School tour aborted, kids now due back at 2:30am. Overreaction?

[Encolere]

My 16 year old is on a school trip. They left on Sunday and were due back tomorrow evening. They were having a great time. After dinner this evening they were told some (unnamed) kids were caught with illegal substances and they were all to pack up immediately to be shipped home. They are a 5 hour drive away and will now get in at 2:30 am. I, and most other parents, have to be up a few hours later for work.

AIBU to think this is an extreme reaction? It was a small number (I presume) of the 40 or so kids on the trip. There was no mention of any of the other students being in danger nor were the police involved as far as we know. If the schools previous MO for dealing with incidents like this are to go by, this will never be mentioned again and the kids involved will remain anonymous.

It is probably revelvant that this school group have been trouble from their first year in secondary. Despite the majority of the group being well behaved they are always (all) in trouble because of the actions of those few who are lacking in the cop on department.

I'm not up to date on drug laws, anywhere but, does the school have any discretion about reporting to the police? Does the accommodation manager?

How would a mother without transport get to the school at that hour ?
If my own DSs had been brought back earlier , ie middle of the night, I would have had no way to get to their school to collect them .

I'd also be advising the school not to use that venue again if they think it's OK to throw people out at 2am FFS

No-one kicked anyone out at 2am FFS.

I expect those posters who say ‘just get their parents to collect them’ have never had a Year 9 boy bigger than they are grinning down at them and saying, “My dad says I don’t have to listen to you, bitch” (especially when you know it’s true, and approaching the parents will just lead to them screaming, “It’s your problem”).

How would a mother without transport get to the school at that hour ?

taxi?
Go on your social media (whatsapp or FB class page) and ask another parent for a lift - they'll be up anyway.
Ask someone from for a lift? I mean, you would ask the question to the school when they advise you, so you would have sorted transport before 2am.

Don't get me wrong, I can picture this happening with DH away and having to wake up my little ones, bundle them up in the car at 2am to pick up their sibling, it would be interesting.

Having been on a number of residential trips as a teacher, I imagine that as others have written, the accommodation threw them out. Even if the teachers knew who the culprits were, possibly due to staff ratios, they couldn't accompany those pupils back as they would need at least 2 teachers to accompany them. That would likely leave the "good" pupils with inadequate supervision, hence them all having to leave.

Furthermore, if they are travelling by coach, with 40 kids and say 6 teachers, that would mean only one coach. The coach couldn't take the miscreants plus chaperones back as it would leave the rest of the party stranded.

It's a really difficult situation and I feel both for the good kids and the adults. Excluding students is beyond the remit of classroom teachers, so this would have to go via the Head/Deputy. Neither of them has ever been on the 10+ residential trips I've been on across 3 different schools....

Surely the venue has the right to kick them (all) out if they're using illegal substances on their grounds?

Must admit I totally agree with the venue

@Hollyhobbi

Irish Mammy! British Daddy

Reared in both cultures really, oddly disconnecting. Neither one thing or the other

Definitely curious to hear an update from the OP.

I hope she comes back!

It's not a good message to the kids that, if some misbehave, EVERYONE gets punished.

It's not a good message to the kids that, if some misbehave, EVERYONE gets punished

It's not a message. It may well be the rule the teachers are bound by.

Interested to know what OP finds out but agree with those that think the whole group had to leave with the logistics of travel and staffing. But she might of course be having a lie in

Following with interest, I've helped in a number of residential trips, nothing this extreme ever happened!

It's not a good message to the kids that, if some misbehave, EVERYONE gets punished

Actually I think it's great message. It says that your actions have consequences for everyone around you. Which in this case it did. Those involved may not learn the lesson, but I bet that all those affected by it will.

Consequences for bad behaviour seem to be unfashionable here

Granted the school sounds worse than some, but they're not alone in that However if they were foolish enough to take along known troublemakers in the first place, I doubt leaving will have been the school's decision; much more likely the venue told them to go

As PPs have said, between the risks involved and the attitude of too many parents, I'm only surprised that these trips still happen at all ...

We had to sign a behaviour policy which agreed that poor behaviour may result in parents being asked to collect the children in question or the trip being curtailed and all children being returned home.

If I was a teacher I would not want to continue with a group who had been taking drugs. There is no guarantee everyone is telling the truth about their involvement, they may have their suspicions it was wider spread than just a small few, there may be a lot of he said/she said, and most importantly they may have been told to leave the accommodation.

As in all these things, your anger should be directed at the culprits.

Not sure what the outrage is about 2.30am. You have kids, you have inconvenience.

If you have no transport you call a taxi. If you have small kids you take them with you. If you have to work in the morning, you'll be tired.

I imagine that some of the parents of the kids who haven't taken drugs will be annoyed that they've paid what's likely to be a significant amount of money for a trip which has been cut short.

I understand that the teachers may have had no choice but if I'd paid £900 like I did for the ski trip I'd be hacked off.

"Those involved may not learn the lesson, but I bet that all those affected by it will."

this is useless in a way - those guilty of something will just snigger at the drama they have caused, those who didn't need to learn anything are badly affected by it.

in fact, the only thing you do learn from that, maybe, is that there's a lowest common denominator of behaviour for which other people get inconvenienced, but nothing really happens to the perpetrator.

Arguably this is life - so perhaps those kids will go forward thinking "you know what? I might as well just cause trouble".

The decision to return will be due to safeguarding. The teachers won't want to risk the possibility that other students among the group may be in possession of drugs while in their care. It's not uncommon for vulnerable children to be persuaded to carry drugs for the more streetwise.

No update I'm afraid. Well, they arrived back. I heard locally that it was alcohol not drugs and there were several kids involved but they wouldn't own up to it even though they were told that the whole group would be sent home early. They refused and so the whole group came home.

Spectacularly shitty behaviour given that they have been at school together for at least 4 years but 12 years for many. I'm hoping the school will give a full explanation to all involved and make it clear that so many of the group were abiding by the rules. I do know that some parents of the rumoured guilty think that it's not fair,their son is always being picked on. Where do you go with that? How will they ever have a sense of doing the right thing.

I'm shattered after a very short sleep last night so my words have deserted me!

No word from the school at all.

My anger is most certainly aimed at the little shits culprits and not at the teachers who must be just as disappointed as the students. They had provided a fabulous trip up to that point and im sure they were crushed.

But my anger will be directed at the school if they do not address this properly (as they have failed to do so with similar incidents before)

Encolere how did the culprits get in to transition year if they've been disruptive from day one? Most schools I know it is really hard to get approved for ty and previous behaviour definitely is taken into account.

Sorry your child's trip was cut short but unfortunately the teachers backed themselves in to a corner by saying own up or all go home. I guess they assumed the culprits would own up but as they didn't they'd no choice but to end the trip they couldn't go back on it at that stage.

I'm guessing it's quite an effective punishment to have the rest of your year group hate you for cutting their trip short! But it is unfair on the rest of the group.

TY is obligatory in this school.

Which is a good thing as obviously some need extra time to grow up!