Cancelled school trip

Poppie68

British schools and I'm sure other countries are taking the same stance.
That all school trips are to be cancelled to a country if a State of Emergency has been declared.... France is looking at extending their State of Emergency for another 3 months or maybe longer.

missbiggles1

!!!!!! wrote: »

Do you have a reference for that?

The only bits I can find are

and



Neither of which support your claim

Not quite what some people seem to believe is being said -

"The French Education Ministry has cancelled all school trips until Sunday [22 November]. The order does not specifically apply to school parties from abroad. But the Foreign Office says the French authorities have “advised foreign school groups to avoid travelling to France for the time being”."


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/paris-terror-attack-francois-hollandes-declaration-of-war-disrupts-travel-in-france-a6738151.html

maman

whitesatin wrote: »

It doesn't take much to get another teacher bashing thread going, does it?

You're right. It won't be long before we get complaints about costumes for nativity plays and how schools just waste the last week of term! Oh and I must have missed the moans about chazza collections for Children in Need.:rotfl:


We've no way of knowing exactly why this particular school cancelled and I think that's the main point here. The school should have, at least, offered a proper explanation but I believe they completely over reacted. They must have announced the decision even before the FO/French advice came onto the website. Maybe if and when the advice is updated to three months that's when a decision about February should be taken.


On the teacher bashing, I'm wondering if this 'holiday' as the OP called it is actually in February half term anyway? In any event teachers have every right to refuse to go on such a trip as although they are paid for being responsible for the children during the day they aren't expected to be responsible 24/7 at school which they are on any residential. They volunteer. Then they get lambasted for being cowardly and irresponsible and it was probably the Head who took the decision anyway.


Maybe the OP will come back with the school's response to his 'third way' suggestion and then we can all argue over that! I'm sure some lazy good for nothing teacher is at fault somewhere:rotfl:

Poppy9

The other issue that might have influenced the school is parents pulling their children out. It maybe that for the trip to go ahead they had to have a minimum of say 50 and if 10 out of the 60 pulled out the trip might not have been able to go ahead according to T&C or the price would have increased substantially. If this had happened no doubt the parents who pulled out might have been happy to lose their deposits but I'm sure other parents wouldn't have been or to pay extra.

While some pupils and parents are happy to continue with the holiday others might not be and it's not that they are cowards it's just a holiday is meant to be exciting and fun and children of this age will be watching news/reading it on internet etc and maybe scared. It maybe their first time abroad without family and with all the recent acts of terrorism (not just France) are too scared to go.

Moto2

maman wrote: »

You're right. It won't be long before we get complaints about costumes for nativity plays and how schools just waste the last week of term! Oh and I must have missed the moans about chazza collections for Children in Need.:rotfl:

Well, there's snow in the forecast so there's a few days off, if it actually snows, it could be a week

:rotfl:

ladymarmalade

Poppie68 wrote: »

All British schools have been told school trips booked for the next few weeks are to be cancelled and as France is now likely to extend the state of emergency for at least another 3 months cancellations are also to extend until further notice. This school in question have obviously tried their best to provide a replacement trip at short notice.
Blaming teachers, schools and local authorities is ridiculous when they have no choice in the matter.... I also doubt any insurance company would touch them if they insisted on taking this trip given the circumstances.

As a head of languages I can tell you this decision will not have been taken lightly. We have a trip booked in March next year and I have thought about nothing else since the tragedies took place last Friday. I keep going through all the pros and cons of going versus not going in my head and I feel like I am going around in circles. The opinions amongst both staff and parents are split. Some schools may be making so called knee jerk reactions because if they pull out now, less money will be lost than pulling out closer to the time.

For me this is one of those situations where whatever is decided, people will be unhappy. Of course losing any amount of money is not ideal, but then neither is potentially putting children in danger (unnecessarily).

I do think it's unfair to say teachers are cancelling trips because they are cowards. Teachers are doing their best to make a decision that is best for everyone (something which seems impossible at this moment in time). I do wonder though what the reaction would be if a school did go and something did happen....people would quickly change their tune!!!

leylandsunaddict

ladymarmalade wrote: »

Teachers are doing their best to make a decision that is best for everyone (something which seems impossible at this moment in time). I do wonder though what the reaction would be if a school did go and something did happen....people would quickly change their tune!!!

Teachers should not be making decisions about forfeiting money that isn't theirs. If they do, then the school should be reimbursing parents who don't want the alternative trip, which is nothing like they actually signed up to and agreed to pay a deposit for.

Moto2

ladymarmalade wrote: »

As a head of languages I can tell you this decision will not have been taken lightly. We have a trip booked in March next year and I have thought about nothing else since the tragedies took place last Friday. I keep going through all the pros and cons of going versus not going in my head and I feel like I am going around in circles. The opinions amongst both staff and parents are split. Some schools may be making so called knee jerk reactions because if they pull out now, less money will be lost than pulling out closer to the time.

And you are doing what the school in the OP isn't.
You're not jumping to a decision within a few hours when the trip is months away, you're actually going through a thorough process of evidence and opinion gathering and decision making within the time scale you have.

I have absolutely no issue with that.

ladymarmalade

leylandsunaddict wrote: »

Teachers should not be making decisions about forfeiting money that isn't theirs. If they do, then the school should be reimbursing parents who don't want the alternative trip, which is nothing like they actually signed up to and agreed to pay a deposit for.

Whilst I agree in principle, trips these days are all about managing risk and risk assessment. This is something else that schools will have to consider.

zagfles

whitesatin wrote: »

It doesn't take much to get another teacher bashing thread going, does it?

What part of "if that was the reason for the cancellation" didn't you understand?

It's not "teacher bashing". It's coward bashing. Whoever the coward(s) happen to be.

It is a good idea, though, to ask for volunteers to stand in for teachers who don't want to do school trips for any reason.

Don't all rush at once, lol.

You've got 3 in this thread. My wife is a TA and went on a trip to London with a year 6 group a few months after 7/7. Together with teachers. Nobody "bashed" them. I don't think anyone even pulled out of the trip.