Has this school trip broke any regulations/laws?

[emma16]

I would appreciate some help here please, my 5 year old daughter went on a trip with 2 other classes from her school on Friday to a wood which I was initially concerned about as we go there ourselves on a Sunday etc for walks & have never seen any facilities there.
I raised my concerns with her teacher the week before they were due to go, to which she hardly knew anything of the trip & when i arrived at home time another teacher i know told me that she'd been there & there were facilities, and 'as if' they'd take 3 classes of kids somewhere where there wasnt!
I wasn't pretty hot about this trip seeing as they've waited until the middle of November to do it, and as any genuinely concerned parent, I was worried about how cold my daughter would be seeing as they were leaving just after 9am & not returning to school until 3.15pm.

Off she went anyway, but when my husband picked her up from the woods car park the first thing she said to him was 'im so thirst daddy & my head really hurts'. He brought her home & we found out that they had not taken their water bottle's with them & she'd had nothing to drink whatsoever all day, despite being active for 5 hours walking & doing activities.
We also found out that there were no toilets provided & her & 3 of her friends were taken by some assistant she doesn't know to wee behind a tree out in a public wood!!!
She also told us, when questioned by us, they never went in any buildings & were outside all day. They'd sat on little stools under a sheet to eat their pack lunchs.

Now some of you on here will think i'm over reacting no doubt & appreciate it if all you want to say is a snide comment about my over bearing parenting, but, in my opinion i feel they have done wrong.
I have made several enquiries with other people & as far as they know, there are no facilities whatsoever up at this wood, which my husband & I are going to visit this morning to find the country ranger & ask him himself.

If there aren't this means that no risk assessment could have been carried out, those teachers lied to my face after voicing my concerns, they let my daughter go without any fluids for over 5 hours despite being active & came home ill & with a headache, they let some stranger to her pull her pants down in a public wood to wee, and they gave them no form of shelter/heating for even a short period of time just to warm them up before going back out again.
Is any of this ok, does anyone with some knowledge actually know? From a parents point of view there's all sorts wrong with it. If there were facilities why did they choose not to use them?

clam I'm not quite sure what my username has to do with this.

I just dont fall for the orthodoxy that teachers are always right and that all parental concerns should be brushed aside.

Some parents would complain whatever you did.

Tbh none of that would concern me, dd would be happy being outside all day, I'd have made sure she was wrapped up snug and would have put extra drinks in her lunchbox as I do for every school trip just in case she wasn't able to refill her water bottle. Peeing behind a tree with a TA supervising is better than her peeing herself IMO and she's done that before on a day out with me so I don't see the difference.
I'm sorry you are unhappy but I'd say you knew about the trip beforehand and so had plenty of opportunity to make sure that your dd was wrapped up warm and had enough drinks with her to last the day, complaining about peeing in the woods seems petty to me.

Not all parental concerns, just fussy ones And I disagree that anyone on here has said that teacher are always right.

We've been on school trips where, as we move round, the toilets are a five minute walk back to the visitors centre at points during the day. If a child is busting (as many 5 year olds are by the time they realise they need the loo) we've used a bush. Maybe this was the case with the OP, rather than it being the plan. We make regular breaks at the visitors centre accompanied by me saying "does anyone need the toilet? It will be an hour until we are back here, can you go a try? Maybe you'll squeeze one while you are on the loo" or words to that effect. It doesn't mean the child won't need a wee when we are in an inconvenient place.

OP, you are over reacting. Kids in norway do exactly what you describe most days from the age of 4. They are very healthy and happy, independent and have fun. Give your kids abreak.

Some parents would complain whatever you did.

But that doesnt mean that schools should ignore parents concerns. If something was badly organised then the school should learn from this not brush it under the carpet and laugh at a parent for voicing concerns.

If a school cant even organise a trip to the woods properly then it doesnt bode well for bigger residential trips.

Yep, I agree, some parents will never be happy. Common sense is really needed, a packed lunch surely anyone else would put a couple of drinks in, not expect a teacher to walk around with jugs or loads of water bottles. (And Children do sometimes forget drinks, I've never known a teacher or TA to either not have a spare or share theirs, you know most teaching staff rather like children and don't like to see them upset) Warm clothes and study footware, surely you would dress your child appropriately?

I struggling to believe there were no toilets at all. Probably just in designated areas and a TA kindly took your child to wee behind a tree if they were desperate.

In fairness, it seems that the OP was determined to find fault with this trip whatever. Both this and her (linked) previous thread show that she wasn't on-board with the idea from the word go.
So, we don't really know whether it truly was badly organised, or just that she's just nit-picking.

We only have the OPs view that the trip wasn't organised properly by her "expectations" perhaps the other 89 parents were delighted by their children's day in the woods.

Op it seems from previous thread you already had real reservations about this trip....

And the OP only has her child's account of the day and we know how accurate children can be.

...which is fine but it's the "have they broken any regulations/laws" attitude that irritates. OK, perhaps things COULD have been better organised ( and we only have the OP's concerns to say that they might) but why the immediate 'regulation and law' reaction? It is this attitude that stops teachers from running trips/residentials /clubs etc. Why not just ask the school rather than troop in guns blazing!

I think that the first term is too soon for this type of trip.

Some children will not have the robustness or confidence for it. Parents may be new to the primary school world so wont know what questions to ask or what is considered normal.

If hearty hikes in the woods arent your thing then chances are you wont have suitable clothing. At my DCs primary school a lot of families wouldnt have the money, the knowledge and, sadly in a few instances, the inclination to dress their child for such a trip. In the first term of primary teachers wont necessarily know which are the children who wont be properly provided for.

Insisting that a trip in the woods will be good for them whether they are prepared or not comes a little too close to pushing children into the deep end of the pool to teach them to swim for my liking.

A year or two later and children and parents would probably be far more ready for this type of activity and get a lot more out of it.

Er, there was a consent form and a letter. Anyone who felt their child was not up to going was free to say no.

And if parents are the kind to not be bothered to dress appropriately they will be the same fir every trip. Why should the others miss out

I'm sorry but it's nothing LIKE pushing a non-swimmer into the deep end of a pool!

As I said earlier in this thread I took my class to the coast and yes some children weren't dressed appropriately so we raided the spare clothing cupboard to kit them out before we got on the bus.

They were walking through a local wood/country park not trekking to the South Pole!

Where does it say it's their first term in school? The OP's dd is 5, but that could mean Year 1.
Also, found this in the previous thread: "Apparently there is a 'centre' there with toilets, but we've never seen this & think they maybe slightly glossing over their description when its nothing more than a large glorified shed with a few toilets."
This adds more credence to the likelihood that weeing behind trees was a one-off, as opposed to the plan for all 90.

did your class enjoy the beach trip mrz?
I took a group of 2 and 3 year olds to the beach for the day a couple of weeks ago
they had a fantastic time, we beachcombed, made some art from our finds and built sandcastles

We went rock pooling with the wardens but they probably enjoyed getting soaking wet sitting on rocks while the tide went out around them more than anything ...lots of little mermaids and pirates

and they all survived!

What? You mean they got WET????!!!!
I hope there was a heated changing room for them to dry off in, and no random strangers drifting in and out to gawp.
Please post a copy of your risk assessment (if you bothered to write one).

Were those crabs crb checked?