To think this school trip is badly misjudged

[MaoamAddict]

Have name changed as the situation is very specific. DC is in year 1 at a lovely school, but we've just received notice that a school 'trip' will be taking place to a local food bank. The school have asked for us to pay for transport (not a problem) and have gone on to say that the children will be packing food, handing out food parcels and seeing behind the scenes of a large local food bank.

We live in a middle class area with a minimal number of DC on pupil premium but there are certainly families within school community who are on the breadline and may have used food banks. I think it's fucking crass for the school to be using a food bank as a spectacle?! We donate weekly financially and feminine hygiene products, but the school don't seem to have thought this through at all, what if one or more of the DC in the 3 year 1 classes have visited that food bank?! How do I word these concerns without being 'that' parent? Or AIBU and overthinking?

The 'trip' is designed to fit in with a superhero topic at school - the food bank volunteers are being framed as the superheroes (tenuous link?) the food bank volunteers are amazing, but this feels wrong on so many levels.

I agree.
Perhaps should should state exactly that to the school and suggest the trip takes place when it’s not actually handing out food.

It could be very embarrassing as you say.

What do you mean by indulged

What does ethnicity have to do with it? Huge assumption made by you there about the people using food banks. Statistically as the UK’s population is hugely white, surely most of the food bank users reflect that?

It's disgusting that in a country in which so many people are wealthy that anyone needs to use food banks. There will always be a need for financial fixes when short term finances go awry and it's good to reduce food waste, but we should be aiming to have no need of food banks
Obviously it would be entirely inappropriate for any user's interaction with a food bank to include an observer child. Surely no-one is so lacking of empathy not to realise that when they think about it.

It's wick but not for the reasons you have stated. Food banks are a shit sign of a broken society, they didn't exist when I was a kid and I wouldn't be socialising my kids to think of them as normal or good now. All the 'heroes' rhetoric is just typical tory clap-for-nurses shite that is meant to disguise the underlying ideology of contempt for workers and the poor. Hence why you have dimwit middle class schools at this and not normal schools. So I wouldn't want my kid subjected to the propaganda that food banks are anything else than a fucking disgrace and a stain on society's conscience. Seize the means of production and all that. You however seem to be more worried the kids might catch rabies from the 'service users'. Off with your heads

@Tessisme @SleepingStandingUp ah you're right, I was reading between the lines too much when the OP wrote "middle class area with a minimal number of DC on pupil premium".

Still, saviourism (ethnicity based or otherwise), i.e. the concept that some groups of people are saviours and other groups of people need saving, is not a great thing to instil.

Op I'm with you I don't think it's appropriate for a school trip for many reasons, most of which are already listed.

I imagine even if parents of 5/6 year olds do use the food bank, their kids might not actually know that. Many will want to keep their financial worries to themselves.

If people want 5/6 year olds to entertain get them singing 3 or 4 songs in the nearest nursing home, or old people's day centre.

I think you have a point there but how else do young children to really understand that this is a problem is society and the people using these services are people like your own mum and dad, not an alien species. As I said a friend of mine works in this field and I know they do engage with primary schools across the breadth of society. All children need to be educated about helping others no matter what background they are from. I can’t agree with you re the saviourism. That’s a very polarised view of community assistance. Most food banks are founded within their own communities by the community

I agree with you op. It's a potentially very uncomfortable situation for the people coming in to the food bank 'Look at us being CHARITABLE and LEARNING ABOUT THE POOR'. It's strangely othering.

I think the problem is that you think it’s shameful to the people needing the foodbank. Kids don’t have a feeling of shame about something unless they get the impression that others expect them to feel shame.

Superheroes - go the the fire station?

ROFL at the idea of a farm. My dd would definitely ask what's heroic about 'making money from the suffering of animals'.

I have haunting memories of school trips with wobbly rafts that made my arse sopping wet
and passing out at the sight of a five million foot abseiling tower. Give me a spot of parcel packing any day!

I think it's a great idea.

I do think an older age group will get more out of it but other than that, I don't see any other things that might be a problem as long as the kids are supervised well.

Absolutely that. It would be appalling if they are going to be handing out the parcels like baby Lady Bountifuls.

I'm a registered referer to Trussell Trust food banks. My organisation's service users are simultaneously very grateful for help from them, and horribly embarrassed and uncomfortable about going to them. Often it will take me a long time to convince them to go.

For those people to turn up to find that they're being treated like zoo animals, or worse, that teachers and TAs from their child's school are there, would be horrific. They'd either turn and run or never go back.

I think it sounds great

I suspect they'd be a LOT less happy to see the adults accompanying the children. Especially if their own children attend that school.

It is so important our children learn about inequalities, OP.
I get you're saya child may have used a food bank and that would be unfortunate, but volunteers are heroes/heroines imo.
The fact that there's a food bank in your area is what is shocking to me. We're a G8 country and people don't have enough money for food...

I think it is horrendous for any child who has went to a foodbank as a user, to the attend on a school trip.

Why? The users already know they use the food bank. You are putting an element of shame on using a foodbank.

I grew up in a very poor family. I had a sense of shame of that poverty because people outside my family made it clear that poverty is shameful. Kids absolutely feel this.

OP has said that the parents have been clearly told by the school staff that the children will hands of the parcels to the service users.

It's absolutely appalling, and both the school and the food bank are behaving shockingly if that goes ahead.

Add I said, I work for an organisation that supports vulnerable people, and I refer them to food banks. Our absolute priority is treating our service users with respect, protecting their dignity, and with a background of confidentiality at all times.

I world be horrified if I referred someone who turned up to find, not just a gaggle of children, but their teachers, TAs, and possibly parents handing out their parcels. Food banks are usually very local, so among those adults could be those who know them and their children. It's absolutely not on.

I do understand this but it seems the idea here to demystify the idea of foodbank. Not normalising them. A lot of shame arises from secrecy and having to feel that it’s something you have to keep under wraps. I do understand what it’s like to feel like that. Light on the subject can only be a good thing

I'm not putting an element of shame on using foodbanks at all. But some of our service users DO feel shame, or are mortified to find themselves needing this help. It's hard enough for them to turn up there with their voucher at the best of times. But if they turned up to find teachers and TAs from their children's school (their children not being in the year group on the trip, so they wouldn't know about it) they'd be very distressed and embarrassed and I'd never get them back there again.

How can you not see that?

Believe me, most service users DO NOT want your spotlight shone on them as individuals, for the benefit of society in general. You do not get to decide that they should be open about attending, when they want to maintain their own privacy and dignity. You just don't.

This thread is making me really angry. I need to walk away, I think.

I think its a good thing. Someone upthread commented that its poverty tourism. Well yes it is really.
But how is it any worse than visiting stately homes and shoving all that richness and grandeur under poverty kids noses. (I was going to say that actually kids dont go on trips to stately homes but then I remembered a few mine have been on so.......!)

Its life. There are rich people and poor people. Good to see both sides. (although not when the clients are there). Appalling that food banks exist but.......... Tories exist and people vote for them so........ here we are.