How often for updates from school?

[Golftarget]

Year 7 child (age 12) on a residential trip with school.

No phones allowed (which pleases me as we do limit phone time at home).

Away from first thing Wednesday morning until last thing on Friday. Trip is maybe 90 minutes or so away from the school. Travel by coach.

How often would you expect an update/post/comment from the school?

Last week there was another trip and they updated twice a day.

While it's nice to have comments / updates, the reality is that an update is not really needed until Friday - and only then if they are returning outside usual school hours and they are giving logistical details.

If there is a major issue, you will hear about it. Small, solvable issues (grazed knees, squabble, child dropping their packed lunch etc) don't need contact and wouldn't be on the update anyway.

Oh yes, I’m not asking about those types of updates: I wouldn’t expect to be told.

I’m talking about the more general “all good here”.

I wouldn’t expect any updates for that length of trip in secondary school.

Same

No updates at all unless something was awry with my child. It’s 3 days! Having said that the school sometimes do post an update on a closed SM group but thinking about it not always and certainly not expected.

We might get pics on social media if they are doing activities. But no general updates.

Ours are allowed their phones though.

How about if I said there was a residential (same length and type) last week and the updates were sent thick and fast?

I think it’s the inconsistency I’m struggling with.

It may surprise you to hear this is not our oldest child. With the other two, the schools (two different secondaries) have always updated at least once a day (mixture of check in emails or more detailed posts).

So I’ve been somewhat surprised we’ve not heard anything.

I would expect no news is good news - in reality “all good here” updates are fairly meaningless anyway. Of course they’re alright because if they were’t alright they’d have told you. They’re not going to send an update saying “Most kids are fine but found the museum very boring, George has thrown up twice and is being sent home, Olivia and Emily have had a screaming argument because they both want the top bunk, Katie’s homesick and Max will not stop humming and is driving us nuts” are they?

The only updates I’d expect are either to alert parents to a significant delay in arrival back home or if there’s a serious problem. My child’s secondary does not do updates outside those nor social media posts even for foreign trips.

I’d assume the discrepancy between trips in your case is probably the style of individual members of staff, nothing else.

Out of interest, what would be the threshold of trip length when you would expect an update? Eg, if the trip was a week, you’d expect an update after 5 days, or would you not expect something for a trip of a week either? Or would there be a difference in expectation between updates for kids in Year 7 to kids in Year 10? Not goading, genuinely interested.

I'd not expect an update at all, even a week. I wouldn't expect an update if they went away for a week end of primary school either. If there's an issue they'll let you know, if not everything's fine.

I wouldn't expect any updates, however long the trip is.

Potentially an exception if there'd been some disaster in the area they were staying - like a bomb or other terrorist attack in the same City they were staying, or maybe an extreme weather event. But they would be exceptional circumstances. Under usual circumstances I would expect to hear about it when they got back.

It would be useful if there were an update if their arrival home time was going to be very different from previously advised - say got an earlier ferry, or missed the ferry / plane delayed / stuck in traffic / etc.

We would have one if they arrive home earlier than expected.

The difference between no updates this week when there were regular updates for a previous trip could be because the Internet access is crap, or the teacher(s) are less tech savvy/Internet use happy/busier dealing with a group of children that are using up all their time and attention.
There are dozens of events from a week long to half days at my DCs secondary this week some have had web updates even though they haven't left the building other have now been away for 4 days without any sign of the trip on the social media pages. It's not logical which events have been updated i.e. off site updates on site no updates or single day no updates multi day updates so I assume the onus in on individual teachers to take pictures and upload content and that some are good at that and others aren't.

No news is good news. Different schools have differences, that's normal.

I had a phone call from a week’s trip to France as there was an issue.

Id expect an update if there was an issue.

why do you feel the length of the trip makes a difference?

On a residential who is taking time put of superviding trips to continuously update? That woîd be my question.

The only updates I’ve had from any school trip, including the primary residential, was pics on X. I would never expect a message from the teachers to say my child was doing ok. They’ll contact if something goes wrong.

Teacher here. In over 40 years of teaching I would have gone on residentials in 35 of those years.

I'm from the prehistoric times, so started with no mobile phones and no internet. There were no updates, ever. But in the last 10 years or so, this has changed a lot.

A lot depends on the school and their rules. Initially it might have been more of a phone call to the school on the way home, just to let them know if the bus was on time or running late, so they could email all parents. More recently, some photos might be taken on one day, sent to the principal and then they would add them to the school Facebook page. Then it became needing photos every day and heaven help you if you missed a child out, even if they didn't want their photo taken. There would then be parent complaints. So then we went back to minimal updates. Everyone has arrived safely and they're on their way home and left on time. I don't think the arrival update is required, because if they didn't arrive safely, then you would definitely be contacted. Back to a no news is good news approach.

Maybe the other group that was away recently had a teacher who fancies themselves as a bit of a content creator, maybe this week they're too busy making sure all kids are involved in activities.

Hopefully your child will give you a full rundown of everything they did once they get home.

Edited to add: these were trips of 3-8 days with students in Years 4-7

Thank you. It seems that my issue of inconsistency is unreasonable.

To clarify, I wasn’t expecting individual updates nor lengthy daily activity details. As I said, when they call the office with their daily “all ok” email, just the same to be passed on by the office. (Which yes, I realise means very little but is the same basis as “three rings” when I was younger and letting my mum know I’d arrived home.)

To answer the issue of why I feel length of trip makes a difference (I asked at what threshold you’d expect an update), is because, shock horror, as parents, you do have a moment from time to time wondering if they are enjoying it/if the weather has done as expected, if they are as muddy/knackered etc as you hoped.

I don’t instigate contact with my older two when they are travelling. Not unless they’ve asked me to let them know if a parcel has arrived etc. However, they do contact regularly, with sending photos etc. Not prompted by us, by them. So I have never thought I was controlling/needy, but the responses on this thread make me feel otherwise.

Always good to reflect.

Funnily enough since I started this thread, the local FB page has had someone ask if they’ve missed any updates from this trip. As of this morning, there have been 25 replies from parents (50 kids in total have gone) saying how they’d expected it (I hadn’t noticed but their literature sent last week said they’d update daily). So it seems I wasn’t the only one.

we got a arrived message on dojo. Photos every day on dojo and estimate return time

I wouldn’t expect any updates to be honest. From experience, I know that staff have enough to do without issuing updates.

I was 13 when I went on an exchange trip to Brittany in 1978. We stayed with host families for 10 days (I was on a remote farm) and had no way of communicating with each other let alone our parents. It was wonderful!

Photo drop on School website or Social Media once a day. Even when they went to Spain.

I organise 3/4 night residentials .
We are a two hour drive from school.
I stay in contact with school, have all parents' phone numbers and do not update at all.

It really is a case of " no news is good news" . If everything is going well, parents will not hear from us at all. We're too busy.

I wouldn't expect updates unless there was a problem that directly affected my child.