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Primary education

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Original poster

Parents asked to give lifts for school trip

69 replies

bizzybeing · 03/10/2023 08:25

My DC is in year 3 and I've had a message to say they'll be going on a school trip in a few weeks time. The trip is fairly local so the children will walk there (30-40min walk). The school feel it's too far to expect children this age to walk back to school as well so they are asking parents to arrange lifts back to school amongst themselves.

The children need to be collected from the trip and then dropped back to school before the normal end of the school day.

Is it normal for schools to ask parents to provide transport to trips during the school day? I've not heard of it before but it seems to raise various safeguarding issues to me.

DP and I will both be working and can not take time out in the middle of the day to collect DC ourselves so will need to ask another parent to help. The class WhatsApp has several people offering so that shouldn't be a problem but we're new to the area so I don't actually know any of these people.

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BlurredEdges · 03/10/2023 18:18

My kids' schools have never asked this.
We're in London so they use public transport for most local trips, and coaches if they're going further afield. Lots of parents (including me) don't own cars or drive.

I wouldn't be happy about it. Is anyone walking back? A teacher?

IliveInCambridge · 03/10/2023 18:22

TeenDivided · 03/10/2023 08:55

I guess the difficulty is that you are new so don't know the parents. Usually by y3 you would have met the parents and formed your own judgement as to who you would or would not let drive your child.

How are the teachers getting back? They can go in a teacher's car.

There are very limited occasions when teachers should take children in their own cars, and this isn’t one of them.

LolaSmiles · 03/10/2023 18:24

All that will happen is that the trip gets cancelled. This will be how they’ve always arranged return transport, as it’s probably too expensive to hire a bus for the relatively short distance.
That's still for the school to sort out.

It's not acceptable to bypass basic safeguarding by saying "but if we don't cut corners on safeguarding then you'll not have a trip".

I'd not be happy as a teacher signing off on a trip with these arrangements because I'd not be happy that I was adequately keeping children safe.

gotomomo · 03/10/2023 18:30

Seems a nightmare situation for working parents, my DD's were in car seats into secondary school, well boosters but still legally required them

TolkiensFallow · 03/10/2023 18:31

This is a safeguarding concern.

IliveInCambridge · 03/10/2023 18:35

”Staff should not offer lifts to pupils unless the need for this has been agreed by a manager.
………
Where possible and practicable transport should be undertaken other than in private vehicles and with at least one adult additional to the driver acting as an escort “

From safeguarding training given yesterday. 😀

modgepodge · 03/10/2023 18:37

I would be interested to know how this is phrased. At my school we are not allowed to ask parents to give lifts to other children, nor really suggest they ask each other and arrange it themselves.

However we can ask them to transport their own child somewhere (and we do, if we have 16 going to a fixture and 15 spaces on the minibus - the alternative would be a coach costing £20 per child to travel 5 miles). If 2 parents happen to arrange to take each others child and let us know then we can hand the child over to the other parent like we would at the end of the day for a play date or whatever. From a safeguarding point of view this is no different, it’s a private arrangement between parents.

I suspect the alternative is a coach, billed to parents at about £20 per child for what must be a 1-2 mile journey.

HongKongGarden · 03/10/2023 18:38

IliveInCambridge · 03/10/2023 18:35

From safeguarding training given yesterday. 😀

Sting covered the issue quite well too 43 years ago.

newnametoday11 · 03/10/2023 18:44

My kids (late teens) went to a small school average around 15 children per year, we often did it. It saved a lot of money and allowed them to do more things (petrol and cost of living crisis) we also stuck around to help at the activity.

AtmosAtmos · 03/10/2023 18:57

The other safeguarding issue isn’t to do with the day of the trip. If a child is on their own and a car pulls up they are very likely to remember never talk to strangers. But this isn’t a stranger - “it’s raining I’ll give you a lift, remember I’m Sarah’s mum, I took you back to school on the trip last term”.
If this was informal it may be someone the parents know vaguely and were needing to get anyone that could help. Better if the school has DBS checked the parent before the school trip.

PurpleGoose · 03/10/2023 19:06

Echoing what others have said regarding safeguarding - not something I could ever imagine either my children's school or mine suggesting/agreeing to.

However, I'm also baffled by the idea that Y3 children couldn't do a 30-40min walk both there and back. I'm guessing it's approx 1.5 miles (or less) each way? I could understand if they were reception, possibly Y1, but my Y2 child can do this easily and does so most days to/from school (so does my 4 year old, but I understand that that is more unusual).

Justrolledmyeyesoutloud · 03/10/2023 19:17

It will be about the money op - it always is in schools.

Kwasi · 03/10/2023 21:19

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

At 7 years old?

Meadowfly · 03/10/2023 21:29

My dcs school tried to do this, I was working and the mum who (kindly) volunteered to take dc was an awful driver - had had repeated minor accidents and was quite notorious for not concentrating.

I wrote an email to the school (cc’d to dh) saying that I did not consent to my dc being driven by a parent without my explicit written consent for each trip.

JellyTipisthebest · 04/10/2023 08:27

Surely most kids will end up being taken back to school by a friends parent who the often play at their house with. By the school suggesting it's sorted out without means they don't need to do checks etc.

I would think the teachers will sort it out so one of their cars if left there.

lanthanum · 04/10/2023 15:19

They would do better to say that the children will be walking back to school for 3.10, but if any parents wish to collect them from the venue at 2.20, they may do so. Add a bit to the permission slip for parents to indicate either that they will collect from school as normal, or that the child will be collected from the venue by <name>.

I think transporting children from venue to school would make it very much "school business" for insurance purposes.

BlueYonder57 · 04/10/2023 15:29

Err - so the school will be insuring you all and checking you for safeguarding issues? This is one of the most stupid ideas I have heard of in a long time. If they wish to run trips then they must organise them properly.

2weekstowait · 04/10/2023 19:17

No, never heard of that at all. The school has always arranged transport themselves or they all walked if it was local - one of the trips was around a 25 minute walk and I'm sure took them quite a bit longer!

There is very little chance this policy would have worked at our schools, too many people worked and simply wouldn't have been able to do it or been prepared to do it, particularly to take them back to school and then come and collect them again a bit later on, that's a big ask!

Bunnycat101 · 05/10/2023 23:01

Our school do this a lot because of the cost of coach travel. It is a bit of a pain tbh re car seats. What pisses me off about it though is the school often say it is mandatory but then absents itself of any of the arrangements for lift sharing so there is often a scramble on WhatsApp to find someone with space in the car who isn’t working. I’m sure it is probably a bit dodge.

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