Cancelled school trip

silvercar

All parents are not equal and it is the reaction of those kinds of parents that the decision to cancel the trip will be made.

I would hope the decision would be made by taking a proper assessment of the risk, including consultation with the appropriate authorities.

Gavin83

Janepig wrote: »

That's rubbish I'm sorry. Like I said, the only time I would lay blame is if harm came to my child because of negligence on the part of the teacher who should have been looking after her. That's not blaming the school, that's blaming the individual teacher.

Thing is you only speak for yourself. You can't speak for the parents of other children on the trip, or the national press for that matter. While people will blame the terrorists they are essentially a faceless organisation, the school is much easier to blame. If the children went and something happened the first thing people would ask is "why did the school choose to go on the trip regardless of the recent events?"

Just consider this will be national news. Just look at cases like baby P, someone will have to lose their job for it, even if it wasn't their fault so whoever has responsibility for this decision won't wish to make it, especially as doing so carries barely any positives in their eyes.

January20

silvercar wrote: »

I would hope the decision would be made by taking a proper assessment of the risk, including consultation with the appropriate authorities.

I was listening for a French radio this morning (Europe1) and they mentioned that under the rules of the "plan vigipirate" all outings for state French schools have been cancelled. Frankly, that would be enough for me to make my decision to cancel a planned trip!

pogofish

January20 wrote: »

When you've taken a group of children to a foreign capital and looked after them 24/7 for the whole of the trip, you will understand the stress that it puts teachers under and may won't be making such silly comments!

If you can't cope with that and evaluate risks effectively, then maybe you should be questioning your fitness to teach then?

So save us your ignorant preciousness - You have no idea!

tomtontom

pogofish wrote: »

If you can't cope with that and evaluate risks effectively, then maybe you should be questioning your fitness to teach then?

So save us your ignorant preciousness - You have no idea!

What a nasty uncalled for post - January20 has explained how they would evaluate the risk of a trip and their reasoning is sound. Unless you can be more specific in what you object to, I'll assume you're just spouting for no reason at all.

pollypenny

pogofish wrote: »

If you can't cope with that and evaluate risks effectively, then maybe you should be questioning your fitness to teach then?

So save us your ignorant preciousness - You have no idea!

It's because of risk evaluation and 24/7 care that pupils are able to go on school trips abroad.

As for your last sentence, the irony is that you clearly have no idea. Why so nasty?

Anyway, there's a very clear signal from the French government, so no school trips for the time being.

angelil

January20 wrote: »

I was listening for a French radio this morning (Europe1) and they mentioned that under the rules of the "plan vigipirate" all outings for state French schools have been cancelled. Frankly, that would be enough for me to make my decision to cancel a planned trip!

Actually, we're "game on" again now. "Plan Vigipirate" was of course implemented immediately after the attacks. However, we received notification on Monday evening that all normal school activities can now resume. The children in our school went to sports/to the park etc as they normally would yesterday and today without incident.

artbaron

I hope when the kids do have their school trip they are teleporting to their destination, otherwise the likelihood of death or injury from a traffic accident is several thousand times the likelihood of them being similarly harmed by terrorists. People just don't understand the concept of risk. Never have, never will.

GwylimT

pogofish wrote: »

And this seems to have gone right over the heads of these teachers.

Who have absolutely no say in a trip happening or not.

Janepig

silvercar wrote: »

I would hope the decision would be made by taking a proper assessment of the risk, including consultation with the appropriate authorities.

Exactly. Surely whoever makes the decision as to whether the trip goes ahead can't possibly make that decision based on the possibility of parents pointing the finger of blame if something goes wrong. I really will be amazed if that's the case.

artbaron wrote: »

I hope when the kids do have their school trip they are teleporting to their destination, otherwise the likelihood of death or injury from a traffic accident is several thousand times the likelihood of them being similarly harmed by terrorists. People just don't understand the concept of risk. Never have, never will.

This is how I feel. It's a bit "final destination" but I just think that if they call this off on a "hunch" rather than an actual escalation of risk, something will actually happen to them at home, or on any alternative trip that might be arranged. If that makes sense - I was explaining it to a colleague the other day and he understood!

Regarding the blame thing though - when you think of some of the things that can go wrong, bus crash, ferry sinking, terrorists attacking them as they're minding their own business, hotel burning down, etc..... yes a parent might, in their grief, blame the school, but knowing that there are risk assessments done prior to a trip, and other arris covering, the chances of a school/teachers actually being found to be negligent are very low I should think.

My line of work involves a similar raft of risk assessments, insurance paperwork, etc... before we let our clientele loose (not school kids), but it hasn't stopped some of them occasionally suing for spurious reasons, usually unsuccessfully.

Jx