Teachers go on a school trip for a jolly

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I have read numerous threads about teachers recently regarding school trips. Some suggest it’s just a jolly, others are outraged that teachers get a free holiday and don’t have to pay for going on the trip also.

The teachers in the article below have just been acquitted of manslaughter and have been through 7 years of hell. It was an absolute tragedy for the child and family involved. Every single parents worst nightmare. However, next time you think teachers are off on a jolly, think again.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-63150259.amp

That’s interesting, @notimagain

It’s awful for everybody. Apparently Jessica would have been twenty next month

As a former TA, it certainly isn't a jolly! We all come home mentally drained from ensuring 30+ kids are safe and with us at all times! The noise on the coach from 30+ excited kids is horrendous! If you think coming home with a migraine is a jolly then you are mad!! Oh and I nearly forgot about having to deal with throwing up kids on the coach! Omg absolute hell!!!

Some of these posts

’absolute hell’ is your 12yo drowning

I have never considered they would be having a jolly. I can’t think for a minute they consider it a holiday.

That’s a tragic story

but I would never think the teachers were on a jolly. Whoever did think that is pretty stupid.

Saying about the time in lieu thing though, are teachers forced to go on the trips then?

Trips that are residential are usually in the holidays.

Day trips often go on into the evening / night. Things like a trip to a London theatre depend where you are starting from, you might set out at morning break to get to a matinee which means the children need to be fed, often stopping on the motorway.

A matinee often ends about 5pm and if you have another long drive you might need to feed the children again and not get back to school until 8 or 9pm.

I don't think a school can force teachers to go on a trip but if they don't then the children don't get the experience.

One school I was at the Drama teacher took the kids to London (from Birmingham) to see a show and was then planning a trip to New York - now that's dedication.

That's awful and I'm sure that the teachers involved were subject to prolonged enquiries and even accusations yet had it happened when one parent took their one child on a ski trip there would be nothing but sympathy, quite rightly. People talk of teachers being in loco parentis but the reality is that they are held to a much higher standard Every winter there are stories of children falling over in the playground and hurting themselves with the sad faces in the press and accusations that the one or two staff on duty were neglectful.

This thread is making me scared of sending my child away!

How could it take seven years to get to trial? I can't imagine those teachers and the lifeguard living with that hanging over their heads for so long. It just seems a dreadful, tragic accident.

So I was the 2nd member of staff on a week long school trip once, I didn't really have a teaching role (mgmt/admin) but was qualified in the area they were learning in and insurance wise I was a decent choice (other teaching team member was too sick to go).

Not sure how to word this politely and perhaps it was our school, who knows, but OMFG to anyone thinking that was a jolly!!! If that's your idea of a jolly I think you need some serious professional help.

It was like a constant unrelenting stream of people losing stuff, wandering off, losing more stuff, 380 questions about the same issue, homesickness, a few girls had a falling out, mobile phones being confiscated, somehow we didn't ever get much sleep, constant supervision and worry about were they ok, checking up all the time, always being motivating and caring (we like that but it's draining all day every day)...it ran very smoothly actually and I think we came across happy, helpful and unruffled but I needed about 48 hrs sleep when I got home!!!

Yep, never happened. Because - how could it?

@mam0918 that must've been an old wives tale because that's not how policy works in education, no-one would have ever had this approved. Maybe it was a recruitment trip?

The very suggestion that school trips (one day or residential) are a free holiday for teachers makes me so angry that I can't trust myself to say much more here.

One 9-day trip I did with 12-18 year olds took me 2 weeks to recover from. Up till the small hours then up again at 6 each day and except when on the loo, absolutely no downtime at all.

I doubt the parents or teachers in this case will recover either.

It is very frustrating when your profession is perceived to be under attack but I do think the anger and sympathy is misplaced. A twelve year old died, raging about what people say about teachers is not very comfortable reading.

Lol as a teacher and the wife of a teacher the idea that it's a holiday is hilarious. Maybe when we were kids- I do remember some pissed up teachers rolling out of a pub on our school trip to Paris in the 90s- but not now. I get away with less of these things because of my subject but DH has to do four field trips of 5 days each year. Hates it. On duty 24hrs a day, very little sleep, no extra pay. Hellscape.

It is very frustrating when your profession is perceived to be under attack but I do think the anger and sympathy is misplaced. A twelve year old died, raging about what people say about teachers is not very comfortable reading.

A child died. That's awful for any parent, they'll never get over it and it will be with them forever. There can be no greater pain. But that doesn't take away from the agony those 3 teachers went through. And for the courts to drag it out for 7 years is excusable. The teachers did nothing wrong but they will have had smears against their name while all this was hanging over their head. And it will always follow them around. And that's just professionally. Like any of us would, they will suffer regret, guilt and doubt always.
Eventually, teachers will just refuse to do these trips and it will be a loss to children.

I don’t disagree with that, @MarshaMelrose - just not sure it’s the thread for hee-hawing about how stressful school trips are either. Sorry, I don’t want to sound thread policey, just that complaining about the teachers lot here takes away from the very real agony the parents and teachers in this particular trip went through. And the girl herself, who should be a young adult now.

It's an obvious accident now we've heard the details...

I have no idea why timescale in this case but the authorities here in France tend to look very hard at anything that could potentially be regarded as homicide, voluntarily or not....

We had a case locally, RTA, pedestrian killed, where it was fairly obvious to all witnesses that the victim had run out into the street from between two parked cars and the driver never had a chance of stopping in time.

Nevertheless the driver was charged with involuntary homicide...fortunately the investigating magistrate was able to kick the case into touch very quickly on the basis of all the witness reports and it went no further but it was a horrible time for the driver....

How awful, @notimagain. To have to live with having caused the,death is awful but for people to blame you for it, must be unbelievable stressful. I wouldn't criticise the French judicial system, because I know it's very different from ours. And it's not like ours is better! But they had 5 years before covid hit and they still couldn't get it to court. I just don't get it. Its like the met's investigation into Carl's Beech's fantasies. How can it take years to investigate any complaint? What about the lives and reputations that are ruined in the meantime. In Beechs case, people died knowing the accusations were being considered true.
My uncle had a business and an employee died. The police investigated and they were cleared. Health and safety investigated and they asked the police prosecute. Police reinvestigated and cps still said there was no case to prosecute. So H&S prosecuted. Lost. So they appealed. Lost. And still they hounded my uncle. It was nearly 12 years til H&S left them alone. He went from an outgoing fun person to someone who didn't want to leave the house.
All prosecutions should be investigated and actioned in a timely fashion otherwise it just seems immoral.

As the accident happen in France and therefore falls under the French Laws the school are not permitted to comment on it at all. I realise that seems strange but French law is very different and neither the school or DofE were allowed to make any comment/apology/explaination at all - it seems totally inhumane to the casual observer but it is the reality of the law.
The articles is the press don't really make any effort to explain the differences between what would happen in the UK (an inquest most likely) and the French system.
In this case, a French judge reviews all the evidence and then decides how and when the case should be heard. That judge then moved jobs and a new judge was appointed (this took over a year), then factor in Covid and the courts backlog that created and that goes someway to explaining why it took 7 years to be heard.

My heart goes out to all those involved.

It's awful. My DM dreaded it as did all the other teachers....

@SaffyWall

Thanks for the background to the timescale.