To wonder who funds a teacher's school trip

[iwasjustwonderingreally]

My daughter went skiing with her school in February half term.

Four teachers accompanied them.

Do teachers pay for themselves, or a contribution, (I appreciate they are working though), or is the cost to the pupil inflated to cover the cost of the teachers?

The complaint is that their child was ill and they'd have expected there to be at least one teacher who wasn't drunk and who could take responsibility

This has absolutely nothing to do with who pays for the teachers to go.
The teachers (if this is true) behaved irresponsibly. Irrespective of how the teachers' places on the trip are financed, teachers should not have been drunk.

I used to go on primary school outdoor holidays to the lake district. None of us teachers ever got drunk. The trips were nothing like a holiday at all. They were bloody hard work.
Teachers' places were offered "free" by the outdoor centre - ie. with a certain number of pupils a teacher place was free - obviously the costs for the teachers staying at the centre and the food would have been covered by the prices for the children so effectively the parents were paying a bit more than they might have been if they were not funding 4 teachers' places. But if the teachers weren't there, there would have been no trip at all. The extra cost to the parents is to ensure that the children can go on the trip and be supervised by teachers.
Nobody should be quibbling and asking who pays for the teachers`trips.

However, people should be asking why teachers were drunk and therefore not able to deal with the situation which arose in OP's case.

@MySecretHistory OP posted that all the teachers were drunk ("all tipsy").

Surely the parents pay as part of the cost of the trip. What teacher is going to go on a school trip if they have to pay - I certainly wouldn't go on any work trips I had to fund. They aren't on duty 24/7 though so what they do in their own time is up to them.

@Responsiveroo

Fgs they don’t “deserve” to have a few drinks at the end of the day that renders them not able to drive for example

There should have been a rota ie two can drink but the other refrain completely

There were ALL drinking

And you know this how? You're very knowledgeable to say you aren't the OP.

[quote ilovesooty]**@Responsiveroo* you have absolutely no grounds for asserting that the teachers were all pissed and failed in their duty of care*.[/quote]
My grounds are what the OP has stated

As to whether or not that is true or not - who knows
But my grounds are the OP

Which is what we are responding to

And she says “ALL”

No one “knows” anything

We can only go from the op

And she is talking definitively in terms of “all”

None of us know whether the op is telling he truth

But that’s the risk you take with mumsnet surely

or is the cost to the pupil inflated to cover the cost of the teachers?

The cost isn't "inflated" to include the mandatory adults for under age travelers any more than its "inflated" to include flights, insurance, accommodation, ski school and kit within the package.

Don't assume all staff are included in the package costs - some may be traveling on their own dollar and have no obligation to be in loco parentis.

Unless you pay for your own work trips I cannot imagine why you would expect teachers to pay for theirs.

Are you enjoying MN, @responsiveroo?
I see you joined yesterday and have been quite opinionated helping those of us unable to understand what OPs have written by speaking on their behalf on many threads already.
Above and beyond I'd say.

You know none of them want to be there, right? So they shouldn't pay.

As for the teacher who got drunk, it's fair enough to complain. Regardless of who paid for what, that teacher was there to look after the pupils (you can't respond in an emergency if you're off your face when there's an accident out of hours) and it's unprofessional.

Teachers are humans. But they shouldn't let their pupils see just how flawed they are... There's supposed to be an attempt at covering up the imperfect behaviours we all exhibit.

@PAFMO

Are you enjoying MN, *@responsiveroo*? I see you joined yesterday and have been quite opinionated helping those of us unable to understand what OPs have written by speaking on their behalf on many threads already. Above and beyond I'd say.

Very much so thanks for asking

@PAFMO

Are you enjoying MN, *@responsiveroo*? I see you joined yesterday and have been quite opinionated helping those of us unable to understand what OPs have written by speaking on their behalf on many threads already. Above and beyond I'd say.

Arseholes gonna arsehole!

@Responsiveroo

No one “knows” anything

We can only go from the op

And she is talking definitively in terms of “all”

None of us know whether the op is telling he truth

But that’s the risk you take with mumsnet surely

Actually, the problem do many of us have is that it’s a ‘punish the awful teachers’ thread where (as is often the case) the OP doesn’t know for certain because she wasn’t there.

So it’s (at best) a third hand account of what is teenager has told his mum who has told the tale to other parents. Possibly with some out of context videos that shouldn’t have been recorded in the first place.

Not exactly reliable stuff.

The context that the question on the OP’s mind was ‘did I pay for the teachers?’ influences things too. It doesn’t suggest the most reasonable attitude from the start.

If your teenager came back
And said she’d been I’ll
But “all” the teachers had been tipsy and one especially drunk

And you trusted your teen, she they weren’t prone to exaggerating (no idea about this one!)
Would you not pursue a complaint? Or at least approach the school and ask for a pretty frank disuxssion?

What have i have said so inflammatory

Only that based on the op
Which is all we have
The teachers failed in their duty of care

Many schools now have a "no drinking on school trips" policy, it has meant even fewer teachers are willing to give up their annual leave to take students on a trip abroad. Not even a single glass of wine is permissable if the staff go by the policy. I have taken kids away and if I was not allowed a glass of wine with my dinner I simply would not volunteer to go.
The students also had a no drinking policy and of course they managed to get hold of it and most of the illnesses were associated with drunken students being sick, starting fights, breaking furniture and covering smoke detectors with plastic bags so they could conceal that they were smoking weed.
I take my hat off to any teacher willing to take kids away anywhere.

There should be a Rota. A group can have a drink tonight. B group can take over for emergencies.

I would hate it if my child was I’ll and the teachers were all pissed.

@Responsiveroo

If your teenager came back And said she’d been I’ll But “all” the teachers had been tipsy and one especially drunk

And you trusted your teen, she they weren’t prone to exaggerating (no idea about this one!)
Would you not pursue a complaint? Or at least approach the school and ask for a pretty frank disuxssion?

I trust my teen.

But I also know that his (and his friends’) perception of what’s actually happening is often inaccurate.

I certainly would not jump straight to how dreadful the teachers were and how the ‘failed in their duty of care’ etc.

My DC went to an independent school. The costs of the organised school trips abroad were eye-watering, so our DC never went on any. For the same price all 4 of us had a holiday. I always assumed the high cost was due to the teachers' costs being covered by parents.

Twenty something years ago when I was a young teacher I went on a residential trip with 3 other teachers and about 20 sixth formers. One evening two of the teachers, without telling me and the other teacher, took the school minibus and drove about half a dozen of the students to a pub a few miles away. The teacher who had driven them there got so drunk the other teacher had to drive them back to where we were staying. She wasn't insured to drive the minibus, and all the students (Y12) were underage. So very irresponsible all round. But sod all to do with whether any of the four teachers had paid to go.

How times have changed, my trip to Austria in 1984, we older kids were drinking with the teachers in the evenings...pupils were 14-18 (I was the eldest kid, very early in year Birthday). Teachers weren't fall over drunk but definitely merry.

Although they did confiscate some booze from younger kids.
Kids drinking was seen as a bigger issue for parents to complain about than adults drinking then.
Cracking trip! I remember it well, and found photos recently in a box.

Hahaha

Teachers are unpaid for a school trip outside of term time. They are only paid for term time, its just split over the full year so they don't have a paycheck of 0 in August. So they are giving up their own free time and don't have to pay. The cost will either be paid by the students going, or will be free as some trips have a certain number of "free" spaces per number of children booked on.

I very much doubt that ‘all’ the teachers were pissed.

I can’t see that it matters who paid for the teachers’ ‘holiday’-what has got to do with anything?

Probably already been answered
But for trips the company offers a free adult spot for so many students

I always assumed the high cost was due to the teachers' costs being covered by parents. there are probably about 1 teacher for every 8 or so kids, so it would add about 12.5% on to the cost of each student. But then this would probably be negated by group booking discounts which you wouldn't get as a family. School trips are expensive because they have to cover EVERYTHING - all the food, insurance, travel, activities all day every day - in the price.