School is refusing to pay money owed from school trip

[LifeIz]

School is refusing to pay £400+ monies from school trip - is this even legal?

Please come back with full details of what's happened, you'll get much better help.

Any advice here is useless as we don't know enough about the situation.

requestingsunshine
Based on experience, I could imagine the conversation was more like "we accept you wish to pull out of the trip. If we can find another child to take your child's place then we may be able to arrange a refund".

OP has probably heard what she wants out of this conversation.
Based on the information she's given so far, there's nothing to suggest school are being an arse. She pulled out with 3 weeks to go

sorry PC crashed... I am back

I am also a teacher, so do know a bit how it is supposed to go:

1. I emailed the school before the final deadline.
2. My email was not answered

3.I emailed again

1. The email still was not answered, so I emailed a third time, this email was answered a day before the trip.

I cannot go into too much detail about why we pulled out of the trip.

1. Communication continued sporadically with my requested before and after the trip - I am aware of a number (15) other children who wanted to go on the trip but were not offered the place- not sure why.
2. Childs school say recently, they have tried to contact me, and have sent a copy of the letter to an incorrect address, surprisingly I have received every other letter except this one. - All addresses are taken from the school's database as I am assuming is standard practice as indeed at the school I teach at.
3. School says they have called from an unknown but never got me, all other communications normally say the name of the school and a message is left - as indeed I myself do with parents I call.

Generally though I'd say if you didn't get a response to the first email then you should have tried an alternative means of contact. It seems communication was poor on both sides tbh but seeing as you have the vested interest (ie securing a refund) then I would say that the onus is on you to make contact with the school rather than the other way round.

The original trip letter from the school stated: The deposit is non-refundable.

When I send out letters, I ensure that I state the money will not be refunded after a set date, this was not in that particular letter from my child's school, however, it does appear now and then on other trip letters...hmm.

Why keep on persisting with a form of contact you where getting no contact from!? Why not phone or nip in in person or even send a note in with your child?

Thanks for the extra information. It sounds to me that this would be better handled by conversations rather then emails but I understand that probably isn't possible as you're going to be uncontactable during the day and possibly don't do the school runs.

Would it be possible to agree a time to have a phone call during break or lunch or have your partner, if you have one, go to the school in person.

Sending a letter to the wrong address is poor practice as is not leaving you a message to call back, maybe they were also using the wrong phone number, do you think they mixed you up with another family.

At this stage, assuming you haven't broken up I'd do everything I could to speak to someone in authority to find out why they won't issue the refund and go from there.

Do you think they are being awkward or rubbish at admin or genuinely can't get back money they'd already spent.

Your next move is going to depend on the answer to that imo

... thinking about next steps as they have indeed offered a refund. Their refund letter said I needed to respond in X days, but I did not actually get the letter... (the one received was sent via email after the deadline, I do not know why they did that).

I sent emails as that is evidence of me communicating with the school, voice mails do not necessarily get answered, in the past school have said they did not receive my voice mail. Sending in a note with my child then puts the burden on my child.

You say the letter said the deposit was non refundable. Was there anything specific relating to the rest of the monies?
Presumably not as you say there is now on other letters.

So whoever wrote the first letter didn't word it properly, you acknowledge that because you do word it correctly in your capacity as teacher.

So what it boils down to is you trying to uphold them to an administrative error? Technically you may be in with a chance but morally?

It does sounds as if the school aren't acting very professionally either, and are trying too wriggle out of their error.

The school will already have incurred those costs and will lose out financially if they are forced to repay you on a technicality.

I think you should suck up the money. You cancelled with very little notice. That's not the schools fault and as pps have said, you wouldn't expect your money back from as travel agent in those circumstances.

In that case I'd send a letter recorded delivery pointing out that their letter was sent to the wrong address, you received an email copy on xxx date and you would like a refund.

How old is your child, unless very young I don't think it's too much to ask them to hand in a letter? How do you usually return permission slips etc, how did you get the original paperwork about the trip to the school.

I'm not a teacher so could be being unrealistic, is there no time in the day at all when you could ring the school?

Assuming an overseas trip with flights, then they can't simply replace one child with another.
Why not download your emails and proof they offered a refun and make an appointment to discuss with the head/ head of year/ trip organiser.
You will assumably have the letters and contract etc from school. Read the small print re refunds and make sure you have righteousness on your side. Maybe do a timeline with embedded documents to demonstrate this.
Why did letter go to incorrect address? This possibly has bearing on whether not receiving it is their fault or yours.

Thinking about this I don't remember getting info on cancellation and refunds at primary level and my dc is going on a residential next year, Ive paid a deposit but haven't seen anything about a cancellation policy.

It's not anywhere near £400 but I will be asking about the policy. In secondary ime it's make much clearer which payments are non refundable

Thinking about this I don't remember getting info on cancellation and refunds at primary level and my dc is going on a residential next year, Ive paid a deposit but haven't seen anything about a cancellation policy.

It's not anywhere near £400 but I will be asking about the policy. In secondary ime it's make much clearer which payments are non refundable

No wonder schools aren't keen on running trips.

If you think there is a case here, why don't you take it to the small claims court?

Somewhere or other, there must be some statement of terms and conditions with regard to the time-frame for cancellations and refunds - not simply with regard to the deposit but any other percentage of funds.

If your correspondence with the school, informing them of your decision to cancel, was by email, all of that will be dated.

I'm guessing that terms and conditions of trip would also have been sent to you electronically.

Print off everything you have.

You are either entitled to a repayment or you aren't. Let a court sort it out.

I think all of the writing to the school non-electronically is a bit strange - you need to communicate in ways that leave a very clear trail: no more paper correspondence for goodness' sake!

Having said that, if you are saying that you communicated your decision to cancel by paper post, and that there is no clear proof that the school received that notification, I think you are going nowhere with this.

Sending a recorded delivery shows the school that the op means business, an email can be deleted, ignored or denied.

Once the letter has been signed for pressure can be ramped up.

Maybe legally it doesn't make a difference but I'd go with letter every time

7. School says they have called from an unknown but never got me, all other communications normally say the name of the school and a message is left - as indeed I myself do with parents I call.
Just a minor point on this. You mentioned earlier you had no record of the call. They may be correct here, depending on how your phone provider sets up your line.
I've had similar, where someone called me from an unknown number. They couldn't get through. I did 1471, but there was no record of the call at my end. It must have been stopped at the exchange? I had to phone the company to change my call settings.

Thecatfromjapan - I have never had trip details from a school electronically, maybe my area is behind the times but trip planning and permission is always done by letter. This is at different primaries and secondaries not just one school.

One thing I've learned from threads on here is that you can assume all schools work in the same way yours does

Thecatfromjapan - I have never had trip details from a school electronically, maybe my area is behind the times but trip planning and permission is always done by letter. This is at different primaries and secondaries not just one school.

One thing I've learned from threads on here is that you can assume all schools work in the same way yours does

#judgerinder