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.

I think it’s responsible as an adult to remind kids to drink water in a heatwave. I would always do so instinctively. I would be surprised if the teachers didn’t though.

The museum is free and there was no coach fee as they walked. They wouldn’t have lost anything by not going.

But I’d be surprised if they didn’t actually do this. I imagine they did but your daughter didn’t take as much as she needed.

OP, when you volunteer to help on these trips, then you can complain. As you say, you weren't there so you don't know how often your daughter heard the words "Make sure you have a drink, kids" and "Put your hat on, daughter of frogs head". It's up to you, as mother of an 8 year old, to make sure your child knows that she should wear a hat when out in the sun for any length of time and to drink regularly. Would you really have cancelled the trip, disappointed the children and wasted all that money because it was a hot day? I think, if you're honest, you wouldn't have.
And 40 minutes is a very precise length of time - who told you that? Once again, you weren't there.

This - and they get worse as teens! This week we our trips and the amount of teens in jeans, hoodies, long sleeved tops was unbelievable. 33 degrees at Alton Towers and they’re dressed for winter despite being told to dress appropriate to the weather!

Instead of looking to blame someone else, use it as a learning opportunity with your daughter. She should be able to keep herself hydrated by age 8, and should have known to wear her hat in the sun.

But they can't force her and it's not hot enough that short walks need to be cancelled. In fact a short walk and then a cool museum sounds better than being stuck in a classroom on a warm day. Honestly, the drama over a short heatwave is incredible. Just tell her she must do as she's asked and drink her drink next time.

Exactly. At 8 a child is old enough to follow the advice of their parent, drink their water and wear a hat. This perpetual blaming of teachers who had many children to look after and will no doubt have issued appropriate advice is tiresome.

How do you expect the staff to make her drink?

Aarghhhhhh!!!! This is the 2nd post I’ve seen with ridiculous expectations of teachers! My son is autistic and younger than your daughter and I still wouldn’t expect that they enforce this. Other than shouting ‘make sure you’re drinking your water guys’ ‘keep your hats on’ ‘stop running, it’s too hot’ what do you think a teacher can do? Between safely navigating roads, enforcing toilet visits and head counting every 5 minutes there’s little time to check each and every child has had adequate fluid consumption! There’s no wonder kids hate us teachers, parents clearly do too. Maybe next time you’re at work doing your actual job you should be held responsible for making sure everyone else in the office is adequately hydrated and see how easy that is. Of course you still have to do the job of actually teaching so the teacher and TA should spend all day checking water bottles rather than talking about why they’re there and pointing out interesting facts, I assume it’s an educational trip so you have to actually talk about the art etc. Oh and don’t forget the photos that parents have come to expect and complain about if their own child doesn’t appear in at least one. We need brooms up our arses! Tell your child that she is ridiculous for not drinking her water and leave the poor teacher alone - neglectful my arse!

My daughter is in Reception and comes home every day with a full water bottle, I struggle to get her to drink enough and that's without 20-30 other kids to look after. I don't blame the teachers at all and she's only 5.

Good learning opportunity for your daughter, this is what happens when you don't drink enough.

I find it almost unbelievable that non of the staff, at any point in the day said ‘right time for a drink’, or encouraged them to put on hats.
Did they not have a lunch break? How can she possibly have managed to go the whole day without realising that she was thirsty? An NT 8 year old is able to be responsible for their own hydration. My year 3 class do nothing but ask for their water bottles. At the very least she would have been surrounded by a load of her friends who where all taking regular drinks.

This!
I'm on a UK break with 17yo DS. Yesterday was 31°. He was wearing jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt, and a hoodie.

I told him he wouldn't need that hoodie on - but, "just in case".

Just in case of what? A freak snowstorm?

Daft thing is, he'll happily head out in the winter without a warm coat on.

You need to talk to your daughter and find out why she didn’t wear her hat or have a drink on a very hot day. Explain that is why her head hurts.

The school can’t police the drinking of 30 8 year olds. They have water, the assumption at that age is if they are thirsty they will drink. Why didn’t your daughter? She’ll know for next time.

Of course they did. I must have heard every teacher in school shouting for the kids to get a drink yesterday just at playtime. Even if you had a very poor teacher that didn’t, the chances of having a shit TA as well are almost zero! Most are parents / grandparents and actually care about the kids but people just believe whatever shite their kids tell them to enable them to be angry at teachers and blame them for everything!

Surely you had to give consent for the school to take your child on the trip? If you didn't want them to go you should have withdrawn that consent.

You must live somewhere lovely. Where I live, the schools I work in and the school my children go to the parents would be kicking off, demanding refunds (which the school wouldn’t be able to get from the venue) and slagging school off on social media.

I firmly tell my students to drink water. I remind them constantly in this heat. As do all the teachers and staff. Constantly.

We also put water stations out at lunctime for children who 'forget' to take their bottles outside.

And we ask their parents to suncream them before they come in and send hats.

You can only do so much.

Are you sure they didn't re-fill water bottles during the day? We are refilling them constantly at school and on trips. We were at a museum last week with a couple of classes and we were able to refill water bottles while we were there.

I'm surprised they did the trip with a long walk in such hot weather. Ours were kept in at lunch due to the heat but I suppose that is the middle of the day (although think it's often hotter late afternoon these days).

At 8 she is old enough to understand that she needs to wear her hat and drink water. The teachers can't possibly go round 30 children individually and insist that they need to take a drink. One of mine got heatstroke at school aged 5 and she knew after that the importance of drinking in hot weather.
As to those suggesting that the trip should have been cancelled, other countries manage just fine to carry on as normal in weather like the UK is currently experiencing.

Oh, and my 'favourite' are the whingy parents who say their children won't drink water so they need to bring squash or juice.

Yes, they do drink water. Constantly. As evidenced by them constantly leaving their seats year round to drink water at the back of the room. We keep bottles under seats during heat waves and they treat them like baby bottles half the time, constantly sipping on them. 😂

So, no. Don't send in squash. It attracts the wasps to them this time of year, too.

I would expect teachers to ask a child to put their hat on if they were carrying it instead of wearing it, however they might not have known she even had one if she put it in her bag. Not all parents would have provided a hat sadly.

I would also expect there to be a breaktime or lunchtime where all children were encouraged to eat something and drink water as a group, but not expect the teachers to check individual water bottles. My son is 8 and at the very least he would have wanted a drink with food.

Ex secondary teacher.

on sports days and outside trips when it is warm we are constantly telling them to put hats on, keep hats on, drink water and keep in the shade.

it’s literally pretty much all you do all day.

the teachers will have been telling them to wear hats, drink water etc.

they won’t have listened.

and don’t get me started on unsuitable clothing!

My NT 6 & ND 7 year old both are capable of hydrating themselves when necessary too. Some days my eldest comes home with a full water bottle I never blame the teachers I just remind him he has to drink or his head will hurt.

Why did you send her to school then? If you took a child out it would be 1 or 2 children, not 30 or 60 (depending on how many classes went). You could have kept her off school and explained you thought it wasn't a good choice to do a long walk in the heat.

She's a young, fit, healthy child. My DC went on a school lake trip this week. Younger than yours. In this heat. I knew they might not drink enough, but one hot day without enough water wouldn't and didn't kill them.