Unauthorised school trip

[Quicknamechangeforthis1ok]

Name changed for this as may be very outing. Penis beaker, Scottish mummy, Korean granny etc

Bit long, sorry.

14yo brought letter home and was really enthusiastic for a school trip to a theme park.so I booked and paid, bit expensive but I don't want them to miss out.

3 days before they started saying they didn't want to go, basically because they wanted to see a special showing of musical the other end of the country and tickets had come up on twickets. I said no to their new plan, it would have cost a fortune anyway for hotel and travel.

14yo still complaining 2 days before trip. Night before trip they came home from school and proper kicked off about how they hated theme parks, weren't going, had nothing to wear (humourless lol at that) and had said all along they didn't want to go (double humourless lol), why was I so stupid to pay for it and so on.

It was turned 4pm and the reception staff had finished so sent a panicked email to the organiser to say 14yo had refused to go slightly glossing reason, not knowing if it was too late and teachers would be wondering where they were at silly o'clock the next morning. Luckily the organiser picked it up.

9-10pm ish, it must have sunk in that expensive theatre trip wasn't happening and rude, spoilt 14yo had another kick off demanding to go. Too late, nothing I could do, you can't mess people around like that anyway. 14yo threatened to just turn up but I explained the teachers couldn't take them because they were no longer on the list which didn't go.down well but tough.

Next morning I got them up and out to school for the normal day despite strenuous attempts at refusal. 14yo has to learn that choices have consequences, this would be a very mild consequence. The theme park trip had long gone by this point.

So - expected 14yo to be safe in school all day.

14yo got home from school and it turned out they'd been offered a place on an alternative extra-curricular, not linked to schoolwork, smaller off-site trip and they said yes... I knew nothing about it, hadn't paid and obviously wouldn't have authorised it anyway.

This really is long!

Massive safeguarding issue, if anything had happened 14yo wouldn't have been covered by insurance. Contacted school immediately. Teacher had felt sorry for the little so-and-so left behind and asked them. I am not happy in the slightest and made that clear. Also had to pay for this bloody trip after wasting theme park money, that's by-the-by because it should have been used but I didn't want a further bill.

I get the impression the school wants to sweep the safeguarding aspect under the carpet as all communication from them has very carefully skirted around this issue. WIBU to follow this up in no uncertain terms after the holidays? I get that the teacher felt like they were being kind and don't necessarily want them punished for being nice but I'm really not happy. Anything could have happened but luckily didn't and they should have at least asked for permission before taking 14yo off site for an extra-curricular.

Until phones got collected at the beginning of the day, we genuinely had parents phoning up and shouting that their child wasn't in the correct place on site and they were to be immediately brought to the phone to explain why they were there.

In unconnected news, some children would leave their phones in particular places (a floor directly above or below where they would normally be expected to be sitting) before visiting the DSL.

Stop blaming school and sort your kid out

as for safeguarding and insurance - the school will be covered.

thd issue is your child’s behaviour

You probably signed a permission slip to be off site so no safeguarding issue

In my experience parents have always been notified. If a trip that costs, isn’t local or may run outside school hours, a permission slip for that trip is a must. Most schools have forms when you join the school and one of these is a permission slip to go on local trips or visits that take place during the school day and cost nothing. If you’ve previously agreed to these visits then permission isn’t required but the school should notify parents the trip is happening, this gives parents a chance to decide if they want their child to take part or not

*she

People track their kid’s phones to make sure they’re sitting in the correct classroom at the correct time? 🤯

Yup. See also demands that staff go out onto the road and find one kid out of the thousand or so walking from/to the bus stop because the phone was switched off as the bus arrived instead of at the gate or it's 4 minutes after the end of the school and it's not been switched back on yet. Usually accompanied by instructions to get off fat fucking arses and do their job.

See also 'Is there a fire? I heard there was a fire'. No, you didn't, your unfortunate possession has been tracked by the tag you put in their bag and you can see that they are currently standing in the playground or they left it on the field when they were playing football and forgot to pick it up at the end of break.

Apart from anything else, finding a single child in a thousand-plus throng of identically dressed 11-16 year olds requires similar skills to a cattle rancher. I have no horse, binoculars, dog nor rope with which to cut them out of the herd. I suppose if we were to be donated a couple of watchtowers and sniper sights, there would be a slight chance of doing so, but it's kind of difficult to convince the Business Manager that the money for repairing the leaking roof should be redeployed into recreating Checkpoint Charlie.

Some people…. Wow.

Lol, didn't expect this to still be going in active.

I seem to have brought up the worst child in the world, there's never been worse behaviour ever posted on mumsnet. Sometimes 14yos are bratty, I'm nipping this one in the bud.

Anyway, for these trips you have to click permission on the app if that clears up the discussion about blanket permission at the start of the year. The new trip needed specific permission which it didn't have. It also left within about 15 mins of school start time so very tight timings to get the list reprinted with DD's name on it, if she's not on the register she's not counted out and back, especially as the teacher who invited her wasn't going. Children left behind somewhere tend to end up in those sadface pictures in the local paper under headlines like 'My ORDEAL at Charnock Richard service station where I was ABANDONED by my CRUEL TEACHERS' which I'd prefer not to happen in my case.

I understand about teachers having hassle with late kids etc which is why I cancelled the theme park trip the evening before and certainly wouldn't try to get my child back on when she changed her mind. I did say I didn't want anyone messed around on the original trip which left really early in the morning. I was more worried I was cancelling that one too late.

I also said I didn't want the teacher to have the kindness knocked out of her. I think a phone call for permission would have been appropriate, to which I'd have said no. No idea why anyone felt sorry for mine lol, there were others in her year not going on trips and they weren't taken on the pity alternative. She'll be among that cohort properly next year 😈

Finally, the payment. Of course I paid. DD decided to go and not paying would have left an obligation that gnawed at my conscience and kept me awake at night, I'm not joking about that. Funnily enough, when the new bill was put on the app the next day I had to retrospectively confirm permission before I could pay it.

No reason whatsoever to assume a 14 year old of average intelligence would get left behind at a service station.
Doesn’t she manage to get herself to and from school, or is she ferried there too?

Child goes to toilet after activity and coach goes because everyone is back on it...

This

Tbf, replacement trip was in a bit of an out the way place but also somewhere DD would have been able to walk home from because we're hikers and explorers, it's a long way away but we have walked there and back a few times. Would have taken a while but she could. Just to allay any concern that she's too incompetent...

I agree but then I got told off for agreeing, agreeing meant no wonder my child was like that with the words I used ie cock in agreement.

Honestly you're making a drama out of nothing by deciding the teachers were going to lose your child based on nothing.
It was a local trip within school hours, there was no safeguarding issue and the school didn't need your consent.
Afterwards you chose to consent and pay anyway so I don't think you really have any basis to complain.

It’s good practice to ask the parents’ consent but if the trip is within school hours they don’t have to:

‘For children over nursery age, written consent is not needed for most trips, as they’re part of the curriculum. However, it’s good practice to tell parents or carers about them.
Written consent is usually only needed for trips that:

• need a higher level of risk assessment
• are outside normal school hours’

This is from gov.uk

So yes they should have called and told you but they didn’t have to, especially as you had already consented to the previous trip so they know you aren’t against DD going on trips altogether. They didn’t know the background may have thought DD was scared of rollercoasters, or was having friendship issues or something.
So yes they should have called as good practice, but if it’s within school hours and not an extreme sports type trip they don’t HAVE to.

I don’t know why you think the insurance would be invalid? Do you know the school’s insurance policy?

Regarding lists of students - yes your DD wouldn’t have been on the list printed out by the office, but generally most teachers are able to carry a pen and write a name on a list…. Do you honestly think they wouldn’t count heads and tick off names on the coach at the start of the trip, notice your DD was an extra, and NOT make a note on the list, and NOT count heads on the way back, thereby leaving her in a service station?

I think you are focusing on the wrong issues here.

Is there any reason to assume this would happen to your child in particular? Why?
They’re 14, not 4. If they haven’t the sense to get on the coach with everyone else, they have problems all the permission slips in the world won’t solve.

On every school coach trip I have been on, the teacher counts heads on the coach on the way out (a few times!) and also at the services. They would have noticed.

Yes, the staff on the coach would have had a long conversation about an extra child on a trip, maybe not in her earshot but definitely it would have been a topic of interest!

The teacher seeing children on to the coach in the morning would notice your DD wasn't on the list and write her name on. Also the teacher who arranged for her to join the trip at short notice would have informed the teachers in charge of the new trip so DD's name was probably already written on with a pen.

It’s not really a safeguarding issue surely? The brat kid is in their care whether that’s the school site or off it, I’d be more pissed off they are expecting you to pay for it. Pocket money deducted for both trips I think. I would also not gloss over the behaviour with school!