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?

It is entirely within the realms of possibility that someone should find it sexually exciting to see a small child pull down her pants and squat behind a tree. The chances of said person actually doing anything other than watch are far smaller, however.

CRB/DBS is a poor safeguard. I'm sure Jimmy Saville would have passed his CRB. It only checks your UK record, anyway.

I suspect Osama Bin Laden would have been OK, too.

Badly thought through trip. I would not be happy about the lack of toilet facilities

No-one out-prudes the Brits!!

I know that's not a helpful comment, but honestly, it's the first reaction I had.

With that out of the way, not giving the children a drink all day is completely bonkers. So mad I'm not quite sure it could really have happened. I suspect that there were drinks at lunchtime, at the very least.

HomeHelpMeGawd - you will now be roundly condemned by the "a little lack of hydration never hurt anyone" brigade.

THERE WERE TOILET FACILITIES!!!!!
And the fact that the OP's dd said she hadn't had a drink all day (due in part to her mother not providing one in her lunch), does not mean they weren't offered the opportunity to have one.

By the way, which bit of the anatomy is the foo? Is that the backside or the pubic area?

Op suggest you never move to switzerland; forest week for the 5-7 year olds involves large fires, sharp sticks and pen knives. They walk to school on their own (takes some getting used to). If the school failed to provide any water for 5 hours that's not so good, everything else sounds fun/character building. Are these woods particularly dangerous? Not sure why there needs to be a risk assessment for a trip like this?

There needs to be a risk assessment for ANY trip off the premises (and a fair few activities on-site too). We have to do one in order to walk the children a couple of hundred yards along a residential road to the senior school for swimming every week. No roads to cross, just a pavement alongside a road which has about one car an hour coming along.

Some people on here go so over the top! I can see where op is coming from. A trip to the woods is lovely, I take my DC let her get as muddy as she wants, in the winter to. But all day outside for a 5 year old in November is to much. The no drink thing, mmm not sure about that. Can't imagine a school not taking drinks for them really.

Charlotte
You seem to share the same view as Emma and Kate so you are not on your own in that thought process.

I'm assuming the school starts at 9ish...they prob got to their destination at 10am. They would've prob left at 2ish to do return journey. So...4 hours outside. 4 bloody hours in November is not too long for a 5 year old. It's sad if people seriously are suggesting it is.

Hand ......

She could've just not sent her DD, but chose to look for faults in the trip before the trip happened and is now looking for find fault with the school. All not v pleasant.

Yes, we all know our children and their preferences best and may feel differently about them being out and about with less than the level of facilities and comfort/warmth than what they are used to.

What riled me was the obvious intent to find fault.

Mamma ....also forgot ....Jenn from earlier its just my 'Marple Mind' on overtime ??

Handbags

I think it is unfair to be so harsh on the OP. She worried her child would not have access to a toilet and that she would be outside all day either getting cold or overheating in too many layers (depending on the activity), and her fears came to fruition, plus her daughter did not drink all day. Obviously, she is upset and therefore needs calming down before she talks to the school, so that any communication with the school can be constructive. I don't think this thread will have succeeded in calming her down, so it is not very helpful to either her or her child's school! It has, however, revealed the existence of the SheWee.

stop using the word 'foo', please.

Nobody has yet told me what foo means...

Depending on what part of the country you are in it can be bloody freezing in November. Out for 4/5 hours and not having somewhere inside to go and eat and warm up and dry off is just silly for a school trip.

www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=foo

So she had unimportant variables in her knickers?!

Charlotte...that's exactly why hats, gloves, a raves and mittens were invented.

Are those unimportant variables in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?