To be cross with the school (school trip related!)

[schooltripwoes]

DD is 7 and has been on a school trip today. It's been a sunny day and the class spent a lot of the time outdoors.
I have just picked her up from school and her cheeks and ears are bright red - as in they look like she's caught the sun. Suspicious of the fact that her sunhat was rolled up in the same way that I packed it this morning, questions were asked and she confessed that she 'forgot' to wear her sun hat. She had suncream on before leaving home, and says she applied more at lunchtime (but 7 year-olds aren't great at this job, as I'm sure you know!). So I'm fuming that she didn't wear her hat to keep the sun off her face.
Whilst I accept that children need to learn to look after themselves and have some degree of responsibility, AIBU to expect the teachers to gently remind infant school children to wear their sun hats when they're spending the majority of the day sat in the sun?

No YANBU, they should have reminded them.

id expect them to remind the children to wear their sunhats

but I don't know how far they should take that - as in, if she was reminded often and didn't bother to get it out, whether they should go through her bag to see if she had it.

I think YABU I wouldnt expect teachers to remind my kids at that age to put a hat on, 7 year olds are more than capable of doing that by themselves.
And the teachers may well have gently reminded the whole class to put there sun hats on and she might have not been listening or chose not to anyway. They dont have time to actually force all children to get their hats out of their bag, put them on and then actually keep them on at all times.

In the two schools I have worked in we have always reminded children to drink plenty and wear hats. We have also actively encouraged reapplying their sun cream themselves.

Of course you are being unreasonable!!! My son went in a trip yesterday, he’s 7 also. I’d never think it was their responsibility on a trip to remind children to wear a hat! They have other things to do!!

Put some aloe Vera on it and chill out!

O fgs.

Yes YUBU.

This may be news to you but perhaps the teachers have other things to deal with.

Sometimes my son forgets to drink enough water during the day. Should I be upset with the teachers for not checking his water bottle when she has a class if 30 7year olds to deal with?

I have reminded children to wear a hat to be told they haven’t got one. And then at the end of the trip discovering it in their bag. They sometimes genuinely think they haven’t got a hat, can’t find it or even don’t want to wear one. Check with the teachers before you get too cross!
I once spent a cold day telling children to go back in to put coats on, to be accused the next day of “forbidding “ children to put them on. Us teachers can’t win sometimes.

They probably did remind them. But not every child takes a hat and they wouldn’t have known which children had them but weren’t wearing them.
Tbh on a school trip I would remind in the morning then forget as it’s insane. Counting and recounting, making sure everyone is ok, any members of public not inconvenienced, counting again, omg where’s little jonny gone, oh in the loo, jonny why didn’t you ask an adult, counting again....

Maybe you should volunteer to go on the next one and help out ?

I would have thought that aged 7 they were capable of remembering to put their own hat on. There's enough faffing about on a school trip without teachers having to remind them to put on hats or apply suncream!

My DD would consistently "forget" her sunhat at that age, I know school were hot on sunhats. Just because it hasn't been worn doesn't mean there was no prompting....

I take Brownies on trips (age 7-10) and I would remind them about hats and sunscreen and water at the beginning and at lunchtime and anytime we had a break. But there’s a million other things to think of and only so many times you can remind them about hats before you assume if they’re not wearing one then they don’t have one. I wouldn’t search a child’s bag for a sunhat!

This reminds me of some complaints we got at the school I work at. After sports day, some of the children went home a bit burnt. Naturally, of course it was the teachers' fault I do feel sorry for teachers at the amount of hassle they get for every thing that happens to go wrong. We live in such a blame culture. And the number of kids who come back off family holidays burnt...

Yes, we remind them. Yes they say they haven’t got one. No, sometimes we don’t have time to frisk them, we just take them at their word. Like when they claim they haven’t got other stuff they need. No, it’s not ideal. Yes children should be more independent and responsible. No, most of them aren’t.

How do you know they didn't "gently remind" them though?

Yes I'd have expected reminders about hats and water, suncream is trickier.

However, I burn to a crisp in less than 20mins unprotected but I've never burned if I put factor 50 on before leaving home in the morning, even if I don't reapply, so I do wonder how well her ears and face were protected before she left home.

I think a reminder before they left would of been nice you know "go to loo, get your things, put your hat on"

I used to go into primary school most mornings when ds1 was there to ask his teacher if she would remind him at break/lunch.
Tbh I don't see what harm it would do giving them a gentle reminder at break/lunch before they go out to play but I understand that
A. Sometimes as humans we forget things and
B. Kids are sometimes little buggers.

I don't think ybu to ask if they could remind but I do think ybu to be pissed off about it.

I do feel for teachers actually.

Having been on a lot of school trips, yes it would be lovely if the teacher had time to police the sun hats but they’re too busy making sure all the children are still there.

If you’re really worried about it, either go on the next trip yourself or ask the parent helper looking after your kid to keep an eye.

One kid on the school trip I did recently genuinely had no sun hat. He was the fairest kid ever, almost white with white blood hair, and it was a boiling hot day. By lunch time he was decidedly pink - ended up putting sun cream on him as he flat refused to wear a borrowed hat. I put on sun cream because I know his parents and I knew they’d be ok with it, also I’m not school staff. I figured they would rather I put on suncream than bring back a really sunburned child. The teacher wasn’t allowed to put suncream on him though. What’s she to do? She’s damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t. Leave the poor teacher alone!!

I would expect the teachers to remind them, but I would also expect some children that age to completely ignore the teacher.

There is a good chance the teacher said several times - put your hat on, but in a large group, out in a different environment which I assume is quite a difficult for teachers (toilets, lunch, not loosing anyone) it is really difficult to give one to one attention to each child.

I worry about my Year 2s as if they were my own. I'd 100% remind them all about cream and hats, supervise the top up of cream and ensure they were all regularly drinking. It's not hard.

Our school always make the dc wear hats and if they forget to bring them in they have to wear a spare.

On a side note OP we use ultrasun suncream and it really does last all day even for my pale, freckly dd who has eczema. Might be worth investing.

I think they should make sure they have enough lotion on to be honest. It's a health issue so you can't rely on a seven year old to be self sufficient (some are some aren't). You wouldn't expect a seven year old to remember to take medication (even though some are capable) and getting sun burnt can be worse than forgetting medication.