School say that parent *has* to attend school trip or child can't go

[Sunnymoonshine]

I have a young child who can get upset easily and sometimes needs time out to re-regulate. She's been on school trips and has been OK, but the teacher has been concerned in case she gets upset and is a distraction for the staff. For the last trip, the teacher asked me two days before if I could attend. I couldn't get that time off, so they found an extra school staff member to attend instead (and all was fine). There is another trip coming up and the teacher has told me at drop off that if I don't attend then my child won't be allowed to attend the school trip. I understand that it is difficult to look after so many children, but it's also difficult for me to take time off my job (and I feel like with all the day-time meetings and events and lack of wrap around care, this particular school really doesn't think that most mums work).

The school obviously doesn't think that it should have to provide extra support for the school trip from its own staff. I was wondering if anyone had heard about any similar policies where a school has told a parent that they have to attend a school trip or their child can't attend?

@IncognitoUsername is right that the labelling will help her now.

Also it may help ensure when she goes to secondary school if she is ND she doesn't fall apart especially emotionally which often happens.

By not 'labelling' your child who clearly has some additional needs you're potentially causing the school and all the other children in their class in a difficult situation. My son had a child in his class who had high needs and needed quite a lot of 1:1 care - the parents refused to acknowledge that there was an issue. That child is off to secondary school in September minus a 'label' and I personally feel this is borderline neglect on the parents part. He's really struggling now and often comes out at the end of the day screaming and crying, confused and struggling to regulate his emotions 😞 the kids in class do their best to help him but this continued neglect has made matters worse and I really don't know how he'll cope at secondary school. The school have tried hard to work with the parents but there's only so much they can say or do. If the teacher is telling you that you need to be there for your child to be able to attend the school trip this should be more than enough to ring alarm bells that all is not well when he/she is at school. I speak as a parent who has 'labelled' both her children and got the help and support needed. It boils my bloody piss to see other parents masking over issues with their kids.. the teachers need you in side, it's your child and as a parent you need to step up and listen to their concerns.

Entitled to grab from a cash-strapped and highly benevolent public service and zero mention of parenting responsibilities.
Reason #3 for teachers to no longer want to be teachers.

A few years ago it was reason #0, just about unheard of.
WTF happened to the world?

I think it’s after Covid. So many people now are only able to think about themselves. I just left teaching after 30 years and entitled parents was my number one reason.

She's not doing her best though, as she isn't doing everything she can to get her DC the support they clearly need because she doesn't like labels

Because there is no money in schools. An EHCP provides ringfenced support that they could use for such events.

Yes I know that! Two years it's taken me to get one. Hardly going to solve an issue with a trip this term, is it?!

Sometimes they have to make decisions for the whole class that do impact on one dc.
When ds was in year 4 he had some sort of viral fatigue that meant he spent most of a term not at school or on part time schooling. He was back to full time school in the summer term, but was finding it hard.
The teacher called me the day before the school trip to say they felt he would be better at home.
Yes, he was disappointed. Was it the right decision? Yes.
They sent me a voucher for cheap entry to the same place so I took him in the summer holiday. Bearing in mind that he was immensely better by then, our visit went:

Walk to penguins. He sits down because he's tired, to watch them. 10 minutes later he wants to move on. We walk to the next enclosure which is all of about 20 m away. We watch them for 5 minutes, and I realise he's falling asleep on me. He has half an hour sleep and he wants to see the elephants. They're a little distance away. It takes us 40 minutes to get there because he has to have 3 rests on the way... We only stayed until just after lunch and he slept all the way back.
He spent the next 3 days in bed from overdoing it.

It would have been very difficult for them to manage him without a 1-2-1 and they would not have had one spare for him.

Hello, school teacher here.

We always have 3 parent volunteers in addition to the class teacher and TA for a trip (TA is usually assigned to 1:1 pupil with EHCP). On a recent trip, we did request that a member of one pupil's family attend as the pupil recently joined and was a liability due to behaviour on a previous trip we took.

If the family member was unable to attend, we would have made it work somehow by bringing an additional TA. We would never tell a family that their child cannot come. But the impact would mean, another teacher in the school would lose their TA or cover etc, not ideal.

I was once a 1:1 for a child whose behaviour was extremely challenging. If he was over stimulated, his behaviour would be awful as he just couldn't regulate himself. He had also run away several times. The school felt he wasn't safe on a school trip but his dm kept pressuring. An overnight residential trip was arranged and the head agreed he could come for the day but should be picked up by 5pm as she knew he would be over tired and stimulated if he stayed longer. His dm eventually showed up at 7.30 pm by which point his behaviour was awful and it was taking two staff members to watch him. I also had to stay two and a half hours later than agreed. We asked her for one thing and she couldn't even do that.

What an awful thing to say. And never mind the feelings of the child, hey, left behind with another class.

Do you have any idea how often that happens anyway? Plenty of students with disabilities are left behind because schools prefer to choose activities that are not inclusive.

And then there’s the schools that leave behind students that can’t pay for trips. Happens every term in some schools.

Does that go for tiny village schools who aren't part of a large learning trust?? Ffs. Not all schools have pots of spare cash sitting around.

Yes I do. Budgets are really really tight and so is staffing. The OPs child is not disabled as such, either.

Do you believe all trips and activities that are not 100% accessible to all, should never happen?

With additional funding for an EHCP I thunk ttg o from stone is easier these days, to be honest. It depends where you live but current times where I teach are approx. 2 years from start to end of process, and then we appeal/review for increases in funding because we never get awarded enough.
E.g. I currently have a child in my class who joined in Sept. With £4,500 funding from an EHCP set up at preschool, so, totally irrelevant to his current needs. By Christmas we had enough evidence to uplift to £8,200 successfully. This is enough for a 1:1 3 days a week or every morning.
The school have had to fill the gap for him as best we can, with a hodge podge of other 1:1s we've illegally pulled from other children for an hour here and there.
As a result, the original chuld is now no longer in school, because, despite having evidence from his previous school that a lack of consistent 1:1 would result in him self harming and refusing to attend school at all, we couldn't get the funding for a proper 1:1 in time, and now he is spiralling again.
We are all so heartbroken.

I am derailing but please, please don't delay the lengthy process to get your child help and don't assume the school can magic another member of staff, it just means a different chuld doesn't get the 1:1 they're legally entitled to that day

Also with trip staffing, when you do a risk assessment you base it on worst case scenario not best, so you always overstaff with volunteers if at all possible, to keep all the children safe.
E.g. if there was a fire, which children are a flight risk? Which would therefore need 1:1 etc.
If the teacher is saying it's what your child needs to be safe, why are you questioning that instead of supporting that? I'm not saying always take time off work, but surely you could ring around friends and family? Chuldren behave differently in different settings e.g. I have a pupil whose behaviours are relatively manageable at home but who will flip furniture and act out violently at school. So, for trips, I also ask his parents/family, because I can't keep the other children safe without him having a trusted 1:1 adult and, suprise suprise, he doesn't qualify for any funding.

I absolutely understand this mindset, as I had similar thoughts/ concerns when dd was 5-6. Now 7 and in y2, and despite this year being better than last we have decided to get the wheels moving on a formal assessment, probably via private. My attitude changed when I joined my school’s send parent group for a coffee morning and learned 1) how long it can take to get assessed- 3 years in my area and 2) how difficult it can be for send children when they hit certain milestones (transitions in education such as ks1 to ks2, adolescence, etc.) and then consequences of not being able to access help.

if you are being singled out to support your child at an outing it is probably an indication of higher than normal need for support. My dd is much worse at school than at home, in part because at home we are adapting to her needs on a conscience and subconsciously level, and with only 2 dc total at home it is easy to accommodate her/ manage her needs. Our schools was able to coordinate some support from a SaLT and play therapist (we paid for this) who helped dd with self-regulation, and this has had a massive impact on her ability to regulate at school.

Yep in an independent mainstream.
I knew he would be no trouble in London and wasn’t a flight risk but they were worried he could refuse to get on the boat / London eye but he’s done it a million times I knew he would be fine but it was compulsory I had to go if I wanted him on the trip due to overall number of children vs teachers - the only way they would allow it and I didn’t think it was nice that he would miss out. So I went.

an EHCP took me 2 yrs and a tribunal so defo start now!

DH or I go on all DS5 school trip to support him. He doesn’t have EHCP yet but is being assessed.

As soon as any trip is mentioned we schedule it in for one of us. It’s a pain but I’m realising that a lot of things are going to be hard work and very inconvenient in order to support DS.

I should add though that they never said he can’t go without us…. I’m not sure what their position would be.

As someone with a Special Needs child you are wrong!!! No not how it works- The school has to provide support and they cannot exclude kids bec of their disabilities . if they don’t have the support then they don’t have the trip- In 16 yrs i’ve never heard of this and i also lived in NYC at one point for years. Its the schools responsibility and if they can’t then no one goes- We don’t excuse certain kids

Sorry if I have missed it, but has the child had or is awaiting a diagnosis?
I feel as though you are wanting it both ways.To not have, what you perceive as the stigma of a label, but also want to access the support that it would bring.

Zombie thread.

This thread is 5 months old. The trip was long ago now.