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 teach this age. I can guarantee that all children will have been regularly reminded/encouraged to keep their hats on and drink often. I can also guarantee that there will have been a number of kids on the trip (your dc in this case) who will have ignored the instruction.
Who told you that the staff did not do this?

And people wonder why teachers often aren't keen to run school trips any more.

If it really was the absurd situation that people seem to be implying where adults were pleading with a child who was resolutely refusing to drink then I think OP would have been informed of that - given that it's such an obvious health risk. As it was that nobody mentioned any stand offs, I would be much more inclined to say it was an oversight.

When we are on school trips the children are often in small groups so perhaps the adult charged to her group wasn't paying too much attention. It happens.

But however much MN are desperate to heap all the responsibility onto this 8 year old, they have forgotten that she is, in fact, a child in an extreme situation - many adults have fallen foul of not realising they need to drink enough in the last few days so why the vitriol for a child I don't know. It's just the MN way I guess.

The school has a duty of care - and if their risk assessment for a heat wave didn't include making sure all the children were taking regular water on and wearing hats (or specifically noting refusal), then they do indeed hold some responsibility.

I think you’re shoving the blame in the wrong direction.
Assume you reminded your daughter to drink plenty and to wear her hat? If so, did she ignore you?
The school would have reminded the children countless times and would 100% have had lunch/refreshment break/toilet stop.
This is on you and your daughter.
Oh and maybe if you think the school have been neglectful, maybe offer to be a parent helper next time because trust me, (I’ve worked in an infant school) school trips are a bloody nightmare!

Let’s just talk this over …

so as a parent would you be happy to not get any money paid for the trip refunded?

what should we do for the parents who DO want their child to still go but now also can’t get a refund?

It was free.

"The school has a duty of care - and if their risk assessment for a heat wave didn't include making sure all the children were taking regular water on and wearing hats (or specifically noting refusal), then they do indeed hold some responsibility."

They are 8 year olds not 3 year olds.

Do you not think the teachers would have wanted a drink? Or a rest? Or worn hats? Or put suncream on? Maybe not all of them but none of them?

Do you honestly think there are teachers who would walk along merrily meeting their own biological needs whilst not giving a second thought to the children?

School trips are really stressful for the staff. They'll have done a risk assessment of the trip, packed inhalers and epipens, liased with every additional member of staff who was going in order to meet the statutory child:staff ratios to make sure every single person knew exactly who and what they were responsible for at every stage of the day.

They'll have packed a first aid kit, a pack of blue paper towels and possibly a sick bowl or two.

Extra packed lunches for the children whose parents "didn't have time" to make them one.

They'll have head counted at several stages during the day.

They'll have stopped for lunch.

Children's safety and wellbeing is a priority in school. The sense of responsibility ramps up massively in a school trip because of all the external factors we can't predict or account or mitigate for.

Do you honestly think they'll have just failed to consider reminding children to wear hats or have a drink in a heat wave?

Honestly?

I wouldn’t say the school was neglectful - you as a parent are neglectful if you didn’t remind your child to make sure she drank and wore her hat and if you haven’t taught her how to meet her basic needs. I’d say it says more about you than the school.

The thing is, OP doesn’t know yet (or if she does she hasn’t said ) what the child/class was told or not. We’ve had these types of complaints before . 99% of the time the children didn’t listen, lied that they did have a drink, put a hat on and then off as soon as our backs were turned , denied they had a hat or “lost” it, or simply refused.
We also had complaints for keeping a child in the shade /asking them to take regular breaks in 30 degrees with no hat or suncream on, or no water bottle in school.

Either way, someone will complain.

A child became unwell in their care. That's definitely worth mentioning - and, yeah, reviewing their procedures. However you feel about what happened in this specific instance (and I think we all have a pretty good idea) to be informed of an incident like this and NOT change anything for next time, even under duress, is certainly neglectful.

She is 8, not 2! Teach her to be a little more responsible. There are thousands of 8 year olds in hot countries currently on summer camps or still in school and they are not all ill. She is way too old to need reminding to put a hat on or drink water that is in her own bag!

If my 8yo was that awkward for his grandmother, we would have a problem. It's old enough not to pull that shit for anyone.

Cancel the trip and they would have had parents Moaning !!

your DD carried a hat and 2 bottles of water for a 40 min walk, round the museum and back again, and then carried them home …
and you are concerned she didn’t use hat and have a drink ????
I’d be looking at my DD and saying - doh !!! Why you think you were carrying 2 water bottles ?????
I mean really ???
time for parenting !!
warm weather means you need to drink more, you aren’t breast fed / bottle fed now babe, so you need to use your own hands babe xxx

Well, yes.

If one child was made ill by the trip they should review their processes. It may be they find everything was tickety-boo, but you would normally re-evaluate if the existing processes didn't succeed in safeguarding all of the children on the trip.

I’m sorry your daughter is not well. But I really doubt the teachers didn’t encourage her to drink water or wear a hat. I think the thing to do is explain to her why she’s not feeling well and why drinking water and wearing a hat is important when it’s hot.Your DD is 8 years old and needs to understand why we need to do certain things and why we individually have to take steps to look after ourselves. I understand it’s upsetting to see your child ill but I really think there needs to be some resilience building and not immediately looking to someone else to blame. Sometimes things don’t go smoothly but it doesn’t have to be a big issue with finger pointing. I hope she feels better soon.

They are 8 year olds not 3 year olds.

Yep. And one of them became unwell under the schools duty of care. That's a problem, however much you'd like to blame the child entirely.

I know schools are very likely to have done those things, but I also think that a child clearly not wearing a hat should have been addressed just like any other unsafe behaviour should. We tend not to let kids hurt themselves even when they're being daft or naughty. She might have refused and that needs to be tackled differently to a distracted child not paying enough attention.

Either way, OP needs to speak to a teacher and report what the child is claiming and find out what happened.

We don't even know for sure if they became unwell from this walk. Unless she's diagnosed with heat exhaustion or something, for all we know it could be an unrelated bug.

I'd be giving my child a firm talking to about taking responsibility for themselves. 8 year olds aren't babies, they should be capable of drinking their own water when thirsty.

They might have booked a special schools session which can be hard to book and may have cost extra.
I do think at 8 they should know to drink. I’d be talking to your dc and working on her life skills, some parents just do everything.
I help on brownies trips (age 7-9) and we obviously factor in regular breaks and mealtimes and toilet stops and keep an eye. We check everyone has food and drink before setting off and will take spares or stop and buy them lunch if they haven’t got anything. We stop and say it’s time for a drink/toilet now. Some won’t listen or prefer to play with their friends. We can say are you having a drink ‘Katie’ but if they say I’m ok we can’t force them. In a big group it’s totally different to going with mum eg they may not be sat on a table with an adult. Last museum trip we ate sat on floor. I did a couple of walk arounds to check everyone ok and eating eg could open packets but I couldn’t tell you who drank.

You can tell a child to put their hat on again and again but many of them will just take them off when you look the other way. It’s exhausting. Please bear in mind also that the adults top priority in a forty minute walk is the safety of the children. Saying that, I don’t think the trip should have gone ahead. There was no money to lose. We used to live in the Middle East and in the first year we lived here, ds1’s class walked to the local nature reserve on the hottest day of the year. He got heat stroke and he was used to hot weather. I felt terrible as I should have known better. We would never have done that where we used to live.

One stubbed a toe on the walk … quick review risk assessment,
one got scared of the sirens that whipped past …quick, update the risk assessment
one got hot, it was a heat wave and didn’t touch the 2 water bottles they were carrying …. QUICK !! Update the risk assessment !!!

omg … how do teachers / youth leaders have the will to live ? Let alone provide these enrichment activities with parents and people in society like this ???

I despair 😩

My first child (now an adult) always needed to be told to drink and has always had a very poor sense of thirst, even now. Often complains of a headache and feeling dizzy and I ask when she last had a drink and she will be 'Oh, I haven't had a drink since yesterday, oops' so when my next child guzzled entire water bottles every time I gave her a full one I was worried they were diabetic. My next child was the same. They both always drink their whole water bottle at school with no prompting needed, another straight after school and for every activity they do.

My point is, most children don't need prompting to drink on a hot day, but there are a minority who do. If your child's teachers don't know that drinking is something that she needs prompting on then they won't know. And you may not know that other children don't need reminding so it makes sense you find it neglectful if you haven't had a child that prompts you to fill the water bottle instead of the other way round.

Sure, it could be - that's definitely one way to go. Could be COVID. Or a brain tumour. You just never know, do you?