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?

If truth be told, take your own 5-year old child out all day in the wood and you KNOW you will end up being the one carrying its food AND drink, and it WILL need the toilet miles from any facilities. That's why I wouldn't volunteer to take a host of 5-year olds into the woods with me.

Yamyoid - there was a previous thread, started either by this OP or her sister, about this trip, and I mentioned the forest/outdoor schools on that.

"I have no idea what teachers do on a school trip, as I'm not a teacher. Why would I?"
Doesn't stop most people on MN having a go though.

A 5 year old girl wearing pants, tights, trousers, thick socks, boots, warm jumper, coat, gloves etc probably does need both help getting everything down and being helped/held so she doesn't wee all over her clothes - especially if not used to alfresco weeing.

I find it strange that the OPs child couldn't pull her own pants down ...

Do you know what, at one point earlier in this thread, when Forest schools were mentioned, I thought, "What a lovely thing to do. I'll look into that."
Now I'm just thinking, "What a nightmare, can't be arsed."

I'm with the OP - this sort of school outing is completely pointless and very unpleasant (and possibly risky) for the DC.

Floggingmolly - har, har. I have experience of someone else's child making a HUGE fuss about needing the toilet in a wood, but being TERRIFIED someone would see her pull her pants down and show her bottom, then being terrified of the flora and fauna tickling her bottom, then accidentally peeing on her pants and down her skirt and not being in a fit state to "enjoy" a whole day of this. In a group of 90 children, you can 100% guarantee they won't all take peeing behind a tree in their stride!

Where is op? :o
Maybe she passed out because the letter didn't also say to breathe :o

Most of these places have a visitors centre but maybe they had gone away from the facilities and were desperate.

Even if it was a parent helper, they would be CRBed.

OTT reaction.

Bonsoir, maybe you've been in France too long!

The French are a lot tougher with DC than the British - overnight school trips (up to a week) at 5 etc.

It's all a complete waste of time IMVHO.

How do you know it was pointless Bonsoir ...do you know what was taught during the day or how much the children learnt that they couldn't in a classroom.

And then there's my own mother, who used to insist I put pants on over my tights to stop the tights falling down... At five, I think I would have found it a struggle to keep my coat, jumper, skirt, tights, two pairs of pants, socks, shoes, etc, out of the way of my wee... and heaven forbid if I HAD needed to poo...

I meant the outdoorsy bit.

Sieveoooplay - how many times do I have to repeat that I KNOW not all schools ensure all helpers on school trips are CRB checked?

I have never seen DC learn anything useful on a school trip before Y3, other than put up with being on a coach for a long time and hanging around.

I agree rabbitstew it's very unlikely that 90 children were peeing behind trees which seems to suggest the others visited toilets at some point in the day

(I should add that I have been a parent helper on far more school trips than I could count)

I think the children could have learned an awful lot from a day outside in the woods. Doing the whole day with 90 children, though, and children only 5-years old who are still very varied in their maturity, sounds like a nightmare. I would rather something like that were done in smaller groups, tbh.

sieveoooplay That is not necessarily true...I have been on several school trips as a parent helper and have never been CRB checked. I don't see the problem with the situation posted about mind, I'm just saying it isn't a given for all schools.

clam - I've done forest schools with 2-4 years olds and it is hard work (but we do manage to take drinks for everyone ).

Fair play to the teachers for doing it - not at all for the faint hearted to take 90 kids into the woods at the same time!

I found this but then I was deterred by the image of 90 children all struggling with tights/thermals/wellingtons trying to poo, unseen by random hikers, behind trees while glugging from litre bottles of water and I gave up on the idea.

I would give quite a lot to be in the staff room tomorrow after OP has been in to school.