Forest school only for 'select' children

[Eyelashesrgreat]

Ds in Y3 and his school have recently 'selected' children from his class to go to forest school. The children do this weekly whilst the other children have to stay at school and do work. The children (selected) get to wear their own clothes that day and have treats.

The school did the same thing last year and ds wasn't chosen then. Ds has had a really difficult time recently at school and would have loved to have been selected for this activity. I asked his teacher if all the children will eventually get their turn at the forest school but she has said only certain children can go. AIBU to think this is a bit unfair?

Teach them then. The problem is the adult’s warped idea of ‘fairness’ ie everyone being treated exactly the same rather than appropriate measures for those who need it.

There will still be a great number of things offered to others who need it and not to him.

If it's true that it's a treat for the teacher's favourite children then obviously that's wrong. However I don't think a school would be able to get away with doing that. When I was at school the "naughty" children were always taken on a school trip when important visitors were expected but those days are long gone now.

I would imagine the dc doing forest school fit into a certain criteria that means they are more likely to be disadvantaged. My dc and my dn are entitled to access certain activities heavily subsidised by children in need. My dn doesn't need these activities and she doesn't go anyway but my dc go and have benefitted hugely. However my dn is perfectly entitled to go, even though she is able to access all the mainstream activities that my dc can't.

My dc3 has had extra transition sessions in preparation for secondary school along with a small group from his class. This week we were invited to an extra event where we could meet current parents and have free cake. I don't know why the other children were invited to go and the other parents don't know why dc3 was invited. Hopefully none of the non invited parents were jealous.

There is some irony in complaining about disadvantaged children being given opportunities that may not be open to others while having a child who is advantaged so gets those opportunities!

There's a lot of naivety on this thread that schools couldn't possibly select people on seemingly random criteria, the school I previously worked in did this. Some teachers chose those who they knew would behave well, others chose students who had done excellent work that term, others pretty much pulled names out of a hat. Of course it's more likely those selected have been due to benefiting most from forest school for a variety of reasons, but it sounds like OPs son would as well. As a teacher I think these sort of things are great but it is hard when you have no funding, no staff, no amenities to be able to offer it to everyone- it can be a tricky balance. For most children I expect its not having to wear uniform that's one of the things they're most perturbed by and probably most easily solved. I was in the thrive group when I was at school and whilst I loved it I did find it quite embarrassing as I went up through KS2 and could tell some resented us for doing 'fun' stuff.

I think it could easily be names out of a hat, those that have done good work etc just as easily as it could be those who need a bit extra. The op feel that her DC is deserving, but doesn’t everyone.

"She will not. There is no secret about the percentage, therefore the number, of SEND children in any school."

The OP 'knows' no children on the trip have SEND and so she must 'know' which two children do have SEND.

Read my posts and you will see that none of these children have any issues!

I was feeling empathetic towards OP until that point - but how could you possibly know evrey childs personal circumstances?

In every school I've worked in Forest School has been a targeted intervention for children who need additional support. Not some selective club or evidence of favouritism as others are suggesting.

That doesn't necessarily mean the children in question have SEND, some may be on Child Protection Plans, or Child In Need Plans, they may be adopted or cared for under special guardianship orders, they may have Mental Health issues or be Young Carers, they may have experienced significant trauma such as abuse, domestic violence or bereavement, they may be children who have difficult home lives for a number of reasons. OP seems to have ruled this out on the basis that these children's families are "affluent" but a decent income is by no means a guarantee of a happy home life. The school will be party to information that OP knows nothing about, despite her insistence she would definitely know if something was wrong in these children's lives. As a DSL parents often tell me things about their children or what's going on at home that they have kept from their closest friends and family, maybe for years. You honestly never know.

@Walkaround i cut and paste so I’m not sure how the quotes are inaccurate but I’m sorry if I upset you in the way I responded to your posts. I think possibly best just to scroll on by as no good is coming from our interaction.

I think neverbeenskiing s post is right.
I attended Forrest school for a few years one morning a week as an adult. Children attend for a huge variety of reasons. There were Saturday groups but mostly it was children who needed a little more who came during the school week.

I’m adopted, I doubt many parents of the village we lived in knew I was adopted. My parents didn’t keep it a secret but didn’t announce it to the world either.

I assume there will be similar families who are in similar position nowadays. My parents would have hated being the subject of gossip at the school gate

I don’t think those days are long gone, I think a lot of last minute trips of days out take place when ofsted are expected in certain schools

The focus of the OP’s question is all on the other children and what she thinks her child is missing out on. She even focuses on the forest schools children “getting to wear their own clothes,” as though this is a reward, rather than a requirement because school uniform is inappropriate clothing for forest schools activities. But what is her child and the rest of the class doing who stay in school? What are they therefore not missing out on? It’s not as if they are doing nothing, after all. Are those not doing forest schools all doing the same thing, or are they divided into further different groups? And how is the school handling the government funded catch up tuition? Is this having an impact on which children are able to do what and when?

Maybe she could ask the school what the purpose of the forest school activities is, rather than assuming they are a nothing more than a treat for certain kids to make them feel good about themselves. Or she could ask what the school is doing to help her child with their anxiety issues, so bringing the focus back onto her own child, rather than on unfounded judgements about other people’s children and whether they deserve or need “treats” her child isn’t getting.

Even in a small village school, parents know far from everything about all the other children and their families. A few busybodies volunteering in school as a means of trying to indulge in a bit of competitive spywork and data breaching, or parents choosing to share carefully selected snippets of information about themselves and their children at school drop off and collection, or on social media, do not an accurate picture make. Parents often have an agenda when it comes to the information that they will and will not share with others and a whole host of horrors can be hidden behind closed doors and mouths. So, whilst I can see why the OP would like to understand why some children are doing forest schools and others are not, she is framing her thoughts in an unhelpfully jealous and closed-minded sort of way, intent more on finding unfairness and discrimination than on understanding the school’s actions.

It’s quite hard to organise a school trip when Ofsted only give a day’s notice - schools are normally told of the inspection between 10.30 and 2 the day before. You’d need to be doing frequent trips in the hope you’ve picked the right day for one of them - and the same problem kids would need to be going on all of them. And Ofsted would notice this strange pattern of trips and ask about it. Coach companies need a lot more notice than a few hours, risk assessments need completing, venues need to be expecting you, and volunteer helpers and staff normally require more notice to be available to assist. Organising a panicky day trip to get kids out of the way is asking for some kind of safeguarding disaster to happen while Ofsted is watching.

I don’t mean a large organised trip but very small groups of children or individual children being taken off say to the local park or being asked to stay at home. Don’t say it doesn’t happen because we all know it does. My friend was a teacher and it happened at her school where the most disruptive kids got taken out for the day. My sons primary school they just asked parents to kids disruptive kids at home when ofsted was in.

Ds has forest school sessions due to his autism, and quite frankly I’ve been sickened by some of the entitled replies to this thread.

I’d give ANYTHING for ds not to have the difficulties that he does, which are far more than those without additional needs.

I’d be fucking over the moon if he was able to sit and concentrate in class most of the time, and actually get a proper education.

Actually think things through before you moan that your perfectly able child is not getting a fun session during school hours. If your child thinks it’s unfair then maybe educate them about why equality doesn’t mean treating everyone exactly the same, especially now disabled children are mostly shoved into mainstream with little provision.

Well, if you have docile, non-complaining parents as a school, I guess you can ask some parents not to bring their kids in for a couple of days and not have them tell Ofsted all about it. If nothing else, it would show a school know their parents very well to trust them on that little facade, and also that the school has very few problem children to deal with (and those children aren’t much of a problem, anyway, if they can be disappeared successfully for two days without raising any suspicions). If you have a huge school, you can maybe spare a member of staff to take a few children to the park two days running without Ofsted noticing, or people complaining about schoolchildren mooching around the local park for no apparently good reason for two days, and nobody commenting on where Mr or Mrs X is, today. Or, if a child has a 1:1, it might be manageable, but if they need that much supervision, taking them to the park all day might be a bit tricky to manage. Basically, it may happen, like schools cheating in SATS and GCSEs and A-levels may indeed happen, but the industrial scale disappearance of all problem children from a school when Ofsted visit is not going to happen. And as parents are only too willing to complain to Ofsted about unfair forest schools treats or other perceived injustices when they visit, it would be a foolish school that does something like that these days without pre-prepared justification.

Again, it's a very affluent school so I'm not sure funding is an issue.

funding is the same for all schools in any LEA. The school I work in (in a very deprived part of the borough) gets the same funding per pupil as my DCs old school in a “naice” part of the borough with the lowest level of FSM in the whole area.

I'd ask why they can't all have a turn. Thats how our school do it. All children benefit. Weird to pick out a few.

That is horrifying! I work in a school office and we would NOT allow parents to “help out” in the office due to the nature of the information we hold. Are all these parents DBS checked etc.?

Checked parents might “help out” with class trips, hearing readers or if they have a particular skill (gardening etc.) but NEVER in the office.

Are they adopted? (Lots of adoptive parents keep that to themselves) Ever been in care (even for one night while parent was unwell - that counts). Ever been subject to a CP plan (I very much doubt that parents would tell you that). My DC had various interventions that not all others got - not because of his SEN, not because of financial reasons (we are what OP would probably call “affluent”) but because he has terrible social anxiety and was under CAMHS. We didn’t discuss it with other parents (children have a right to privacy) and he masked it well.

I do think you should remove your child though. The lack of professionalism from the SENCo and the lack of confidentiality in the office would be enough to make me remove my child.

I agree with you. When I was working in schools I probably worked with at least 100 over time. I've never come across parents helping in the school office. Quite honestly if any head was stupid enough to allow that situation I would expect other parents to be lining up to complain.

My son was made to go to Forest School for 3 years in a row and he really hated it. He got bitten by insects, it always seemed to rain and he had to sit in wet trousers all afternoon. He said they just keep making us look at horrible creepy crawlies all the time.

@bundlesofchocforme, My child is fostered by me so that might be why he keeps being chosen to go then. He has a terrible history before he came to us. He has been with us for 10 1/2 years now and still has a few trust issues with new people.