As a Year 1 TA please can I ask

[Figgyroll]

Mums, if you're going to send your children on a school trip to the seaside, can you please make sure:-

1. Your child has knickers that actually stay up. Not nice being last everywhere because your child has to hoick up said underwear.
2. Child's sandwiches/rolls/cakes/sausage rolls etc. are wrapped in something rather than just chucked into a plastic carrier bag along with a leaky drink.
3. If the school trip letter asks for £2 spending money, please give your child SOMETHING. It's very upsetting for a child to be the only one in the class not to be able to buy a little souvenir. The pencils only cost 50p. (Luckily my class teacher bought the little'un in question a notebook and pencil).
4. Your child knows the difference between a river and the seaside. We do our best in school but.....
5. You don't have an enormous row with DH or DP the night before unless you want it relayed to all the other children on the journey.

Thanking you.

... you don't tell your child the details of your colonoscopy unless you want everyone to know.

Is this all the same child? Is there a possible child protection issue?

Oh no, definitely not all one child and definitely not a child protection issue. However, these were the children in my 'group'. It was a LONG day.

I really hate this kind of thing from teachers/tas. However tongue in cheek it does sound rather smug and pompous, there may be a number of reasons for any of those things and a similar list of things that parents not just mums could write about TAS.

I really hate this kind of thing from teachers/tas. However tongue in cheek it does sound rather smug and pompous, there may be a number of reasons for any of those things and a similar list of things that parents not just mums could write about TAS.

that knicker hoicking child was my dd last week, she had on her big sister's pants! which wouldn't have been so bad if it was dd2 wearing dd1's pants - 2 year gap, this was dd3 (7) wearing pants belonging to dd2(12)

I don't check their pants before we leave the house any more. Did have to for a while when dd3 first started school as she didn't always remember to out them on....

Don't dads have anything to do with this?

Figgyroll:

I realise you are securely employed - your salary probably increases by a set increment & percentage each year - but that isn't everybody - moreover a lot of families are under a lot of financial stress. Last Monday's guardian suggested several million people were literally one pay check away from losing it all.

So let's review your points from the devil's advocate point of view:

1. ill fitting underwear - maybe elastic gone
   Is this a single mother with several children who's handing underwear down between children, because she sincerely can't afford new nickers every year for each child? If they're clean but slipping now and then - from her perspective she may see it as a workable solution and the child will grow into them anyway.

2. sandwich chucked into plastic bag along with leaky drink
   all the water bottles I've bought new this year from Sainsbury's leak like mad - they were all over £5 each, so I don't think I was being cheap - they just are made in some factory somewhere where staff are paid probably next to nothing, shipped to the UK and frankly I don't think anyone (Sainsbury's included) is that concerned about the quality of the product.

Sandwich thing - She may have felt that sending it in a plastic sandwich box was not going to work because her DC would struggle to open it to get the sandwich out. Mum may have been working an early shift and forgot to tell Dad and he's just quickly put something together so that at least the child had a sandwich. (all of these scenarios have taken place at our school).

3. £2 spending money. The letter was sent well before the trip and may well have been mislaid by the day so the parent/ carer may have forgotten about the spending money thing. Or the family may genuinely not be able to afford that extra £2 - especially if the trip is at the end of the month.

4. Not knowing difference between river/ seaside
   First of all - isn't that the point of the field trip in the first place? Why should a child who's probably never left their local area know the difference between river and seaside - and why as an educator are you saying it's the parent's responsibility to teach this. Sure in an ideal world a parent with resources will most likely have taken a child on a trip or pointed out a river (possibly crossing one on a drive) - but not everybody is in that situation.

5. You can't insist that parents have rows to your convenience. Has DH spent all the money of booze that night so DC can't take the £2 for the field trip? Has DH just lost his job and they're rowing about how they're going to survive? You've no idea what is going on in their lives. Although it would be lovely for every child to live in a home where rows never occur - I think we all agree that's honestly never going to happen.

I understand your frustration - but perhaps you need to start from a place of being less concerned about your convenience and more concerned about the children you're teaching.

Could you have reminded parents about the spending money when they dropped the children off that morning?

Could you have suggested that the children went in shorts or trousers (both of which would have avoided the nicker situation one presumes)?

Could you have discussed the field trip in advance as part of class lessons to prepare them for seaside or riverside, etc...?

If you know the parent can afford £2 - why not cover the child purchasing a souvenir and then approach the parent. I personally would be very grateful - I wouldn't want my DD's to miss out on something like that if I didn't remember to send along spending money. (Especially as each trip has different instructions - and frequently the previous trip letter says PLEASE PARENTS - DO NOT SEND ANY SPENDING MONEY FOR THIS TRIP). Also can you consider including purchasing an ice cream/ souvenir as part of the field trip price - so the money is organised already.

I'm sure you're a reasonable person - and it may be that this is coming from very well-off families who should have no difficulties behaving as you expect - but consider whether both parents work and are in high powered stressful jobs? Consider whether parents have their children dress themselves in the morning and perhaps the child chose ill fitting clothes? Consider that people forget or make mistakes?

PastSellByDate well said :)

Yes, we'll said pastsellby and wobbly.

I bet there are lots of children who don't know the difference between a river and the sea. In fact I just asked my dd (8) and she said 'the sea is the ocean and the river is in a strip'

I'm with wobbly on this - you are comming across as smug and pompous.

I've been in a fair few school trips and yours sounds relatively calm.

i am bit at the idea of spending money in the first place tbh

ditto @ PastSellByDate & Wobbly pig

Lighten up. I'm sure it was only meant to be a light hearted post.

This post makes you sound like you are well up your own arse.

My very own ds went on a trip misplaced his £2 coin and was left with nothing ,he was so sad and upset he didnt get his bullet necklace from Eden camp(if your near yorkshire its a fab day out)so much so we had to drive out and go ourselves ......the £2 coin??? turned up in the T.As bag in the same envelope id written his name on.

BTW your a teaching assistant your not supermum 2012....and Im sure you must be held to some confidentiality agreement.

Agree spending money a bad idea. It's not a shopping trip and it puts pressure on parents.

At our school the teachers specifically request that packed lunches are put in carrier bags for school trips. This is so that children can throw the empty bags away and so don't have to spend the second half of the trip carrying empty lunchboxes.

If children are going on a trip to the seaside I would presume that this is because it's the topic they have been learning about in school. If none of those lessons have covered what the seaside actually is then something has gone wrong somewhere.

My Yr1 dd gets herself dressed in the mornings. At 6yrs-old she would be less than impressed at the idea of having her underwear inspected each morning so that the class TA feels happier.

Not every family has £2 to spare, especially if they've already paid out for the cost of a coach and insurance for a trip to the seaside.

And, as Sassh has also mentioned, why do you think these things are solely the responsibility of the mothers? You mention rows with DHs and DPs so presumably at least some of these children have more than one parent?

can i add as a parent of a y1 child who goes on lots of trips that the teachers and tas dont spend the whole time chatting at the front of the coach ignoring the children and actually try interacting with them.

How kind of you to share your lunch with the unfortunate child whose bottle leaked, find a safety pin for the child with baggy pants, to delight in witnessing children seeing the seaside for the first time and to sub a child 50p for a pencil so they don't feel embarrassed at not having any money to spend.

You're one of the best.

You really do sound holier than thou.

People don't schedule rows just to fit in with what their child might hear and then repeat on a school trip.

Agree with Sassh and CopperTop - why assume this is the responsibility of the mother?

But as Indigo said, lighten up....don't think OP meant it in a heavy way

Some schools request the lunch-in-a-carrier-bag thing so that they can dump the rubbish in a bin and not have to carry sandwich boxes around the rest of the day.

Crikey, I didn't expect such a rollocking. My post was meant very tongue-in-cheek and I'm sorry if I came across as pompous, smug and all those other things. I'm truly not. It was a fun day and we all had a great time. On reflection I shouldn't have been so critical. Thanks for your replies though.

Don't worry figgy, most of us knew that...

Lol at someone thinking TAs pay goes up every year. It never goes up and it's actually gone down this year for those of us who lost our London Weighting Allowance!

And I think most people knew it was meant in a lighthearted way at the end of a long day. Go and relax now OP!