Cancelled school trip

whitesatin

Let's face it, if the teachers decide they don't want to take the risk, there is no point in consultation. Teachers have lives and families of their own and can opt out of going on trips if they choose to. I can imagine the scene if there was a consultation meeting, it would achieve nothing but more bad feeling.

Support your schools, support the goodwill of your teachers. They have your child's interests at heart, as well as their own, of course.

As mentioned above, can you imagine the repercussions should they go ahead (and who knows how long all this uncertainty will go on?), if something awful happened.

Money means very little at the end of the day. By the way, I am retired and with a modest income in case anyone thinks otherwise.

zagfles

Poppy9 wrote: »

That's not disputed but a school has limited sources of money.


1 source is from LEA to educate pupils and that money is ring fenced and restricted in what they can use it for.


Second source is school fund. This is usually from voluntary donations by parents i.e. non uniform day, nominal school fees for things like planners. PTA monies may also be paid into this fund.


Now school has cancelled. They cannot use LEA funding to give a discretionary payment to a group of parents. So only option is school fund. So the majority of parents whose children were never booked onto the trip but have contributed to school fund basically provide the refund. One parent gets wind of this and informs other parent - huge fuss made, complaints to LEA etc.


So final option is LEA. Given the level of cuts to LA then if this is widespread in schools throughout their area they will refuse and say use your school fund.


I am not for one minute saying it's acceptable that parents have lost their money. I'm just saying if the school did not have insurance to cover this situation then they have limited options to refund. Insurance to cover this eventuality (and any other) should be compulsory

How about the individual(s) who made the decision to cancel, when there is no FCO advice against travel to Paris in Feb. Whether that was the head, or some cowardly teacher(s) who decided to pull out?

There've been a few other threads about people cancelling trips. Those who cancelled will lose their mony. As they should, insurance won't cover it unless the FCO advise against travel.

The school should have left it for a while. They'd probably have had parents pulling out, and those parents would then deserve to lose their deposits, and so they'd only need to refund those parents who still wanted their kids to go.

People need to get a grip !!!!!!. Was London closed down for 3 months after the 7/7 attacks? Did people refuse to go into London for 3 months afterwards? Did teachers who live outside London but who worked in London schools refuse to go to work for 3 months? If they did, they would have been sacked. Maybe the same should apply here, or at least those who pulled out should make good the losses suffered by others.

Stevie_Palimo

Moto2 wrote: »

It's not a matter of whether or not they have the right to to say 'go or 'no go'
It's whether they should of wiped out people's deposits without any sort of consultation and without even taking a breath after the weekend's events.
There was absolutely no reason to act so quickly and a bit of time to gather information, opinions and advice first would have been the route taken by most responsible people.

Originally Posted by Stevie Palimo
You are completely wrong it is the Schools decision and nobody else's,

I didn't say otherwise so I'm not sure how I can be completely wrong


What I did say was most responsible people would not take such a quick decision.
Try reading posts a bit more thoroughly before making such quick decisions and replying


I obviously did read your post prior to my reply hence the reason I stated you are wrong, Read between the lines on peoples posts and there are different meanings, Yours I took as a dig at the School in question to which I advised nobody else's decision barr there's.

Moto2

Keep digging

Stevie_Palimo

Moto2 wrote: »

Keep digging

There is nothing to dig you are wrong end of.

pollypenny

zagfles wrote: »

How about the individual(s) who made the decision to cancel, when there is no FCO advice against travel to Paris in Feb. Whether that was the head, or some cowardly teacher(s) who decided to pull out?

There've been a few other threads about people cancelling trips. Those who cancelled will lose their mony. As they should, insurance won't cover it unless the FCO advise against travel.

The school should have left it for a while. They'd probably have had parents pulling out, and those parents would then deserve to lose their deposits, and so they'd only need to refund those parents who still wanted their kids to go.

People need to get a grip !!!!!!. Was London closed down for 3 months after the 7/7 attacks? Did people refuse to go into London for 3 months afterwards? Did teachers who live outside London but who worked in London schools refuse to go to work for 3 months? If they did, they would have been sacked. Maybe the same should apply here, or at least those who pulled out should make good the losses suffered by others.

To you and all those who are criticising the school: while you may well visit Paris yourselves, would you take 60 young people, for whom you are responsible?

From my experience, it would be a Y7 or 8 trip?

George_Michael

Stevie_Palimo wrote: »

I don't think you quite understand what deposit means !!!.

And it appears that you don't understand what contract means and what are and are not legally acceptable terms in contracts.

4.1 Terms are always likely to be considered unfair if they exclude the
consumer's rights under contract law to the advantage of the supplier. A
basic right of this kind is to receive a refund of prepayments made under a
contract which does not go ahead, or which ends before any
significant benefit is enjoyed. In certain circumstances consumers are
entitled to a refund even where they themselves bring the contract to an
end.

4.2 Any party to a contract normally has the right to cancel it and receive a full
refund of any prepayments (possibly compensation as well) where the other
breaks the contract in such a way as to threaten its whole value to him.
A term which makes any substantial prepayment or deposit entirely
nonrefundable, whatever the circumstances, conflicts with this principle.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/284426/oft311.pdf

eDicky

pollypenny wrote: »

To you and all those who are criticising the school: while you may well visit Paris yourselves, would you take 60 young people, for whom you are responsible?

From my experience, it would be a Y7 or 8 trip?

Yes Polly, certainly I would take them, and the responsibility in full, without hesitation. In three months or next week. I would try to prevail upon the parents who were doubtful, and I would as far as appropriate instil some understanding of the circumstances in the pupils (Y7 or 8 = early teens?) to add for them an extra feeling and demonstration of fraternity and solidarity to what is already a valuable and enjoyable experience for youngsters, the school trip to Paris. I remember my own over 50 years ago, and I wouldn't want them to miss it for no valid reason.

zagfles

pollypenny wrote: »

To you and all those who are criticising the school: while you may well visit Paris yourselves, would you take 60 young people, for whom you are responsible?

From my experience, it would be a Y7 or 8 trip?

Err..yes of course I would, if I had said I would. Do you think Parisian kids should be evacuated from the city? Were London kids after 7/7? Were Madrid kids after the attacks there? Were New York kids after 9/11?

Why do you think they weren't evacuated, if the city isn't safe for kids?

The attacks in all those 4 cities didn't target tourists, they targeted ordinary residents of those cities going about their normal business, commuting to work, at work, or out for a night out.

So why does anyone think it's less safe for tourists there for a few days than for people living their lives there and commuting in and out of the city every day? Or going to school in those cities every day?

leylandsunaddict

Someone made a decision to cancel the trip without consulting the parents. That someone has the responsibility to refund any monies collected for that trip. If they don't know where it's going to come from because money is ring fenced for specific purposes they should have thought of that before making a knee jerk reaction to a specific situation, and worked out how they would refund deposits.

We all know most deposits are usually non refundable if you decide to cancel, but if someone decides to forfeit other peoples money without their agreement, then that is their problem to solve. The exception to that being if part of the contract/authorisation parents signed was that the school can arbitrarily cancel the trip for any reason, without return of deposits.

These people are supposed to be responsible and educated adults, but deciding to throw other peoples money away without their consent is neither (although I do know some teachers that know nothing about anything outside the subject they teach. I have one living next door). :eek:

Heaven forbid schools should take their children for a trip to London or Manchester, because they are just as much at risk.