PSAs on school trips instead of parents

[Jedbartletforpresident]

Anyone else in a school which does this?

Our school has always asked/begged parents to help out with school trips and has almost always got enough parents. There are plenty of us who are SAHM or who work PT and are always happy to help out. There is almost always also a PSA (TA) also on the trip, but they have always utilised parents.

New SMT - (Head & 2 deputes) - and all of a sudden parents are not being requested for trips. DD1 has had 4 trips so far this year and has another 1 this week and we haven't been asked to help at all. I asked her who went on the trips and she said the teacher and 2 or 3 PSAs. (As well as student teacher who is currently assigned to their class but that was just for last week's trip.)

It's not just her class trips either because I have seen several trips walking past our house (we live next to the school and the kids who know us always wave in at the window if they see me) and there haven't been any parent helpers - just teachers and PSAs.

I don't understand this - why would they send PSAs out of the school for a trip and thereby taking them away other classes when they could be using parents?

Anyone else have any similar experiences?

(There has been some speculation about it being a further indication of the SMT trying to keep parents out of the school - this is one of many changes along these lines since the new Head took over a year ago, but I don't want to cast aspersions if there is a genuine reason for it. I'd just like to understand because it seems odd.)

I work for a company that organises events for school groups, so have experience of many primary schools. Schools do now seem to rely less on parent helpers these days and use staff wherever possible.
The exception being with very young children where the required ratio is higher and so often parents come as well, tbh some of the parent helpers have caused problems in the past.

I’ve had some bad experiences of parents helping on school trips, anything from hitting their own child, storming off and leaving us under ratios (due to issues unrelated to School staff), losing children, inappropriate comments re: race or disability... Other parents have been totally reliable, brilliant and a godsend. But it can be very worrying as a teacher to be reliant on parents who may or may not be suitable. Maybe the head has had some equally bad experiences. I dealt with it by asking specific parents to help, but of course that meant I was accused of favouritism. I couldn’t exactly tell parents that ‘so and so’ making a fuss in the playground had made a racist remarks, which was why they weren’t being asked again.

Where I am a governor, all governors are DBS checked and we maintain a DBS checked list of parents who have said they may be available for trips. We, as governors are rarely alone with children but we prefer to be on the safe side. However on trips, a small group of children may be assigned to a parent or a governor so they could be away from the teacher or TA. We do have TAs going on the trips but only ones who would be with that year group on that day. Seems to work well and no complaints.

'Never vetted or police checked'
Wow. No wonder the new Head has changed things.

coffee if you RTFT you'll see that it isn't necessary for volunteers who are only helping on an ad hoc/irregular basis and who don't have any actual responsibility for children and are never left alone with them to have police checks. If they are literally just sitting on a bus or walking down the street to keep numbers up there is really no need.

That wasn't meant to be abrupt or rude coffee - apologies if it came across like that - just trying to point out that it isn't really necessary, and certainly where we are (and where my family live - in a totally different part of the UK) it is very normal for parents to help out on trips. The sudden change struck me as odd, particularly considering our position as a school with a staffing shortage, but I can see it is maybe a lot more normal across the UK than I had thought.

It might not be necessary in the eyes of thr law aka the minimum safeguarding required but it's common in schools for all volunteers to be DBSed these days.

The non DBSed volunteers cannot be unattended with children. So (at least to me if I was trip planning) I would want staffing ratios should be such that if an incident occured then the ratios are there enough DBSed members of staff who can be repsonsible for a group of children.

Some parent helpers are awesome.
Others tend to think school trips are more of a jolly rather than an educational visit and treat them as such.

We never ask for parent helpers on any of our school trips, but always use TAs.

I much prefer running school trips using only school staff.

We get asked for volunteers. Must have a DBS...

We are usually put in different class to our children for reason stated by others prioritising their own child.

I did walk my DS to a location the other side of town along with a group of children and he was ill so I ended looking after him.

Do PSA have DBS that might be the reason why.

"I can't go and get help because that leaves volunteer alone " sorry being devils advocate here but surely you couldn't go if the volunteer wasn't there either as that would leave the children alone?

hope All you that are happy there are paid staff on trip. Means that classes are losing their TA and that means any kids thar need thst extra bit of help are not getting it
Children who are entitled to 1-1 TA support don't lose them.
Teaching assistants not allocates to statemented children are not 'year 5's TA'. They are TAs for the school for the head to deploy as needed

There are loads of unstatement kids who need extra help in school who by taking the TA way are losing a day schooling not to mention the rest of class .
ASD takes years to be diagnosis now so there lots kids out that need help . These kids in my experience won't be allowed on trips either so miss out again.

In many schools there are loads of unstatemented kids who need TAs to accompany them on trips for their safety and that of others. Should schools expect parent volunteers to take on this difficult role?

Twitchingdog
I know there are other kids who benefit from TA support.
I was responding to the idea of TA's being "their" TAs.
The only children who are entitled to set hours of 1-1 TA support are those with ECHP.

The head will deploy the staff as needed.

It's a bit like at secondary, during exam seasons lots of TAs for students who aren't statemented end up being with y11 students in exams as readers/scribes to allow accesd arrangements. That means that for some classes a child who may benefit from.a TA doesn't have one (though at secondary it's a deploy TAs where you can as long as the legal stuff is sorted so most classes don't have a TA).
Sure, a student may benefit from a TA in ny class but the y11 with exam access needs gets the TA for that exam.
Same for the trips. If the TA is needed on a trip then they are needed on a trip.
Heads will make the best call they can with tje staff they have available.

I don't think twitching is referring to pupils on the trip, but to those in other classes who do not have support from the TA who would normally be there.

No one is suggesting volunteers backfill the classroom gals when TAs are elsewhere.

AuntieStella
I know she isn't.
She's going down the route of 'other children lose their TA', except thr TAs aren't allocated to those other children. They are not entitled to have a class TA. The head is entitled to allocate TAs as needed across the school (a bit like what we so in gcse time).

Sure it'd be nice to have a TA all day every day but that is not the reality across education so whining that a head has deployed their staff to run a trip sort of winds me up. Pesky heads allocating staff to try and maximise limjted resources to give kids opportunities.
In the last 3 years I have only ever had a TA in my class for statemented children. We have a whole range of needs in our classes. The students are still making progress.
One day without a TA for a class is really not the end of the world.

Maisie. my comment was to mrz not to you (it crossed with your post of 06:24:19). I am aware of issues about allocating TAs.

I'm sure twitching is referring to kids in other classes but there is a requirement for higher adult child ratios outside the classroom so the only safe way some children can be included in visits is to utilise all support staff. I'm not suggesting volunteers backfill classrooms but I'm asking if it's fair to ask them to take responsibility on trips for children who would be a danger to themselves and others outside the controlled classroom environment?
I'm not undertaking any external visits with my current class

That makes sense AuntieStella

I took a different view of twitching's post as I took: 'unstatement kids who need extra help in school who by taking the TA way are losing a day schooling' to refer to pupils in class, for whom the usual TA was not available that day

And have no disagreement whatsoever with Maisie and the hard choices which have to be made about TA deployment. But do not think that parents are being asked to for into the class to cover for the TA (to use twitching's words) which is why I found any assumption that parents would cover that difficult role during TA absenses rather odd.

Baring in mind you seem to know the exact staff make up, how many classes they cover and the ins and outs of every trip.....I’d say your well over invested in your kids school life.

Unstatemented kids can also need extra help on trips when they aren't in a controlled environment.

Ha! Well now, I don't think it's unusual to know how many pupils and classes are in your child's school, and as for the staffing numbers - it is well documented. All staff are listed on the website and it is also mentioned on school newsletters when we have new staff or when someone leaves. I don't think that's unusual?

Where we live we also have the added issue of severe teacher shortages which are well documented in the media too, so it's something everyone is very aware of.

As for knowing the ins and outs of all the trips - I never said that. I said that my DD had been on several trips already this year and I have just realised that we hadn't been asked to volunteer to help. It's now Dec and school started in Aug so the fact it's taken me this long to notice would indicate that no, I'm definitely not over invested! I did also make mention of a couple of trips which I noticed as they walk past my house as the kids sometimes wave in at the window - this has just been in the last week or so and I have noticed the PSAs and lack of parents only because I made my realisation of not being asked to volunteer recently and it seemed odd as it's been the norm for parents to help on trips at the school for as long as I've known it.

It's a sad day when knowing how many staff and pupils your school has makes you over invested!

If you’ve questions about how the head is deploying staff then chat to him about or become a governor.

I would probably have spoken to the teacher too if I was interested as they will know how trips are being organised now.

OP, I think you've highlighted the difficulty with parent volunteers in your own posts, in that you've said a couple of times that parent volunteers weren't actually there to take any responsibility but merely to make up the numbers. Therein lies the problem.

If the school is taking its safeguarding responsibilities seriously, the adult/child ratios on a trip shouldn't just be about box-ticking and making up the numbers. Each adult present should be playing an active role to help keep the children safe.