-thomasaquinas.co.uk/reception-2/

"Our trip to Toys R Us and Kam Tong Garden

Last week we went on our first school trip! First we visited Toys R us where we were shown around the store as well as the stock room. We found out about how the toys are organised on each aisle and spoke about the materials that different toys were made from. There were lots of toys which we love!"

So much for your encyclopaedic knowledge of EVERY school in the country.

(I would have loved a trip to B&Q!)

Tesco are very community orientated re school children. Every year our post 16,s and KS4 visit them for work experience and they also send a team to school with bakery stuff (this year was HUGE dunuts and decorating things).
The two local tesco stores are also holding fundraisers nest week as out school has just been heavily vandalised and forced to closed for over a week.

Pinot WTAF are you wittering on about. I didn't know there was a queen of school trips who knew everything about every school trip going.

alltheworld it's not the best trip for this time of year. Yes it's very likely to have a negative impact of seeing and wanting. But then there is the positive of learning you cant always have.

One of the purposes of school trips to retail outlets (such as ToysRUs) is to familiarise DCs with the experience of a shop, and how it works. Not all families take their DCs shopping, give them money etc, so this will be a new experience for some of the class. It links to all sorts of aspects of learning; all the basics like maths, taking turns, colours, size etc but also less obvious ones like citizenship as they learn about the law and shoplifting.

Choosing a toy shop more or less guarantees their engagement, and it links with their topic for this term. They will see, in the shop, things they have learnt about in the classroom.

I can't imagine that the staff who have decided on this trip have done so for their own benefit, and the learning objectives will have to be documented and approved by a more senior staff member. As the school is generally good, OP, how about giving them the benefit of the doubt and trust that they know what they are doing?

It's a terrible idea. The DC will go round saying they are getting x y and z for Christmas, they will all believe each other's nonsense and get whipped into a frenzy of expectations. Even if you withdraw your child the class will be chattering about it for days.

Unless the teacher is going to ask the shop about fair trade, non gendered toys, the true meaning of Christmas, CSR, environmental stuff etc etc and basically rip the store to shreds. Which I would LOVE them to do but suspect won't happen...

pinot why are you so insistent on getting personal information from another poster?

I'm wondering what the activity will be for children not going on the trip? 'Heres an Argos book, cut and stick your Christmas list'?!

As the school is generally good, OP, how about giving them the benefit of the doubt and trust that they know what they are doing?

Yes the trip may tick many boxes from a teacher's point of view.

However the teachers aren't going to have to spend the next few weeks explaining why their child isn't going to get 'the toy' this Christmas. (Or go into debt trying to provide it.)

It is not a good time of year to do this.

When I worked with a big supermarket chain in HR and then PR I showed around at least two schools a year. We would look at the warehouse, food storage and shop floor, explain what happened with food waste, the kids would do some healthy food sampling and usually make something very simple themselves (fruit kebabs or similar). I wouldn't say it was unusual for a school to visit a shop. Toys R Us does seem an unusual choice, but maybe it is to try and keep the kids engaged? I would ask the school the reasoning behind the trip and what topic it coincides with.

I can't believe the school is planning a trip to toysrus! That is lazy planning!

I agree. Not only will some parents struggle to hand over the spending money, chances are their children will be targeting things that may already have been bought and put away for them for Christmas. Or they will come out with their heads full of ideas about wanting things that are sadly not within their parents reach, financially.

It's an awful idea all round.

Not much to add...I actually (as a teacher!) don't think it's odd to take children to a large shop as a trip. You don't just trawl the shop floor on these trips, you go 'behind the scenes', talk to staff etc.

And pinot ...words fail me!

Pinot needs to work on their Googling skills. If you Google "school trip" to "Toys r Us" UK, the link posted by Sawdust is the very first result.

I opened the thread thinking 'another of these 'precious' parents..........
But YANBU
I can see the point if they visited a supermarket and saw behind the scenes but not the shop floor in a toy shop and be expected to buy.

Pinot needs to work on their Googling skills. If you Google "school trip" to "Toys r Us" UK, the link posted by Sawdust is the very first result.

Depending on your history Google gives different results.

Hillside Primary School in Stoke went in 2013 as well and I'm still on the first page of Google.

Bored now, but ignore the troll hunting like behaviour, OP. Personally, I think it's nuts. If they have to do a trip to a commercial venture, they should go to a supermarket.

Do your DS never watch television, alltheworld, or talk to friends that do? He will be well aware of what toys are available, without walking around toys r us.

It's your job as a parent to manage his expectations of what he will receive at Christmas.

(Some years ago, an icecream van started selling near my DC's junior school. I was very cross, and though the school shouldn't allow it, as my children would all be nagging for icecream, all the time. But I then realised it was my job as a parent to say no. Children need to learn that just because something is available doesn't mean you have to buy it. In fact, we compromised, and would buy icecreams on the one day a week we didn't have to rush off elsewhere. Sometimes we took a short walk in the woods, while we were eating them. Also, my DC got the chance to choose and pay for what they wanted, which was a good learning experience for them. So, actually, something I thought was a negative turned out to be a positive, and even (a bit) educational.)

Yes, merrymouse, I think we all know that, but thank you. There 4 separate UK school trips on the first page of Google results, and I would argue that regardless of your Google history, the odds are that at least one of these trips would show up within the first few pages if you have decent search skills.