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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

School trips - holidays for teachers

136 replies

QueenBing · 25/06/2017 18:03

I'll just kick this off by saying I am a secondary school teacher and for the third year in a row I am organising the annual MFL trip to Germany. AIBU to request that people/parents/fellow teachers/parents kindly effing STOP referring to this trip as a "holiday". And believe me, they're not joking. The extra work that's gone into organising it. The lack of sleep while I'm there. The pressure of looking after 40 teenagers. None of which I begrudge doing, but it is not an effing holiday.

OP posts:
CrowyMcCrowFace · 25/06/2017 21:57

Oh & the one when someone's mum packed 4 cans of cider & a half bottle of vodka so her dd could celebrate her 13th in style with her roommates. This on an activity week when the kids were doing abseiling & canoeing.

One of the roomies was not happy about this & quietly let staff know. We confiscated the booze, read the riot act. Birthday girl suitably chastened. Agreed probably not her mum's best idea ever. Stiff email sent to the mum.

Birthday girl & whistle blower's mum had had a huge FB barney by the time we arrived back & ended up having a punch up in the school car park.

Both girls had to be collected by equally embarrassed & apologetic dads after both mums arrested. That took another hour to sort out, poor kids.

By the time the dust had settled when term resumed a week later, both mums were best friends again & wanted to sue the school for going through their dds' bags for the contraband.

CauliflowerSqueeze · 25/06/2017 22:10

Oh Crowy ffs!! You couldn't make this sort of crap up could you?! It's just mind-boggling.

OhWhatFuckeryIsThisNow · 25/06/2017 22:16

I'm not going to lie, I've done battlefields trips with yr 9 twice and, shh, I quite enjoyed it. We stay in the same lovely little family hotel, we go with the same bus company, works great. Apart from the kids who won't go to sleep, the boy who would only eat crisps, the romances and the break ups, the kid who had to be persuaded that a shower would be a good thing, anyway you get the idea.
Only ever had one negative parent, but she was like that about everything.

Mistressiggi · 25/06/2017 22:31

Trips are certainly better if you are not the organiser.
I have seen posters on here genuinely surprised that teachers weren't paid overtime. And another comparing it to the expectation of going to overnight conferences with work and staying in a hotel.

Original poster
QueenBing · 26/06/2017 00:19

I've only just had a chance to read through all the replies to this thread and I am pleased/upset in equal measure at the thanks and the experiences I've been reading. Extreme gratitude from the parents who thank us trip organisers and such sadness for the organisers who have had such negativity from ungrateful parents. As I've said, I enjoy doing the trips but they are by no means a holiday and they are bloody hard work. A simple thank you would be much appreciated when returning. I've had kids' parents getting aggressive with me because I've collected their passports when they've got on the coach to place in the overhead locker, you know, so they don't get lost and so it's easier and quicker to get through passport control. Apparently I'm going to lose them. So this one parent insisted I gave the child his passport back after passport control. Of course, I didn't. I waited until the return journey and then I gave him it back so he could then phone aggressive dad and say he had the passport. He then lost the passport in the services but didn't tell me until the following day in school when aggressive dad didn't even have the balls to phone me directly. I then had to phone around to locate the bloody passport

OP posts:
Original poster
QueenBing · 26/06/2017 00:20

...which I did and got no thanks. None at all.

OP posts:
LockedOutOfMN · 26/06/2017 00:21

QueenBing I hope your trip goes well and that all of the students and parents and your bosses say a very big thank you and appreciate your efforts to arrange the trip. I also wish you a very well deserved 48 hours' uninterrupted sleep when you return from the trip. You're a hero! Viel Spass!

Pallisers · 26/06/2017 00:28

I'd rather be shot out of a cannon than go on a school trip as a teacher. Hats off to all those who do it. I have always thanked the teachers who supervise trips/clubs/etc.

I was at a year 8 function in the school in the evening a few years back. We had a presentation of projects then a pot luck dinner (put on by parents) and then the kids left to prepare for their actual performance. As soon as they left the hall where the dinner was, it was like calm descended and stress departed. Without thinking I said to the headmistress and deputy head who were standing next to me "my god, it is so much nicer here without the children" and they both burst out laughing.

am agog at some of the responses - love the 2 mothers being arrested!

PookieDo · 26/06/2017 00:32

Well can I just add on a nice note my child has been away with teachers all week, and the teachers have been very heavily thanked on the twitter page they made to keep in touch with all the over anxious parents

BlackeyedSusan · 26/06/2017 00:35

school trip with infant children, for a day is bad enough. staying in the calssroom is much easier. fucking holiday my arse.

MaitlandGirl · 26/06/2017 00:48

DD2 went to America with a small group from the school (5 students and 2 teachers) as part of a country wide excursion/exchange. They were there for 3 of the 6 weeks of our Christmas break.

The teachers not only paid the same price as the students for the trip (so around $10K Australian) but made themselves available 24/7 to the parents and the students. They had friendship issues, bereavement anniversary issues, food issues, spending $$ issues and lots of homesickness and travel exhaustion issues to deal with.

They were amazing and absolutely made the trip for the students. DD2 had a much better time with the teachers than she would have had with me!

I've always thought you have to be a very special kind of person to be a teacher and to take students abroad, well you must be some kind of superhero

5LiveSportsExtra · 26/06/2017 00:57

I've been a parent helper on day long school trips before and come back completely knackered. The mental and phyiscal load of looking after so many children for so long is just not something I could manage. My DC went away with scouts the other weekend and I am so in awe of the leader's generosity to do that for zero financial recompense.

TequilaSunshine · 26/06/2017 00:58

AIBU to request that people/parents/fellow teachers/parents kindly effing STOP referring to this trip as a "holiday". And believe me, they're not joking. The extra work that's gone into organising it. The lack of sleep while I'm there. The pressure of looking after 40 teenagers. None of which I begrudge doing, but it is not an effing holiday.

Oh blimey, I'm with you! I'm not a teacher but can't think of anything worse than going on a residential with any age group of kids. It'd send me wappy.
Having two kids of my own is enough, love them lots, but if you throw others into the mix I may lose my shit lol Grin

GuiltyPleasure · 26/06/2017 01:00

3 yrs ago DD went on a school trip abroad & on the first night one of the children had an horrendous accident. One teacher had to stay with the poor child all night & most of the following day till the parents could get there. The other teachers had to deal with the rest of the children who were upset having witnessed their friend being seriously injured & I can't imagine how difficult it must have been for the teacher who had to phone the boy's parents to tell them their son had had a serious accident less than 24 hours after they'd left. This was a definite worst case scenario, but I don't know why anybody would consider a school trip a holiday for the teachers

TequilaSunshine · 26/06/2017 01:02

I have a child going to Cub Camp shortly. I'm in awe of the people running it. I wouldn't have the patience. I'd be wanting to yell "get the fuck to sleep" at midnight lol Grin

PyongyangKipperbang · 26/06/2017 01:10

DD got home tonight from her DoE weekend (she got her bronze!) and was complaining about being tired. She said it was because her diabetic friend had to have her blood checked three times during the night and every time the teacher came in it woke her up.

Needless to say words were had. Some of them were quite sweary.

Gwenhwyfar · 26/06/2017 01:28

"Dads stood and watched tired female teachers, most of whom were in their 50s, pull bags off the coach"

Why didn't they ask the dads to help? Or why didn't the children move their own bags?

PyongyangKipperbang · 26/06/2017 02:15

Parents are told to not touch kids bags being loaded/unloaded on our trrips, they are unloaded and given to the child and then the parents can take them. I can understand why tbh because you will start with the odd parent helping and end up with loads of parents wading in trying to grab their kids bag first to get home quicker.

Coughandsplutter · 26/06/2017 05:36

I have arranged trios to Spain before. Can't now as young kids of my own and I too remember arriving back to school after being away for a week with 40 kids and not one parent thanking us.....

Pangur2 · 26/06/2017 06:40

@Gwenhwyfar my thoughts exactly. They just stood there watching. It was bizarre and so rude!

Pangur2 · 26/06/2017 06:45

Oops, I read the message wrong. It's too early. I think some comments were made but everyone continued to stand around with cat bum mouths. We were about an hour late due to Eurotunnel issues (but kids had texted their parents so it wasn't like they had been standing around waiting.) Obviously, as teachers, we are in control of the Eurotunnel and all its power related issues...

sashh · 26/06/2017 07:06

I actually am of the extreme opposite opinion. I don't understand why schools still do these trips, I really would be happier if they didn't

Learning is not all about being in a classroom. I you are learning a language it may be your only opportunity to speak it to a native speaker. Even the trips with fewer links to academia like skiing give children the opportunity to do something they may not have a chance to otherwise.

The same with theatre trips, museums, Bletchley Park.

And the trip to a theme park at the end of the year? Well kids do have to work hard in school these days so they deserve to let off a bit of steam and again may be the only tie a child gets to do that.

Gwenhwyfar · 26/06/2017 07:57

I don't understand the person who doesn't want schools to do school trips. Living semi-rurally I never would have seen the inside of a museum unless my school had taken me. Same thing for the trip to Paris - my family didn't like foreign holidays and certainly not to big cities. Would be a sad world if everyone had to rely on their parents to take them on educational trips.

waitforitfdear · 26/06/2017 08:11

When my dds school trip went catastrophically wrong, no teachers fault, the surviving teachers although injured and traumatised stayed with the injured and traumatised pupils some at great personal risk to their own safety before help arrived.
Our dd literally owes her life to a teacher who gave her first aid.
The comfort the sacrifice snd the professionalism of those teachers and of their colleagues at Home who all flooded into school to help and assist traumatised parents was something we will all be eternally grateful for.

Op I seriously don't know how teachers do it and those parents acting this way should be ashamed of themselves.

KERALA1 · 26/06/2017 08:13

Anyone that thinks school trips are holidays for teachers are thick so their opinion counts for little.

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