To think the school has unrealistic expectations?

[Anonandonandonandon]

An off-site activity has been pencilled in for 4 days in a row. The venue is about a 15 minute drive away from the school, more at peak times. Public transport exists but is not frequent and will add considerable time.

The children are to be split into 2 sessions. For one, the children need to be dropped at the venue every day by their parents. For the other, they need to be picked up from the venue every day.

We have to confirm and pay for the activity before they will tell us which group our child has been assigned to and what the actual pick up and drop off times are. There is no flex on this at all because it all depends on numbers apparently.

Add to this that some children have siblings attending another off site activity on the same day, again with parents required to collect from a (different) off site venue.

I am left with absolutely no idea whether we can accomodate this around work / the sibling and/or make arrangements with other parents who are equally in the dark. So I can either say no outright, leaving a very disappointed child, or say yes and potentially lose my money if it turns out we can’t do make it work.

I love that the school is trying to provide enrichment, but really feeling the parental guilt with this one!

State school.

AIBU?

I think everyone needs to say that they cannot do the activity. What is it that it goes over 4 days and is only run in sessions?
I have not heard of a primary school doing anything this complex during the school day where parents are expected to sort transport!

I wonder if this is done in place of a residential? Sounds like the same sort of activities potentially. I wonder if people have previously moaned at the cost of a residential so this is being offered instead.

Parent drop off and collection will all have been done to avoid having to book coaches which cost a fortune (even more so if the journey time falls around school pick up/drop off time). But it is highly inconvenient for parents who work, particularly those with no flexibility.

schools can’t win…people don’t want to pay for residentials, people don’t want to pay for coaches and people don’t want to drop their kids off at different locations.

Surely the response to that is that the working parents funded a small coach/minibus?

This is in addition to an overseas residential, which is the week directly before this!

In my experience, these things always work out ok as parents help each other out and have spaces in their cars for extras.

I would be feeding back to the school that they need to acknowledge and better plan for the number of parents who work and can't afford to financially commit to something without more detail and flex.

It also seems a but mad to do it the same week as other groups are out as you increase the risk of parents needing to be in multiple places at once.

An overseas residential for a primary school! That's ridiculous. Surely most parents have said no to their children attending?

And who organises this, collects in the money, puts down the deposit, chases up payment etc for the coach, takes responsibility for supervising the children? In typical school fashion, we had about two weeks’ notice of the activity.

I am very happy to pay for coaches and other trip costs, and always take the option to donate the cost of another place on the trip when school organises it. But for this one the school didn’t want to organise a coach because it was cheaper to rely on parent transport.

Is it a private school?

If you have two DC doing separate activities they would obviously have to take this into consideration and ensure you had to drop one and pick the other up iykwim. Beside the by, this sounds ridiculous and they should hire enough coaches to accommodate all like normal schools.

I’ve never heard of state primaries taking children abroad.

Sounds like a pain. Sadly the cost of transport these days is a nightmare!

Agreed.

What on earth are ks2 children going to get that couldn't be achieved in the uk.

A huge amount of extra financial worry, and emotional and possibly legal and health insurance stress for no reason.

This sounds like a MAT near us that is always spouting about how amazing the opportunities they offer are, without acknowledging they pass all of those costs onto parents. Parents feel loads of pressure for their dc not to be the ones that miss out.

My sympathies! We have had similar and it seems to assume you have a SAHP (and in the case of having other children - a friend/GP on hand too!).

I guess it’s the inevitable issue of schools not being able to afford either the staff or money for coaches which used to facilitate off site curriculum stuff.

My child keeps getting invited to these days aimed at higher achieving pupils. It’s lovely but I have other children, no local relatives and work full time (as does their dad). I do understand their predicament with funds but it puts a lot of stress on families too.

The vast majority are going. Some are not (but I don’t think cost is the reason for all). There’s a residential every year from 4-6, increasing in length and cost. Only year 6 is overseas.

This is a wealthy area, many of us are very fortunate to be able to pay for these things without much bother, but have little flex in our schedules because we’re out earning that money!

There’s about 15% pupil premium, I think, so below average but there will be some families who struggle. There’s a school contribution of about 20% for these families towars the most expensive trip.

Nope

I fail to see how a school can make parents drop off and pick up from a different venue. Why haven't the school arranged transport? Surely that's the norm.

This is ridiculous. If they're arranging something off site, they should be sorting out coaches to transport the children, or else take them on public transport themselves. Or, at the very least, they should have one consistent arrangement for all the children - either that they must all be delivered, or all be collected, irrespective of which site they are assigned to, so that you as parents know what you are committing to.

If the person you contacted before was reasonably junior, I suggest you go above their heads, preferable to the headteacher. If it was the headteacher, raise it with the governors.

How much is the overseas residential costing?

I think it is really unnecessary and a bit odd to do this at KS2. We are not remotely hard up but have 3 dc and wouldn't want to be paying for 3 residentials a year for 3 years!

£500

What's happening in the middle of the day? How are the morning group being taken back to school and the afternoon group being brought to the activities?

The irony with these things is that parents who are teachers wouldn't be able to accommodate this, teaching tends to be inflexible like that.

The school is transporting them. Using their mini bus I assume. Though on 2 days they’d ordinarily be using that for the other off site class, so 🤷‍♀️

Of course the lack of clarity would be a mess for anyone! How far in the future is this activity? Is there hope more details are forthcoming, with time to review transport? If it’s all happening in 2 weeks that’s horrible, 2 months not that bad…mind you is there 2 months of school left?

Maybe 3 weeks from the point when we’ll have confirmed groups and times. Actually much better than the 2-5 days I get for the many sports events where we’re asked to drop off / pick up from elsewhere (some in school hours, some outside, but all within wraparound times). Damn my strong sporting genes. No cost for the sports events though.

Sorry, are you suggesting a parent needing to know logistical details is 'parental flak'?! You sound incredibly arrogant.

Some teachers simply don't seem to understand that parents aren't at schools beck and call - we have jobs, livelihoods, and yes while we'd love to support some of this stuff we do need enough information to be able to work out if participating is even possible?!

OP, I don't understand why the school haven't costed up the activity to include coach travel at the start and end of the day tbh - the whole thing sounds totally unfeasible for loads of working parents.