To think teachers shouldn't be drinking on trips?

[Newyeardontcare]

Dc just back from trip overseas. Apparently as soon as they were in their rooms the teachers went to the hotel bar. (The kids snuck down to check on them so they could all go into each other's rooms).Were also drinking wine and cocktails at dinner (before walking kids around an overseas city for an hour to their hotel at 11pm)

Is this normal? In charge of 13yr olds?

perfume reading through the thread it is clear that the norm is to have a duty rota for out of hours cover for teachers, allowing the teachers not on the rota to relax for the night.
I feel sorry for teachers at your school, I hope with that attitude you volunteer for plenty of school activities yourself.

Like the OP, I would encourage my child to tell me if they saw their teacher drinking

So your child sees a teacher with a glass of dark coloured liquid in their hand. How will your child know whether it’s a coke or a Bacardi and coke? Or maybe a colourless fizzy drink, so lemonade or vodka and lemonade? Or do you propose that your darling child wrangles the glass away from each teacher and proceeds to taste each drink to ascertain whether alcohol is present?

I trust that you never, ever let the smallest drop of alcohol pass your lips unless your child is staying with relatives otherwise you wouldn’t be fit to care for them would you?

Drinking in the evening on a trip is not the same as drinking in a classroom. You would expect to be told about this? So by this logic, sleeping on a trip = sleeping in the classroom, being naked on a trip = being naked in the classroom. All nonsense. I wouldn’t personally want to drink on a trip (no more than one) as I wouldn’t be able to face the hangover when up at dawn to do some marvellous activities.

Have you been teatotal since you had your children? If not then do you think you don’t look after them 24/7? You’re being ridiculous. The teachers are there on there own time. Taking a trip takes a lot of extra work for them and you begrudge them a couple of drinks with dinner?! I’m absolutely sure the teachers weren’t drunk and staggering around the city!

If an adult cannot stay away from the booze while looking after other people's children, then they should not go on the trip or the trip should be cancelled. A child's safety comes before an adult's desire to drink

You’re being overly dramatic. Of course a child’s safety comes first. But are you saying that all alcohol should be banned on a residential trip, even a small glass of wine at the end of the day? Even if there’s a rota to ensure an appropriate number of adults do not drink?

If this is the case, if you can’t trust the teachers to behave appropriately, then it’s probably best that you don’t send your child on trips.

And I assume you haven’t ever had a drink while with your children, never? Unless you are teetotal, I’d find that hard to believe. I’m not taliking about being drunk, I mean a single drink.

I think some posters are being obtuse, when asking if I drink.

The key point I am making is drinking while being in charge of other people's children , more so when they are abroad.

I think most of us would be surprised when collecting children from a childminder's to discover that she had been drinking while in charge of other people's children and yet somehow, it is deemed acceptable for teachers to do it.

The only arguments put forward in an attempt to defend this are flabby, sarcastic, group-think and ultimately weak. It seems teachers care more about the fact that they want to drink-can't do without it-than the fact that parents have entrusted their children to them.

How very revealing this thread has been.

Perfumes, your arguments are petty, and poorly thought out.

The teachers drinking on any trip will be the ones that are not on duty, they are not all on duty for the whole of the duration of the trip, and it would be against employment legislation and health and safety for this not to have been planned for. Residential trips have very small staff to pupil ratios, but this is down to the need for extra vigilance in transit, they are not required once at a base and activities are planned around having some stuff off duty at different points in the week.

Please keep your children at home though, no one wants to deal with people like you.

while in charge of other people's children

So does alcohol have a greater effect if the children being looked after are not your own? And btw, I’m not a teacher, nor married to one so I have no personal axe to grind.

Yes, Boris, I can see that teachers don't want to deal with parents who criticise them. They do seem to have a misplaced superiority complex.

No teachers don't want to deal with parents who make spurious judgments on their professional conduct.

Keep your children at home please.

PerfumeandOranges

They do seem to have a misplaced superiority complex.

Pot and kettle, springs to mind.

@PerfumeandOranges is your disdain of teachers and alcohol linked? It's rather bizarre, the way you are about both?

I feel so sorry for any one who has the misfortune to have to teach your children.

You were the person that the phrase "oh your that parent" was made for!

I think most of us would be surprised when collecting children from a childminder's to discover that she had been drinking while in charge of other people's children and yet somehow, it is deemed acceptable for teachers to do it

You forgot to add “when off duty” to the end of your quote. You’re comparing two different things - an on duty paid childminder to an off duty volunteer teacher.
I think it is your agument that is flabby, sarcastic, group-think and ultimately weak

Of course you are entitled to your opinion, and you are also entitled to ask the schools alcohol policy and not send your child on a trip if you disagree with the policy. That’s your choice. It would probably be a relief to the teachers concerned.

A child's safety comes before an adult's desire to drink

On that premise, then, you never drink alcohol around your own children? Or indeed, when you are on holiday in a strange place with children to care for?

You basically expect teachers to take your children away on their own time on an unpaid basis and to be on duty 24 hours a day, every day, for the time they are away.

This is why so many schools now find it difficult to get staff to do trips. It's not about alcohol - because we know the difference between one glass of wine with dinner and an all-nighter - it's about assuming we are people without lives ourselves who are utterly stupid and can't manage to behave like an, erm, adult.

perfume It isn't flabby group speak to understand that a rota system allows people to have time off and spend it within reasonable limits as they wish. It is illogical to equate this to childminders who have sole care of your dc and are at all times responsible for them. Either you trust the teachers to behave responsibly in their off time or you don't. I do, not because I am a teacher, live with a teacher etc but because I see them with my dc everyday and understand their commitment to their job. I am also not looking for perfection in my fellow human beings, just the same standards as I live by.

I AM flabby and sarcastic so I'm more than happy with Perfume's assessment

Perfume have you actually READ that there is a rota...so the staff in charge overnight will NOT be drinking. Therefore you have nothing to concern yourself with,

Perfune teachers take it in turn to be in charg2 on trips. You dont work 24/7 (tho in reality u do close to it).

Your school will rightly tell you you have no legal right to tell an adult what to do in their time off from work.
You sound unhinged.

I'm also hugely amused by some people on this thread who seem to think that running or going on a school trip as a member of staff is a treat or something to be taken away if the member of staff 'misbehaves'. If that was the case no trips would run.

@budgie girl...you can hardly accuse me of group think.

When I used the term, it meant that a lot of posters agreed with each other, rarely deviating from the set response of the group, cheering each other on as they repeat the same things.

As I am-I think-practically on my own in my view, that is not group thinking. Group thinking has to belong to a group. HTH.

PerfumeandOranges

It may be a smaller group but your view is that groups view, so if you are going to accuse others of group think then you will either have to accept that you are also part of group think or enjoy hypocrisy.

@budgie girl...you can hardly accuse me of group think

True. That was poor editing and posting too soon on my part . The rest though - flabby, sarcastic, group-think and ultimately weak stands. HTH

FFS! I’ve got to learn to edit properly!

The rest though - flabby, sarcastic, and ultimately weak stands. HTH

I’m not sure perfume understands the concept of a rota. Or indeed employment law which stipulates that an employee cannot be on duty 24/7.

So @PerfumeandOranges you honestly believe every teacher should be on call for 24/7 9f a school trip? You really really think that this is fair? You don't think that a rota is in place and as long as the ones off rota are fit for duty at the allotted time that it's fine.

Having said that I still don't believe that the teachers who are drinking are going to be so out of it that they cannot help in a massive emergency like a fire etc.

It's beyond me how you think that they should have no "down" time.