School trip and my baby

[coulditbeme2323]

Kids school offer some really cool school trips.

School have organized a school trip to ski/snowboard this November in Whistler Canada which is about 80 miles from Vancouver.

Ok sounds great, but it's for my boy in year 6.

AIBU or is it too young?

He really wants to go, his brother has been, and Husband thinks he should go.

So am totally prepared to be told he isn't a baby and IABU.

Too young. DD did this trip in year 13! I would say I wouldn’t be happy pre year 9. What’s wrong with Europe?

I’m wondering how long they are going for ? A week or longer ? It seems a long way to go.

Is it in school time ? What happens if your child doesn’t go on trip are there other options - is it an enrichment week type thing with lots of options ?

im impressed your DS wants you as a volunteer - mine did at primary school but once at secondary school it was embarrassing enough if I gave him a lift if the bus was cancelled 😂

@coulditbeme2323 It’s fine! If he wants to go, it’s not too young. You aren’t forcing him. My DDs would have gone! We didn’t worry about any of this stuff. It’s fairly unusual but dd went skiing with the school to the USA but y9 I think. Y7 - still would have gone.

@coulditbeme2323 I don’t think Y7 is too young for this.

As a side note, parent helpers on overseas trips isn’t something I’ve encountered. This would create significant work for the school around safeguarding and risk assessment. Will you all be DBS checked? Do you know what training will be provided? I would really suggest finding out what will be expected of you as, assuming it’s done completely by the book, you should not be expected to do anything connected meaningfully to either safety or wellbeing, e.g. shouldn’t be expected to do things like check on children in sleep spaces, and should always be paired with a staff member. I’m thinking about you safeguarding yourself here - most private schools are much more up to speed on these things now but historically haven’t always been good at them so I’d suggest checking the school’s procedures and policies etc.

You will be unable to go to help as you will not be counted in ratios. You would be classed as your child's 1:1 and that is all.

That’s a jolly for the teachers. They could go to Europe. Far too far for year 6 and must cost a fortune.

I loved my school trips abroad
as long as he’s not going with nasty bullies that he can’t handle then I’d send him.

Teachers prefer the USA as it’s better snow and they speak English

No sleep for a week and caring for kids that are not yours and not getting paid for the overtime and being on call 24/7 is not a jolly. The extra work that goes into a trip certainly is not a jolly.

I've been a governor at two separate independent schools and if one of them had thought it was appropriate to bring an outside parent (i.e. one who wasn't an employee of the school) as a chaperone on a trip like that, we'd be having a very thorough review of their safeguarding policies asap.

I'd also be interested in the decision making process around that being an appropriate trip for a year 7, as taking children that young that far away is quite a big responsibility for the staff.

It wouldn't raise my overall confidence in the school.

Not to put a dampener on things...I live just outside Vancouver and have skied Whistler many, many times...there will not be very good snow in November. I think you may only be able to ski at the top of the mountain and the snow will be cruddy. February is optimum time imho

I dont think I'm a clingy parent at all but I genuinely wouldn't want my child of thst age thst far away. In case of medical emergency (I ski and its a dangerous sport ) you might take days to be reunited.

Not for me. Maybe at the age of 15 or 16.

As said above. It is introducing huge additional risk and burden on staff to be so far from home. Particularly doing a notoriously risky activity. You can ski all over Europe..why on earth add that distance in.

As a teacher of 20 plus years I am not "buylng" that a parent can go as a helper. It would be a safeguarding nightmare.
@coulditbeme2323 Have the school agreed to you going?

Firstly, OP has mentioned this is a private school so the fines wouldn’t apply to them if they took their kid out in term time.

Secondly, there’s a big difference between a school organised trip and a family holiday. I’m not saying I agree with the fines for taking kids out in term time but school trips abroad require an insane amount of planning, risk assessment, must show clear links to the curriculum including learning objectives, outcomes and how you can show students have achieved these. It’s just not the same as a family
holiday. And before anyone starts, I’m not saying there’s no value to family holidays because of course there is but that value is not as easily quantifiable to the Local Authority as a school trip is. There’s also quite a difference between a large number of students all being away at the same time versus one student being off one week, another the next, another the next etc. in terms of impact on classroom teaching.

If you can afford it then fine, but I personally haven’t seen schools have parents on residentials due to how complicated it would be unless very specific circumstances, plus in a few months at secondary school would he really want his mum there?

If you let his brother go on the same trip at the same age, you can comfortably afford it and he really wants to go then it seems to me like a no brainer that he goes… I’m not really sure where the debate is tbh unless there’s a some stand out difference between him and his brother that suggests he wouldn’t cope like the younger one had to come home early from scout camp because he was homesick or something along those lines…
Going as a helper is really bloody weird though, and shocking from a safeguarding perspective that they allow it.

You can learn independence in many ways, and it doesn't need to involve going all the way to Canada from the UK.

I just don't get the idea that parents are also swayed to let their kid do something just because their close friends are. Peer pressure shouldn't be a deciding factor.

I've worked in education for a long time, in a variety of different schools and have never known this to happen. From a safeguarding perspective there are too many risks, it would create a huge headache for the staff. It's not simply a case of having to be DBS checked, you would also have to be Child Protection trained and staff would have to be responsible for supervising you as well as the children. I cannot imagine any competent Safeguarding Lead or Head Teacher signing off on this.

If you are still seeing him as a baby in Y6, he might be ok but it might be that you are not yet ready for him to travel longhaul.

Having said that, I do really think it is a fantabulous way to waste money as it is an expensive flight, at an expensive ski resort when a) he is a beginner or b) he is an experienced skier BUT will be forced to stay mostly in beginner areas not to separate the group. He will see a lot of snow and trees, which he can see in Scotland, and with a bit of luck spend a few hours in Vancouver.

We had the same choice when DS was in Y8, instead we took the 3 of us to ski in Europe for the same price we would have had to pay for DS’ school trip.

It was a good decision, I realised in that trip that DS is a daredevil with little regard for risk and a penchance for disappearing into more advanced slopes that I could manage. Don’t worry about him missing up on the experience, he can catch up very easily in other more reasonable trips.

They are going to Canada.
And they won’t want to go to Europe as that is where all the state school children go.
Everywhere pretty much speaks English. And if they don’t would have thought that more educational.

Firstly, indeed !
The fines should apply if parents took their children out in term time. Private or not. It is surely the principle of the thing. Why should private school parents get off with no fines ?

No amount of risk assessment and planning ( I am sure they do take a lot of planning) and objectives written will convince me that these trips are anything but a form of holiday for the teachers.
I would prefer some honesty about that. I know it won’t happen.

Seems a bit young for a long haul trip to me, I’d be worried but I know my husband would say it’ll be fine. What are his friends doing?

Private schools “get off” with it because they’re independent and not tied to the local authority. In the case of state schools, it’s not the school that imposes the fine, it’s the local authority. No where did I say that I think it’s fair, I’m just stating the facts. It’s also a fact that upon signing your child up to a state school, you’re made aware of the fact that fines can be imposed if you take them out of school during term time unless it’s exceptional circumstances. Again, not saying I think it’s fair but these fines are not a surprise, parents know they will get them and choose to take their child/ren out anyway (mostly because even with the fine, the holiday still costs less than it would during school holidays).

As for it being a “holiday” for the teachers, far from it. As an ex-secondary school teacher (state schools not independent) who has taken students on educational visits abroad, I assure you there’s nothing relaxing about it. Being responsible for the health/safety/welfare of 30+ students, 24 hours a day, often in a country where the students don’t speak the language (aside from maybe basic conversation) is no easy feat. You as the teacher are responsible for their every move and if something were to happen to them the liability would rest on you. There is little to no downtime aside from sleep and even then, someone has to be on call throughout the night to deal with issues. We don’t take students abroad so we can have a holiday (we’d just do that in school holidays like everyone else), we take them because it’s generally an enriching, educational and cultural experience that they might not otherwise have.

Thanks but I wasn’t suggesting you said the fine issue was fair. And yes, I can grasp that it is the local authority who imposes the fine. That by not doing so to the private school a mockery of the principle behind the imposition to a state school parent.
Sorry, it will be a form of holiday. Not without responsibilities. As it is for any parent which the teachers are substituting as being. We have to agree to disagree on that.