School trips staying with families

[Carly1000]

school is offering a gcse language trip to europe where the kids stay with a family. Aibu to think this is slightly er scary?

Completely normal.

if you are not happy don’t send your kid.

Back in the day exchange visits were pretty standard. I stayed with a family in France and two different families in Germany. I was very well looked after.

Character building! I bigged up French cuisine to ds, extolling the delights which were to be placed before him. His family turned out to be health nuts and strict vegans who ate vacuum-packed tofu for every meal and only drank from a bore-hole in their garden.

Ds and his friends still have “French exchange” jokes ten years later.

Was completely normal when I was at school. It’s basically an exchange without the other leg. It’s a shame people are now scared by this.

Um… no. It’s called an exchange. Been happening for decades.

I did two of them as a teen and two of my DCs have. No problems whatsoever and an amazing opportunity.

And unlike in the past they are all DBS checked now.

I am still friends with my Spanish exchange partner 35 years later. Her family were wonderful.

P.S. One of mine was for a couple of months and I came back almost fluent in the language.

I totally enjoyed mine when I was at school in the 90s. I went to Tours, and poor Sylvie got Birmingham, albeit we did take her to Alton Towers. A lot of fun.

My high school did this 😊 it's completely normal the family's are checked out First they don't just dump them on somebody's doorstep

I am surprised it's still a thing but it was normal in my schools day.

May I suggest you say to your kid what my dad said to me back in the dark ages ‘You’re a sensible girl and I know you won’t make a fuss about nothing. But if you are in any way uncomfortable, or find anyone in the household inappropriate, nasty or creepy, let me know and I’ll come and get you asap’. I knew fine what he meant even at ( a young) 14.

This has been happening for yonks, when I was at school you could host a Chernobyl child for a fortnight, I think it’s nice way to immerse children in another country.

I have never been DBS checked as a host - and I’m certain that my children’s hosts weren’t either, even assuming they have a. DBS equivalent in the relevant country.

However the teachers who travelled with us were very careful to speak to each of us individually to check that we were ok. We were with our teachers every day except for weekends with the host. families. That seemed to be standard with my kids trips too.

In the late 90's when I was 11 I travelled to Canada with a group from school and stayed with a host family for 2 weeks. I was a bit homesick at first but loved it! We then hosted the Canadian girl for two weeks.

Our school also hosted sports exchanges where we would put up kids from another school for a couple of nights.

My brother went to Australia and we hosted the child he stayed with.

I don't remember checking in with any teachers at all for 2 weeks! We must have done at some point, but i mostly remember her having a swimming pool and all her cool french friends.

Normal and will have been vetted. Exchange trips like this are common (or were).

I loved my school exchanges in the 90s. Staying with families, going to school abroad, hanging out with teens from different parts of Europe. They were some of the best times of my teenage hood.

I then went on to set up a French exchange at a London secondary I worked at. I took 12 children to stay with families in Paris the first time.
This was 2002, so kids didn't have mobile phones really -especially not ones that worked in Europe, which meant they had no way of directly contacting me at the house I was staying at with the English teacher! They were all absolutely fine, had a great time and the school still runs the exchange now 23 years later!

It's a completely normal (and hugely beneficial) part of language learning.