What ratio of adults:children would you be comfortable with for a reception school trip?

[KLRJ]

Going to preface this by saying this will be my eldests first ever school trip, therefore also the first time for me sending one of my children on a trip, so please be kind.

What ratio of adults to children would you be comfortable with when sending your 4/5 year old child on a school trip to a children's science museum, 45 minutes away by coach in a middle of a city location?

Friends with children at other local schools have advised me their school trips have allowed parents as volunteers to allow the ratio to be 1 adult to 3 or 4 children. My child's school has refused volunteers (a few of us have asked) and I've just asked my child's teacher what the ratio will be for their trip and they've said 1 adult to 6 children (which she was keen to highlight is the legal requirement).

My child is under assessment for autism/adhd and can be quite a flight risk when out and about with me (and certainly would be a huge flight risk at a children's museum with a multitude of distractions). She masks exceptionally well at school, so despite me highlighting her struggles, she very often gets overlooked and so the idea of her being on a trip with a ratio of 1:6 doesn't sit well with me.

I'm not an overly anxious person, but this will be my first time sending my first baby off on a school trip, so I'm just looking for some opinions from other parents with children the same age to see if I'm being unreasonable in worrying about this or not.

I think that’s fine. My daughters nursery go out every day, and they have about 3 kids to 1 adult at preschool age; so 6 to 1 at school age is fine. They’ll only be in coach, then in the museum.

1:6 is a really high ratio. It will be fine.

This might be your first rodeo, but it’s not theirs…

Given your info. Ask for a risk assessment re the flight risk

1:6 actually seems a little high, I’m not an expert, just going on what my daughters who teach primary, one specifically as early years lead, have said ,she uses 1: 4 for trips , especially if it’s to a potentially busy site .Staffing is based on the risk assessment and specific needs, there is to my knowledge no legal requirement, rather an acknowledgment that 1:6 is the absolute maximum acceptable

The thing about allowing parent volunteers is it becomes very difficult to effectively “screen” the parents - you really have to let any parents go or no parents go, or risk upsetting a lot of people. I understand that you want to go, but (setting aside the flight risk because you say they aren’t really aware of that) next time they would probably let a different group of parents go, which from the school’s POV is fair. So do you feel your daughter is safer as one of a group of 6, with the adult as a teacher, or one of a group of 4, with the adult being a random parent?

My DD isn’t school age yet so I can only imagine how stressful it is as a parent, but I’ve done many, many trips into central London using public transport (including with high flight risk children!). Definitely ask to see the risk assessment, and you should also let them know what DD has done in a similar setting before/what precautions you put in place.

1:6 fine generally...

But with a risk assessment for any additional needs which require a smaller ratio.

@Sadcafe it used to be the case that each LEA set their own staffing ratios/guidance. Possibly this LEA still has one?

Coach is one of the safer ways of getting somewhere as they count them on the coach and then back on.

generally the museum is doing a particular visit experience rather than just wandering round if you see what I mean so museum staff are with them as well.

some museums have a separate classroom and lunch room for educational visits.

school have to do a risk assessment for every trip. If you are concerned maybe ask to see it?

does your child have TA support in class?

Speak to the SENCO. If your child is on the ND pathway it would be advisable to provide a 1 to 1 in this situation. You have shared the possibility of flight risk.
Request an individual risk assessment as PP says.

Thank you so much for your reply. I do get where you're coming from, but is 1:3 to 1:6 not a rather sudden jump when really the only thing changing between preschool and reception is a 6 week summer holiday? I don't know, it sounds like I'm probably being overly anxious and need to just get on with it for the sake of my daughter not missing out, but I just feel like a slight jump to 1:4 or 1:5 would be better given the children are still only four or freshly five (it's a very young cohort of many spring and summer babies, my daughter included)

Thank you, I will definitely do this. They've been a bit dismissive of my daughters needs because she's in their words 'the dream student' so it's been a battle to get even the most simple help from them. We've only just at the end of last term managed to get them to agree to allowing a fidget toy during phonics so I'll have to see what they say about this I think

i used to help out on school trips when mine were in reception and there were never more than 3 or 4 kids per adult.

This seems to be what I've been told from friends with children at schools locally and also friends further afield too! I went in this morning with the intention of it being a no to her going if we were told there would be any more than 4/5 children to an adult, so when she said 6 I was quite disappointed. In the 90's when I was in R, Y1 and Y2 the ratio was 1:4 and I so I thought with the addition of more in depth risk assessments these days there would be no chance of it being any worse than that! I desperately don't want to be the mum that makes my child miss out because of my concerns though so I'm so conflicted!

Depends tbh. For my sons class there’s two kids who are pretty high support needs and I wouldn’t be too happy with a 1:6 unless those kids have 1:1, or 1:2. They demand a lot of attention and if they didn’t have proper support a 1:6 ratio wouldn’t really be 1:6 in practice as they would need constant supervision. DDs class 1:6 would be a none issue, she’s probably the one they’d need to watch most lol.

Thank you for your reply, I do appreciate it's difficult to screen parents but it seems like other schools seem to find a way to do it so it does feel disappointing that my daughters school can't find a way to do it too.

I'm not particularly disappointed about not being able to go myself, it actually wouldn't be an ideal situation for me to go as I also have a 2.5 year old and an exclusively breast fed 5 month old to consider and I think my presence there would potentially make it harder overall as my daughter would likely 'unmask' and become more difficult and therefore more of a risk than if I wasn't there. I see your point about other parents not being screened and therefore maybe unsafe in that regard though

Parent volunteers on trips can be more of a hindrance than a help sometimes. DC’s school had the policy you didn’t have your child in the group you were responsible for as otherwise some parents would concentrate on their own child and not always look out for the other children assigned to them.

Ask school about flight risk and any other issues your DD may have on the trip, but be able to give exact examples of potential risks, so you don’t just come across as an anxious parent. There will be many risk assessments being completed for the trip. It may be that in the museum they will have some museum staff with them to add to the ratios.

Since your DC's school is supplying the adults, presumably they are staff members and thus know each other well and know the pupils. Using TAs and teachers is a higher level of supervision compared to using parent volunteers. Also, they'll know the tricky characters and will have allocated 1:1 or 1:2 as necessary as well as bringing epipens or other medication and will have been trained how to use them.

Most pupils will have been to playgroup/nursery or similar so will be familiar with how to function and, remember, it's summer term now so your DC's whole class will have had 2 terms of learning how to behave. OTOH, I would be surprised if a reception class went on a trip in October ...

When my DDs were primary age, I was a volunteer chaperone on many trips. The school required volunteers to pass a DBS check. The ratio was approx 1:6 or sometimes 1:5.

I see the point about counting them on and off, but I also feel uneasy about the fact it might come to the counting stage before they realise one of the children has gone missing, and this seems far more likely with 1 adult to 6 children than less children. I have 3 children myself and I know taking the three of them alone to this museum and keeping them in check for a day would be one hell of a difficult job, let alone having twice as many to worry about 🫠

I assume that the TA's will make up the adults on the trip and therefore will have 6 of their own children to worry about but I will enquire about this. She doesn't have specific support for her additional needs because the school have told us there's nothing they can do for her if she's not showing her struggles at school, and she's incredibly good at masking

Thanks so much for your response 😊

Thank you for this, it's a really good shout and I will definitely see if I can get them to do this 😊

The ratio guideline is 1:6 for this age. Not including any 1:1s.
Risk wise it's minimal as they're on a coach and then participating in a group activity. They'll likely be together all the time anyway.
As a pp said, parent helpers can be tricky as some are brilliant but some only want to spend time with their child/check out the competition/don't listen to the teacher in charge which makes it higher risk.
Have they done a smaller trip at all - local walk for example?
The difficulty you have is that you're saying your dd is a runner but they have no evidence of that. She may well behave completely differently in school (very typical) and it may not be a problem. On the other hand, I'd listen to a parent who said that and put them in my group.

This is exactly what I've been told from friends locally, some further afield and also from my mum who supervised myself and my sister on school trips in the 90's!

@KLRJ school are not going to make this trip harder for themselves. I assume they have done it before or similar ones.

I'm glad you've pointed this out as this is actually another point that I mentioned to my husband this morning. My daughter doesn't show her needs at school, they've told us countless times that they can't provide her additional support because of this and because they have so many children in the class who do show their additional needs and therefore apparently need the support more than her. So 1:6 on this trip will likely not be 1:6 in practice if what they've told me about the extent of the needs of other children in the class is true and not them just trying to fob me off when I've asked for additional support in the past

Our school was 4-5 usually, with the sn kids having extra supervision .
Parent volunteers were always welcome and appreciated though. And most parents had the opportunity to join at least one trip throughout the years. It’s a shame your school doesn’t allow for this, I wonder what their reasoning is.

Thank you for this, I will definitely ask them for more information. I feel like they already see me as a problem parent as I highlight my daughters needs to them and they always tell me they never see them at school. Makes me feel like they think I'm making it up but I know I need to get over my concerns about their perception of me and push through for the sake of my daughter!