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?

Ah but light it wasn't on the letter to actually put a drink IN the lunch box

AIBU to be really rather astonished that this OP generated such a response?

It's such a small issue, between the OP and her DD's school.
It's amazing that any school trips happen, ever.

Risk assessments for every eventuality... to all teachers who go to all the bother to take their classes out in to the dangerous real world.
And lost of for afterwards...

Yep! Weil's and Lyme is part of our risk assessment. A school must follow the local authority educational visits procedure. There is a whole booklet, training courses, county forms to fill in validate insurance and it all mentions both of these, so WorrySign you are not telling teachers anything they don't already know.

You have also been very unlucky if all the school you have come across have "only intermittent evidence of the passion and professionalism". I can assure you in all the schools I've come into contact with in various LAs over the last 25 + years I have not found it to be the case.

What 'risk assessment' do parents do when they take their children in a park or forest?
Do you all carry anti-bac hand gel at all times?
Do you only visit attractions that have toilets? Really?

I am finding all this really quite sad.

I'm finding it sad and alarming that so many mum's would need a note from teacher before they include a drink in a packed lunch for a day trip out of school

I have to fill in a 4 page risk assessment to walk from the school to the church, which is out of the school gate, cross at the crossing, walk along the path, cross at the next crossing and we're there! You can imagine the risk assessment for anything else!

mums

If the school has done a risk assessment someone will have visited the site, you can't do one without a visit. My poor family get dragged to which ever trip venue I'm planning as I wander around with a notebook looking for hazards, where toilets are, sketching maps and checking distances!

But mrz the teachers supposed to be able to think of every thing, do every thing and know everything even when the parents can't make one common sense decision

OP do you have the slightest idea about all the forms EVERY teacher has to fill in for any kind of school activity? A risk assessment is mandatory. I have to fill out a risk assessment form for something as innocuous as assisting a school in putting on a small concert (e.g. are you using any electronic equipment? where are the sockets? who may lift the music stands? how heavy is the box of sheet music? how many audience vs number of loos?... etc ad infinitum). The idea that a school could take a class of children on a day trip to the woods without filling out forms to within an inch of their life - TO PROTECT THEMSELVES from litigation - is just ridiculous.

We have to assess potential risk when teaching ceilidh dancing... A day in the forest would generate an enormous amount of paperwork!

Another one here thinking is this for real??

Why on earth would the teachers lie to you? Why didn't you put a drink in her lunch box?? We're you REALLY that worried about your child getting cold in November? Especially this mild November we're experiencing.

I find it very, very hard to believe their wasn't any kind if facilities available. I'd love to speak to the teachers involved- I think their story would be slightly different.

Op do you realise the enormous sense of responsibility teachers feel at taking children out in trips? Do you think teachers are ok with children being cold, thirsty and desperate for the loo?? Have you had previous beef with this school??

I take children in my class on the tube and all over London on a regular basis. My heart is in my mouth the whole time we're out. I'm trying to foresee any issues or problems before they occur and constantly checking numbers etc. I can honestly say that I assess possible risks and hazards much more than I would when out with my own 2 children.

Did your dd enjoy the day? What did she learn? You say you normally take her to the woods- what did she experience that was new do you think? I'm sure she loved sitting on little stools, eating lunch with her friends. Maybe the good outweighs the bad.

The risk assessment starts with getting on the coach-'possible danger tripping on the steps-member of staff to stand by the door and help them up the steps' and so it goes on..............
I think you should see how the French manage it. I have been in a queue for a chair lift on the nursery slope when a whole class of 3/4 yr olds came along and the teacher handed us each a child to sit next to on the lift and get them on and off. They are a lot more laid back. (no water bottles in sight)

NewNameforNewTerm my comment about Weill's was because a PP had expressed surprise at the hygiene concerns of a Woodland Trust ranger.

My DCs' primary and secondary schools have been in and out of special measures like they caught on the door handle. Unfortunately I dont think that this clustering of poor schools is uncommon. Perhaps it is a deliberate ploy at Govt level. Once you are used to a really rubbish primary school, why waste a good secondary school on you!

Perhaps this makes me a little more cynical on threads such as this. And less willing to automatically assume the school is right.

i've just read the original thread.
Here are two sisters getting the knickers in a twist about this. It's all a bit bonkers.

Please tell us what other things you hate about this school. It's bound to be Amusing for Sunday night.

Perhaps this makes me a little more cynical on threads such as this. And less willing to automatically assume the school is right.

Er....yes, we had noticed, WorrySigh

Tbf if they don't allow drinks in lunch boxes and normally take a water bottle I wouldn't assume that I needed to include a drink in the packed lunch unless told. I would have checked whether they were taking the water bottles though.

The rest of the complaints are a bit ridiculous though and wouldn't bother me at all.

The moral of the story is always send a child on a school trip with more than one drink and tell them to ask a helper if they are really thirsty.

In my previous school, we had a parent who behaved in a similar vein. P1 trip to the theatre. Bus pick up at school and drop off at the theatre.

Parent tails the coach in her car and then phones the school to report the driver was doing 72mph. HT is stunned to get the call. Parent feels she gets nowhere with HT so calls the coach company. They laugh. A lot. Parent phone the POLICE!!!

The trip was lovely. A really gentle Christmas production with 'snow' falling from the ceiling at the end. The children were entranced.

This was at least 10 years and it still makes me chortle!

stargirl, no way

At least the parent cared for their child unlike all us uncaring parents who'd have our children fend for themselves in the woods in the winter, letting them fend of wolves and Jack Frost.

I hope the OP is an un der the br idge dwe ller... the fact that she might be 'real' is actually quite scary.

I love kids, but you could NOT pay me enough to be a teacher these days... and that's without parents like the OP.

But I'm glad she wrote the OP - it has been informative & hilarious

Chipping, sadly I think this is quite real...

Well, it has taught me a new word....

Yes it has been hilarious. I just realised I had ventured into Primary Education. I thought I was in AIBU.

I suspect the OP has had another name change