Education/pupil premium

[JADS]

Sorry, I don't know quite how to express what I'm looking for here, but hopefully it makes sense.

My son attends a local primary school which has a relatively high percentage of forces children. It is generally a good school and we have been here a while (we settled in the local area and dh works away).

Unfortunately where they are completely hopeless is school trips.

DS2 is now Year 4 and has been on 1 school day trip in the whole time he has been there. This year's trip was just cancelled for health and safety reasons - ie piss poor planning.

This is a school that gets a huge amount via pupil premium.

I have made a complaint, but I wondered if I can approach this from a Forces point of view. I would imagine that children don't have rights to school trips, but as other schools in the local area have them, I wondered if I can use the forces covenant in my argument and that children are being disadvantaged.

What do you think?

I would look at the PP strategy on the school website which lays out the barriers for that school and their plans for them. It is only £335 a year for service children. Each school is different and the needs of the children are different.

School trips tend to be the first thing to cut back on, especially if schools have to subsidise the cost as parents struggle to pay.

It depends on what the trip can offer and what the priorities are. School trips have their place in enrichment but not perhaps if there are other priorities.
The strategy should be reviewed by the end of December and governors will question spending and impact.

Thank you. That is really useful. I will look all those bits up.

The forces children used to get a trip to the Panto every year. We now have a service mentor instead who seems a bit useless so I think that's where the money goes.

Money is an issue, but in this case the trip was cancelled because of a health and safety issue. It was only £4, they also had plenty of volunteers which can be an issue.

Money will also go on training and resources which does not mean you all get the same amount of X spent on each child. It can be pooled for something that may benefit lots of children.

You need a risk assessment for every visit and if you can't mitigate the risk or there are issues with the provider you might cancel. You also have to have the right volunteers and staff with skills to cater for the children around SEND, medical needs, first aid, safeguarding etc. Having lots of the wrong volunteers might also pose a risk. Health and Safety is part of safeguarding.