Kids excluded from free trip

[AbiGabi]

Some of the kids at my dc’s school were selected to be allowed to go on an outward bound/activity trip where they had a great time staying in huts, having campfires, petting animals and doing some exciting and amusing team activities and sport.

The activity was free, and it wasn’t advertised to all parents in the year - only those who had been picked.

I only found out about it when I saw the school newsletter saying what a truly fabulous time the kids had had, and about 3 pages of photos showing them all havi nt fun. The school newsletter then banged on about how amazing it was that the school was to be able to provide this trip totally free to the kids who went, because the outward bound centre provided facilities for free so the school only had to pay for food and the coach to transport all the kids. Coaches are NOT cheap!

last month the school came begging for contributions to buy classroom equipment and I gave the school £50 not realising they were spaffing money on trips my dc wasn’t invited to!

Aibu to feel this is sharp practice by the school and unfair?

You could look up the school’s Pupil Premium strategy report on its website. It may state that an identified challenge for the school’s PP cohort is lack of access to life experiences and that part of the PP grant is to be spent on additional trips for those children.

It may be that the centre has received funding to offer places to a specific demographic.

Im 28, when I was in primary school I went on many trips with gifted and talented lol. Overnight trips sometimes too. I don't think that's a thing anymore is it?

I would absolutely ask the school to be more transparent about this and involve the governors.

Pupil premium or “disadvantaged” kids whatever, totally irrelevant. The problem is the secrecy about it beforehand then rubbing people’s noses in it.

Presumably it wasnt Manus and Georgie from motherland types enjoying a cheeky break before amanda takes them skiing in verbier... its kids who might otherwise never get a holiday....

I couldnt get excited about this personally

Your child wasn't excluded they simply didn't meet the criteria for this trip. The fact you think it's complaint worthy shows how privileged you and your child are.

I very strongly suspect that these kids were picked for specific reasons. Likely to be SEND, pupil premium, child in need etc or other barriers to education. The centre probably has criteria itself about who it will offer free places to.

The school probably didn’t publicise this because the kids themselves have a right to privacy and it would have been completely inappropriate to identify them clearly as part of the above groups.

I think you might benefit from using your imagination a bit TBH.

I am not a teacher but I also cannot stand parents who nit pick and criticise every last thing that the school does, making the teachers’ lives miserable, but leave their kids there. If you’re determined to think the worst of the school just remove your kids and send them somewhere else FFS.

Sadly you will need to get used to this post Covid every school trip was really over subscribed so it was literally a lottery as to who got to go on the popular trips. .

The governors will have been involved in this- most likely by reviewing the PPM strategy, the school budget and also monitoring things like PPM, SEND and behaviour.

The school are hardly being secretive- they publicised it in the newsletter! They didn’t publicise the criteria but that’s likely to be entirely appropriate with a good basis in safeguarding, data protection and confidentiality. Why should the OP need to know that Ben in yr 6 is pupil premium and Sophie in year 2 is a looked after child?

Don't the arguments about publicity apply equally to telling everyone about it afterwards? Like many of you, my first thought was that it's some specific pot of funding or similar- young carers, pupil premium, that type of thing. So anyone who is wondering may now be speculating about the kids on the photos.

Yes my child has been picked for a trip like this - as a young carer who wouldn't have opportunity to have a break away otherwise.
My child wouldn't want everyone knowing why they were picked...but are very grateful that they were.

Are they children from disadvantaged backgrounds perhaps ?
you could enquire politely from the school

The governors and local authority will be delighted that disadvantaged kids got such a lovely opportunity that might not otherwise had had, these kids will be in poverty or have send or be in foster care or all of the above

I’m glad your child got to go

Schools target funding and extracurricular experiences at the students they deem most likely to benefit. If the student is DA in some way it is highly likely that they will not have access to extracurricular experiences that your children benefit from routinely.

Also no trip is ever free. There is always a cost. This is not always passed on to the parents directly. It is to be hoped that your charitable, no strings attached gift might go to support some child less fortunate than yours. It is not an investment for which you should expect payback.

1.What were the criteria for selecting children to go on the "free" trip? and how were the parts of the trip not "free" funded?
2 What are donations to the school spent on specifically?
I don think your'e being unreasonable to ask the above questions .
Without answers to those questions it's difficult to know if you are being unreasonable.

Never heard of pupil premium, no?

How terrible for the oiks to get the perks!!

🙄

Given it was free for the kids, I suspect that the funds used were funds that HAD to be used on that group of kids. I imagine that either the school had some LA funding that had to be used on a specific group of kids (e.g. pupil premium, young carers, EHCP) or the organisation funding the trip, whether a government one or a private one, specified that the school had to spend the money on a trip for those kids. I'm not sure that telling students or parents that a free trip they don't qualify for will happen serves any purpose.

How could you begrudge these kids a break like this?I’ve worked with kids in the past who have never been out of their own city. Hardly ever been to the city centre. There’s likely to be a really tight criteria on who can go as many PPs have said. I think it’s quite mean-spirited to object to this. Each child is likely to have challenges in their background and what those challenges are isn’t really any business of the other parents.

You are not being unreasonable to question it.

You are being unreasonable to be so put out about it without finding out the facts about which children were selected and why. As others have said - SEN, young carers, children who are from disadvantaged backgrounds may have all been offered the opportunity.

It may also be behaviour based. DD has been on free school trips as a reward for being in the top 10% of children in terms of behaviour points.

You are being very very unreasonable for using the word 'spaffing' in relation to money donated to your child's school

Yes, you are being unreasonable. Two things:

Firstly, school funding isn't one massive pot that everything comes out of. It comes from different sources and can be ring fenced for specific pupils or activities. As PP have said, this one almost certainly came from a source designated for disadvantaged pupils.

Secondly, not every trip is avaliable to every pupil and that's life. My DS is going on a school football trip at Easter. Only boys who are at a certain playing level were invited because that is the level of the games they will be playing on the trip.

Personally, I don't begrudge kids in difficult home circumstances a free trip. I am also happy to contribute to school funds in other unrelated areas that are lacking.

Might it help you to reframe this and consider that rather than your children being excluded from this particular activity, it’s likely that a group of children who often feel socially excluded from things (eg not being able to afford the same activities, meals out, take aways even, access to sports and drama clubs, having the experience of being taken on foreign holidays, museum visits or theatre trips by their families as their friends do) have been given an opportunity here that might even out their life experience a tiny little bit? If, as many posters have suggested , this was funded by the pupil premium it is extra funding that schools get specifically for children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. It won’t have any impact whatsoever on what the school spends on your children as it is ring fenced funding - although sometimes schools do use it to pay for experiences in schools which all students can benefit from. Pupil premium funding is probably the best thing about school budgets in these very straightened times!

The problem with being transparent is it may end up being used against the kids.

Parents demand to know why
School says its for families on very low income/benefits / kids with echp / behaviour etc etc
Parents tell their kids
Their kids repeat it or even worse use it to bully the children who went on the trip

The mistake the school made here imo was publicising it. They should never have posted photos.

This. if they can't talk about criteria for who went then they should keep quiet about the trip and not splash it everywhere.

Yes YABU. The children who went on this trip weren’t selected at random. There would have been a very precise reason why each and every one was included.