How often for updates from school?

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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.

Crikey, I went to France on a school trip in 1999 and we were encouraged to call our parents from the payphone in our hotel to give updates! It takes 30 seconds to send an update on an app now.

When my eldest went on a residential to France in year 7 for a week we had updates every day, just a general one about what they had done along with some photos. I really appreciated the teachers taking the time to do that. Edited to add this was about 9 years ago.

My year 6 is off to Europe next term and they have said they will do daily updates too on dojo

I run residential and it can really vary between trips how much time you have to send emails back to school with updates. A trip with lots of coach travel or older slightly more self sufficient kids then yes. Younger groups doing something very active or larger groups at a centre you often don't get time because you are busy getting them all into meals etc or supervising activities so no breaks.

Our school do a daily update during residentials, sort of like a blog post.

They only get in touch personally if the child receives medical attention. Parents have an out of hours number to call in case of emergency.

An arrival notice andI return eta I would say is minimum.

As a parent I love updates, although in Prinary we had a lot and I found myself near glued to the phone.

As a Secondary school worker, any trips are absolutely full on, if we have the means to take photos as per safeguarding allows, the time it takes to upload and carefully word things takes time away from the students so it is a hugely careful balance.

I would rather they give their full attention to the kids and not a screen to pacify parents.

Have been to teacher meetings and private school teachers say all the posts and updates rhey do and take ages are for parents.

I think there is a fine balence and kids must always come first however much I love a post.

I’d possibly expect one to say they’ve arrived and then one on the way back to confirm arrival time. A bonus may be a photo of an activity one day but not expected.

I would only expect one to say they have arrived and one to say we’ve had a lovely time we’ll be home at X time. Possibly one in the middle but I certainly wouldn’t worry if we didn’t get one. I’m more of a they’ll contact if there’s a problem parent rather than a I haven’t heard so there must be a problem parent.

The inconsistency could simply be down to which school phone the group has. As a school we have a ridiculous amount of trips out at the end of term and so some phones will be the brick style phones, or they won’t be logged into the schools socials- so no social media updates happen. We also have some staff who are not social media savvy, and sometimes I know when I am on a trip I might take the 2 minutes of down time to call home and check in on my young family instead of posting on school social media…

We run a residential the same length with no phones for year 7 and it’s only this year that I have sent updates to parents (literally and arrived, 2x had a good day and one with the update for coming home). We had a crazy amount of complaints last year that we hadn’t kept parents informed that their child was safe 20 miles down the road. It didn’t seem to be accepted that no news was good news.

I think updates depend entirely on which staff are on the trip.

Two of mine were on the same whole school trip a few weeks back and one has a teacher who updated 4 times (we’re here safe, had a lovely morning, had a great afternoon, coach is 30 mins from school) and the other has a teacher who didn’t update at all.

My twelve year old went to a YMCA camp for 6 days and we didn't hear a thing. Campers weren't allowed phones. It was all good.

And all of you were being unreasonable, maybe it's the parents who should have their phones taken away for a few days.
What sort of updates did you all expect?
"It's sunny"
5 min later
"Still sunny"
In the evening "A bit less sunny now".
"Eating dinner now".
Really, people need to get a grip, ask your kid at the end how the trip was.

My son is also year 7 and went on a similar residential last week (3 days). Didn’t hear anything from school. Also didn’t expect to

No news is good news. Chill and enjoy the time off from parenting that particular child

I want to know if any problems if not why would I need an update?

I wouldnt expect any updates other than 'we've arrived' and 'we're back' and no photos until after the trip. The staff are busy enough running the trip without having to pander to parents as well.

I'm a squirrels leader and when we are on camp with the full group (aged 4-18) we tell the parents to not expect or ask for any updates.
The squirrels (4-6 yo) only did the day time at the camp so we did send a couple of pictures at lunchtime to one of the parents that was a little nervous about her child being there without her.
If there is anything we need them to know we will be in touch otherwise accept no contact as all is good.

Arrived safely

Expected time of return.

(Don't park in the bus turning etc)

My now adult children went on school trips and we did not hear a dickybird for the duration of the trip - no mobile phones!

WE assumed that no news was good news!

Twice a day is fine. It's about building independence, mostly for children, but for parents too.

Twice a day! This child is 12!!

I’m a secondary teacher and run similar Y7 residentials for 100+ students and don’t provide any updates. Any problems which necessitated it I would call parents direct and have all contact details with me. I confirm with the appropriate SLT contact at school that we have arrived and returned. If we were going to arrive back at a significantly later time then stated school would inform parents. This is our standard trip policy.

It's three days they'll be fine 😂 imagine how much time the poor teacher would have to waste if they were spending all day on the phone doing that there in high school not toddlers😆

I'd just expect an update on the ETA when they're on the way home.

Indeed! Age 14 I went on a week long school camping trip in Wales in 1972. No contact with home until I arrived back!

OP, you need to let it go.

Erm, I always thought this was a no need is good news situation. DS ( just finished year 9) has been on 4 residentials since starting high school and only one of them they contacted us ( once on the return day to tell us they would be back a bit later than expected due to traffic). Admittedly by year 9 they take their phones, but they’re discouraged from contacting parents other than to give ETAs. I might spot him on the odd social media post.