8 yo travelling to an Eco-lodge w/ school

[Jurubebs]

Hi,

My son's class is making a trip to a permaculture farm (I'm in Brazil, sorry, but there's no forum like this here!). The farm is in a city 2,5 hours away from ours, and they're going on 5 different cars from parents. They'll sleep in a single house that has two or three large bedrooms and there will be mattresses for everyone on the floor (the climate here isn't cold and they're 14 kids, 7 adults). But it's up in the mountains, we're at our rainstorm season and I can't go, basically bc I can't afford it rn.

My son would be the only one not going, and he will feel so sad and excluded if I don't let him go. The trip has pedagogical purposes as well, they'll learn about bioconstruction so that they can apply it at a project back in school.

But honestly, I'm not at peace with it. He's only 8! No professional driver, and the lodge is on the side of a quite steep mountain, again, during rain season.

By me, I would simply not allow him to go. But I'm so sad to have him excluded from the trip with his classmates... :'(

Please, I need some mom advice.

can you ask the school what their policies are to keep the kids safe on this type of trip?

do you know any of the other parents doing the driving?

You can't affotd it and you don't like it. I think it's best he stays home. I wouldn't be fond either.

I'd be very reluctant to send my 8 yo off on a trip 2.5 hours away from home to a remote sounding location and being driven and I'm assuming cared for by parents as well as teachers? Also if your DS is the only one there without a parent, I'd worry that if there was a problem then he'd be the last to be dealt with. Tbh though, UK school trips are risk assessed to the nth degree so it's difficult for me to imagine my DS going off on the trip you have described!
Will your DS be the only one not going out of his whole class at school? I'd be tempted to say not now but try to save up some holiday money and take him myself if he's that keen to go.

I can, but it's a Waldorf association of parents and teachers, the school is still young and the folks running it are still learning what they're supposed to do. In Waldorf schools the class teacher has autonomy to decide on many things, and I believe activities like this trip are decided according to the teacher's discretion. And I don't believe she's thought it through quite well, specially the liability regarding the transportation issue. I mean, if here's an accident, there's no insurance to cover it.

@MumChp
He is staying home! Thank you mums for helping me out! Reading your replies really helped me taking the decision. 💓🙏

Thank you for your honesty, I appreciate it as many points you mention resonate a lot with what I think and feel; it helped me take the final decision, which is he's not going. The class has 14 kids, I believe 5 parents are going plus 2 teachers. In my personal experience, school trips in Brazil tend to be pretty safe and have guidelines from the government as for risk assessment too, certainly not like in the UK, but probably good enough. But I don't know why in this school the teacher decided to take all those risks. At first I was like "well, okay, it will be fine" because he was going in the car of a mother that I trust, but since Friday my gut feeling started to ring the alarms, I believe because I got to see a picture from the house they'll be staying, and it's right beneath a large rock mountain. As we're in the rainstorm season and I'm so impressed with what happened in the mountains of North Carolina in the US, I just started feeling more and more off about it. I asked if I could go with them, but the value was not affordable for me atm. But the decision about taking that experience away from my DS made me very confused and insecure about what to decide. I'm very glad I posted in here, you girls helped me a lot, thank you sooo much! 🙏💗
And yes! I had already thought of saving some money and taking him to an ecobuiding institute! 🙌