To think the school were neglectful?

[frogshead]

Dd (8) went on a school trip yesterday in a heat wave, 40 minutes each way walking to and from a museum.

I sent dd with 2 bottles of water and she didn’t drink either of them and a hat which she didn’t wear.
She arrived home with a headache and has had diarrhoea since.

I know this was partly down to her but she is juts a child and nobody encouraged her to wear her hat or drink anything all day.
I applied sun cream before she went so at least she had that.

She’s 8, not 2. Old enough to take responsibility for drinking on a hot day.

I’m sure they were encouraged to drink water, at 8 the teacher can’t go around and physically hold the bottle to each kids mouth throughout the day.

I would work on getting her to take responsibly, hopefully now she knows how horrible it feels to be dehydrated she’ll drink more.

I went on a school trip with the same age children yesterday - the teachers told the kids to make sure they brought a water bottle and a hat, and a spare water bottle was found for the child who didn't have one.

But otherwise individual children's water intake or hat wearing wasn't monitored.

I think that's reasonable for 8 year olds TBH. Reception age children maybe not.

As is often the case, the first response nailed it.

unless there’s about to be a major drip feed about special needs, 8 is plenty old enough to know she needs to drink and wear a hat in this weather

It’s reasonable to expect an 8 year old to know to drink water.

Though our school in very strict on hats on trips and in hot weather, even y6 will be told off for taking it off for a second and have to borrow one if they forget.

how do you know she didn’t wear it on the walk or wasn’t at least told to ?

Why didn’t she drink? Could she physically open/use the bottles? Didn’t she drink any of it with lunch? Any SEN?

An 8yo should know when they’re thirsty and have a drink. It’s not like having a toddler.

Shes old enough at 8 to know she needs to drink water on a hot day. Not the schools fault. Hopefully your daughter will learn from this and drink in future.

I wouldn’t have taken my daughter on a 40 minute each way walk in this heat yesterday so if someone else is going to I expect them to make sure she’s safe.
If I’d been with her I’d have made sure she was.

What were the teachers supposed to do, physically force her to drink? They likely reminded them that they needed to drink but at 8, they are old enough to drink if thirsty.

You wouldn't have had 20+ other children with you as well though.

I'm sure the staff didn't want to do it either but maybe cancelling the trip would have meant losing money?

I would be amazed if the staff were not encouraging children to wear their hats and drink water all day long to be honest. Maybe on Monday it mention to the teacher/ask them about it and see what they say?

In the meantime plenty of fluids for your DD and a chat about taking responsibility for herself now she's a bit older.

I don’t think they should have done the trip; I was sweating just on the 15 minute school run. I’d expect them to be really on top of hats and water

The parent was neglectful for not equipping the 8 year old with life skills (such as you need to drink water/ wear a hat in hot weather.) Have you told her she feels the way she feels because she didn’t wear hat / drink water? She will know not to do the same next time. You need to teach her how to do life instead of expecting teachers to take over your role, you’ll never raise independent children with this method.

You're making a lot of assumptions about the lack of care from the staff and resolving your child of any responsibility. How do you know they didn't constantly ask her to wear the hat and remind them to drink water throughout the day.

Exactly what did you expect them to do when she so obviously didn't comply with their requests, force her to drink and hold the hat on her head??

So it was staffed at a 1-1 level? A member of staff for each child? If so then the teacher was neglectful but I doubt that’s what you meant.

Positives can come from lots of situations. If you want to blame the school then thats a negative approach and will encourage your child to rely on others to make basic choices for her.

Alternatively you comfort your child. Point out how stupid they were and how dangerous the sun can be for their health if not treated with respect.

You can lead a horse to water.......

The world does not stop in hot countries normal life goes on a i presume why does everyone seem to go into panic mode when it reaches 10C, at that age children should be able to know that they need to do

They might have lost the money but surely a museum trip isn’t going to cost a lot and parents would support that; ours cancelled a trip due to the snow last winter and every parent supported that. The weather’s been forecast to be hot for a while so they had time to make plans

She's 8- old enough to listen to instructions. Hopefully she's learnt a lesson.

Snowflake society…

if you are taking a group of kids to walk in the blazing sun you need to schedule short stops in shade for water breaks. No, of course, teachers can’t physically watch every child drink but they do have to create the expectation and the space.

peoplE say she is 8, she is old enough to remember to drink water. Adults don’t even always remember when they are distracted.

We tell our kids at school to have a drink . Remind them regularly. But you can't force them.

I bet they were regularly encouraged to and she chose not to. Anyway, if she had a drink before she went and then plenty when she got home she should be fine in no time. The walk wasn't all that long really and she'll have been cool in the museum.

She was safe. She just didn’t drink enough water.

this is what I would have done;
I would have explained to my dd that her head hurts because she didn’t drink enough water or wear a hat. If she was interested I might have even explained the science. She would then remember to drink more water and wear a hat in the future.

this is what I wouldn’t have done…
blamed someone else rather than doing a tiny bit of parenting of my own child.