Child unwell on school trip

[G172125]

My son is currently on a school trip to Disneyland. He started to feel unwell with stomach pains and vomiting. He got split up from he’s group and was left alone in Disney village. I managed to get hold of the teacher to let her know and she said she would go to him. My son then text me and said she said she Can’t go to him because she is queuing for a ride. Nobody bothered to go look for my son for two hours. Aibu to make a complaint about this and take it further?

When we went to NY, one child wasn't feeling well so me and her sat at the pier whilst everyone else went to Staten Island and back.
The child should have been prioritised over a ride. Or at least someone else go and see the boy if the teacher was helping a disabled student on the ride.
Would t have happened on my watch!

I'm slightly confused with your updates about the teacher going to look for him but also queuing etc but regarding the two hours, it's about a 15 min walk across the park to Disney Village iirc and then some tracking down time providing he hadn't moved, also they're an hour ahead of us so I'm wondering if there was some confusion about how long it took eg you looked at your phone when he called at say, 1.00 and he said later that he was on his own until 3.00 but really it was only an hour? Just trying to make you feel better!

A 16 year old vomited in a very large theme park and became separated from his friends, made the teachers aware of his location through his mother, and was located within 2 hours. He has seemingly recovered, and has not needed medical care.

What's the problem here? It can take the best part of 45 minutes to walk from one end of the park to the other. He vomited. He didn't have a life threatening illness.

1. It's Disneyland. They have an advanced system for helping sick visitors. All he had to do was find a park staff who could contact the infirmary, or ask anyone working in a shop or restaurant. Heatstroke, motion sickness, too much candy...dealing with vomiting guests is probably one of the most common medical problems there. They definitely have a place to take anyone taken ill and he would be able to rest in peace, without needing a teacher to bring him back to the hotel. Did you tell him this over the phone?

2. Where were his friends? At 16, teens are perfectly capable of helping and supporting each other. Getting water, contacting the park first aid etc. And they all have mobile phones too so there's no excuse why any of them didn't chase up the teachers, get in touch with the Disneyland infirmary or whatnot.

3. I recall many overseas school trips before the age of smartphones (ages 14-17). Amusement parks were the easiest ones because they were in a safe, enclosed environment during daytime. With other trips, we were literally left to our own devices with host families. I remember lots of friends getting sick, some as the result of smoking weed or drinking which was enabled by the students who hosted us. One girl got bad food poisoning after everyone went for a movie and then to dinner at a dodgy Chinese place. The teachers were barely present at all during those times, and had absolutely no way to contact each student let alone their parents.

Hopefully not Norovirus or the entire group will get it.

I understand that first time out of the Country if he can't speak the language[?] might be a bit uncomfortable, and to be vomiting away from home isn't pleasant, but these things happen.

Hope he is feeling better, @G172125 .

@G172125

“The teachers have got to go on a trip to Disneyland. “

not sure why you’re saying that like it’s some big treat? Most adults would cringe at the idea of going to Disneyland because well you know they’re adults. And also they’re working.

I feel like I'm the only one who disagrees with other posters. 16 or not, the teacher has a safeguarding duty to protect your son whilst on the trip, especially if he is unwell- who knows what it could turn into in the least scary way possible, it is important for someone to check on him. I'm sure he probably wants to stay lowkey and not have to walk around the park to find the teacher. The teacher should be concerned with his welfare.

You don't know this for sure. You know your distressed son's version of this.

I too thought Disneyland sounded a ''safe'' place to be unwell at.

We went on a school trip to Belgium aged 11, and were basically given free rein on certain afternoons-
The teachers were settled on the windy beach behind a windbreak, and we amused ourselves -including riding horses along the long sandy beach by ourselves...No hard hats, just pay the horse owner, and the horses knew where they were going, bless them.

Nowadays that sort of thing probably wouldn't be allowed because of risk assessments.

One of the girls was sick, but was just left alone at the old hotel with a student teacher.

Did he think Disney was more important than GCSEs?

Why are people so judgmental? A few days off revision is not exactly terrible.

OP I have taken lots of students on trips abroad & in UK & would definitely go and find him to make sure he was OK. I think 16 is still young if he's not been to Disney before. I imagine he would be overwhelmed in a large theme park. The other kids would want to go on rides & that's why they went off without him.

It's definitely not a holiday for a teacher - but yes it would be free.

I also think there should be a meet up - usually a staff member would sit in a cafe centrally. I hope he gets back OK.

RedHelenB
You've made you mind up then.

No just stating the facts

Facts as you believe them, not know them.

After he was found he fell asleep in a cafe till the park closed and they went back to the hotel.

Had he been drinking by any chance?

@EasterGrinch2024

For those saying he is old enough to look after himself, teachers are in loco parentis in this situation so would you leave your child if they called you distressed and sick when you were within 15 mins or so of them?

Agreed - we are in loco parentis & I would be surprised if parents on the thread would refuse to go and find their child who had been sick. If anything I always take more care than necessary as I would like to think parents feel confident sending their children away with us.

16 !!!!!!
FFS !!!!!

Some teachers are however lazy sadists who view school trips as a free holiday.
It seems unlikely that all nine of the teachers who were apparently present were lazy sadists. I think OP you need to check with school and make sure you've got the facts straight. It all seems very off somehow.

I’m really confused, why didn’t someone take him back to the hotel in a taxi if needs be - why did he fall asleep in the park?? That suggests he was made to wait whilst ill until the coach took them back at the normal time?

the best you can do is ask for the risk assessment and procedures for such instances and then make a judgment if their approach was reasonable or not.

ive not been to DLP in years but is the village not separate from the main park? If so it could have taken them an age to get to him factoring innit would be busy etc.

When you signed up for the trip, there’s usually a form to say whether you’re happy for your child to go off on their own with a small group of friends or, if they must stay with the teacher. The teacher must stay with the group who chose to stay with her/him. Your child needs to make their way back to them - the teacher cannot leave them alone. At 16, this is not unreasonable. Some kids go to work at that age.

My dd is also year 11. Regarding the comments, I think there is a massive difference between age 16 and in year 11 and age 16 and in year 12. As there are 9 teachers, one of them should have attended to your ds. I would be following this up to understand the school’s side of the story. It’s pretty rubbish your ds’s friends left him and that would be something I’d like to ask the school as well. If the teachers genuinely didn’t bother to attend to your ds, they don’t get to take the moral high ground with the kids, who at the end of the day are only 15 or 16!

I’m astonished by the lack of compassion, indeed common sense, shown on the thread and it proves to me why I’d never allow my child to go on one of these excursions as I see the modern parent/teacher can’t be trusted to do the basic and needful.

A mother has entrusted her son to the school and as such would expect that he be taken care of. I don’t care that he’s 16. He is still a minor otherwise the mother would just allow him to go alone without the added protection of teachers and other staff who were meant to be taking care of him.

To the posters who have been critical, I bet you’d all change your tune if it had been your child!

Illnesses can go from 1-100 very quickly but most here don’t have a bloody idea! I’m truly appalled.

At 16 in year 11 I had three PT jobs and a boyfriend in a different town I had to travel by national express coach to see when I had free time. Many times I was unwell or hungover or whatever and had to deal with getting somewhere safe/to recover. The idea that a 16 yo is so incapable they cannot take care of themselves when a little unwell is scary to me, what kind of adults are we raising?

Your son sounds a proper simp. Why's he phoning his mummy to say hes unwell.. why isnt he using the contact number of the teacher in charge (yes he will have had that number)

I really don’t understand the need to stick the boot in to an unknown 16 year old boy who has done nothing much wrong other than get ill on his own away from home. Is he just an easy target?

I don’t understand why you’re on here - if he’s in agony from abdominal pain he needs to go to hospital.

The teachers have got to go on a trip to Disneyland. There is no option to get back to the hotel it’s a coach drive away.

You mention that this is his first time ever in a foreign country? Sorry to be presumptuous but it's quite unusual to be aged 16 and never been taken on a holiday abroad. Maybe there's a general lack of preparation or knowledge of how to effectively prepare your kids on a trip overseas.

There are several obvious steps that could have helped the situation that were within your control, and not related to the competence or incompetence of the teachers. The outcome of him being ill and "lost" for 2 hours was not inevitable.

1. Tell him to find the park infirmary asap. Everyone speaks english there and he would have been treated for free and allowed to rest.

2. He needs an emergency fund (€50-100) which is only to be used for emergencies. This could have qualified as an emergency depending on how poorly he was feeling and how little help he was receiving from staff. He could have taken a cab back to the hotel instead of just suffering for 2 hours in the park.

3. He clearly had direct contact to his teacher as well? Since he told you nobody came to look for him because they were queuing for the ride. A queue ride doesn't take 2 hours so what happened during that time? If he was well enough to walk he could have found out where the teacher was and went there himself. Or repeatedly called/texted until they came to find him. Or asked friends to chase down the teachers for him.

4. Sounds like communication broke down somewhere in those two hours. Was he in the same place all the time? Did he feel better and decide to walk around again? Did he not bother ringing the teacher again, upon which they would obviously assume it's no longer an urgent issue? It seems unfair to blame the staff for not coming to look for him when it's virtually impossible to "find" someone in a place the size of Disneyland.

Poor kid I’d hate to be sat around in a theme park with vomiting and diarrhoea! You’re not unreasonable, the teachers are there to look after the kids she should have gone to him immediately and gone back to the hotel in a taxi with him.

The whole thing sounds a bit shit. Surely the teachers are there to look after the kids if something goes wrong (like a child is ill) otherwise why not just pack them off on their own on a coach for a couple of days without any adults at all?!