 Poster: A snowHead
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When Man Utd go away for a game Fergie sets the rules and ... that is that !! It is not about adult/child it is about signing up for something whereby if you want to go you play by the rules of the boss !!
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Megamum wrote: |
| Legally at 18 why does a school still have legal responsibility for you when it is then your choice to still be there? |
Because you are legally registered as a pupil at that school, and you are taking part in a school activity. If you don't want to be bound by the usual regulations and conventions that come part and parcel of that relationship between school, pupil and family you/your parents are perfectly free to arrange your own skiing where the arrangements can be tailored exactly to what you want rather than having to make group compromises.
Why does an adult need to follow the directions of an instructor when they are in a lesson...?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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rayscoops, +1.
Megamum. Schools set all kinds of rules which have nothing to do with the law, or legal responsibilities. It's not against the law to wear a skirt so short it shows your bits, and a blouse unbuttoned so it shows your t1ts. School rules is school rules. It's bad enough when the kids question them - you expect that - but if parents show no support for the school then it all goes downhill fast.
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Megamum With a school student of 16 and over (in Scotland at any rate) the responsibility, if I remember rightly, is to the student, who is deemed an adult, rather than the parent. At one extreme, for instance, if an over 16 has to be excluded from school, the formal letters go to the student who then conducts any re-admission discussions on his/her own behalf. It would be an unwise HT who did not, however, inform and involve the parents! I wonder though if the student in question might have a right to insist on parents not being told but have never encountered that and it's quite beside the point of this discussion.
In the matter of the ski trip, the over 16s could make an independent decision to go on it (if they could afford to pay for it themelves), but their involvement has to be, as has been said, on the terms and conditions of the trip, just as when you or I pay for a ski holiday with a travel company it is on its T&Cs.
In practice , there is usually a difference between the legal status of an over 16 school student and the practising recognition that the parents are usually still in charge - especially when they are paying the bills.
I hope that's still right. There's been a good bit of happy retirement since last having to bother about these matters 
And by the way Pam, there is the legal power to deal with dress that is indecent, offensive or dangerous. I will leave the question in which of these categories one might place a pair of exposed tits.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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As a former school governor for the last 8 years (finished now, thank f**k) getting H & S and other permissions sorted is a total nightmare for any trip, let alone a ski trip.
There is absolutely no way a pupil would be allowed to ski alone.
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From 1977 to 1986 I went on school ski trips every year. Admittedly it's all gone a bit H&S doolally now, but the rules in the those days were that we could ski in lessons or in a group including a teacher under the age of 16, and from the age of 16 we could ski in small groups by ourselves as long as the teachers knew precisely where we were going. Seemed sensible enough to me at the time.
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| pam w wrote: |
| ...As for parents being willing to pay for a school trip but not an independent trip, I agree that's nonsense... |
You can be very abrasive/offensive in the way that you dismiss opinions/experiences that differ from your own.
I have always been happy to pay for any school trips the kids wanted to go on. I have always been happy to pay for everything on any trips that we do as a family. However, if, at 18 my girls want to arrange a holiday with their mates, then my view has been that this is something that they can fund (in the main) themselves. I'd be surprised if other families did not adopt a similar approach. Therefore, although this is presumably different from what you do/did, and it is not nonsense!
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Ray Zorro, just out of interest, why the difference in your opinion about paying for school trips v. non-school trips?
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| Quote: |
And by the way Pam, there is the legal power to deal with dress that is indecent, offensive or dangerous. I will leave the question in which of these categories one might place a pair of exposed tits.
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The kind of dress some kids wear to school might be deemed "normal" in one of Portsmouth's sleazier clubs (they're all pretty sleazy, so I'm told....) so no question of legal redress. Doesn't make it appropriate for school though - especially when worn, as usually seems to be the case, by rather overweight girls who sit around like bags of spuds. The school my daughter teaches at just stipulates "a black skirt" and some skirts are almost impossible to "sit prettily" in, if worn very short by big lumpy girls.
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| Quote: |
You can be very abrasive/offensive in the way that you dismiss opinions/experiences that differ from your own.
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Well I was a bit surprised, actually, that you were advocating kids should go on school trips but question the rules imposed. It seems that some parents want it both ways - they want the overall discipline/structure of a school trip (presumably because they don't trust 18 year olds not to get up to mischief on their own, probably quite rightly) but they want to pick and choose which rules their kids should have to obey. I don't think that's any less abrasive, personally. I suppose that being in a family with a number of teachers - including one who has given up a lot of holiday weeks to do school ski trips, and who always gave priority to kids from families for whom a family trip was pretty much out of the question - I am a bit hyper-sensitive about this.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Ray Zorro wrote: |
| rob@rar, what defines "adult supervised skiing"? |
What is irrelevant. Key is "who". And the answer is "the school".
As for what, it is likely to be "What the school says, i.e. an instructor paid for by the school."
Don't like it? Don't go on the holiday.
What about the 18 year olds booking their own holiday in a hotel in the same resort the same week as the school trip?
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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rob@rar, you have to draw a line somewhere. My view is that you can't let your kids go on school trips at age 13 to 17 and say they can't at 18, that doesn't seem reasonable 
But once they are old enough and able to organise things just for themselves and their mates, then they can pay for it themselves - that is my view (but we may help out on occasion).
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I think it's absurd they can't have any ski-in-their-own-groups time.
Red tape, and over the top risk assessment, and health and safey and blah blah blah. What an utter holdall of excrement. Whilst there has to be a basic level, the rest should be common sense. Once kids reach a certain age there should be rules and guidance and advice and then they have to make their own decisions within that - and be punsihed if they go beyond it.
Seems like we (as in the nation) are intent on breeding and raising a nation of pansies, wet legs, and blame culture kids who've never been let out of sight and have had their hands held all their life.
Frankly, schools should be proactively teaching our kids to take some responsibility and risks for themselves, not prohibiting it. That includes letting them off the leash, albeit with some advice and guidance and some (appropriatte) rules...
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You know it makes sense.
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Ray Zorro, I would agree with that, but it's an arbitrary line I think. I was just wondering if there's something about school trips that you value above DIY trips and therefore you were more inclined to pay for the school activities.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
You can be very abrasive/offensive in the way that you dismiss opinions/experiences that differ from your own.
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Well I was a bit surprised, actually, that you were advocating kids should go on school trips but question the rules imposed. It seems that some parents want it both ways - they want the overall discipline/structure of a school trip (presumably because they don't trust 18 year olds not to get up to mischief on their own, probably quite rightly) but they want to pick and choose which rules their kids should have to obey. I don't think that's any less abrasive, personally. I suppose that being in a family with a number of teachers - including one who has given up a lot of holiday weeks to do school ski trips, and who always gave priority to kids from families for whom a family trip was pretty much out of the question - I am a bit hyper-sensitive about this. |
The OP said "the school states that because of insurance issues she is not allowed to ski without adult supervision."
The school is not appearing to be imposing any rules apart from wanting to meet the requirements of the insurers.
Therefore, it is what the insurers deem to be adult supervision that is the issue here and is why the OP asked about getting separate insurance.
Many here appear to be assuming that the school is setting rules that the girls want to question/disobey, but that does not appear to be the case and is not the question that the OP is asking.
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Poster: A snowHead
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| Gazzza wrote: |
| Frankly, schools should be proactively teaching our kids to take some responsibility and risks for themselves, not prohibiting it. |
An excellent idea. I look forward to the legislation that prohibits schools and teachers being sued, until that time I guess it's sensible for schools to protect themselves from society at large which seems to want to have its cake and eat it.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| Ray Zorro wrote: |
| The school is not appearing to be imposing any rules apart from wanting to meet the requirements of the insurer. |
Or it is hiding behind that as an excuse because it's the easiest way to deal with a situation it would like to avoid, without getting into conflict with parents. Or it's a combination of a range of factors, including fears about liability, natural concerns for pupils' safety, practicalities of having one set of rules for all pupils rather than lots of individually negotiated situations, etc.?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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I had no problem at all telling kids they can't go on school ski trips - mine did go on once once, because we were abroad in the tropics for some years and it was the only chance they'd have for some time - but the rest of the time? No chance at all, when sending two of them on a school trip cost about the same as a budget trip for the whole family. I do think kids need to learn fairly early on to take "no" for an answer. We have 3 kids and if they'd all done school ski trips all the time we'd never have been able to afford family holidays.
For a family who has plenty of cash and can afford for the kids to go on all the trips - that's great. But if you have the right sort of sensible, trustworthy, kids then a trip they plan and arrange for themselves surely has more "growing up" value?
I agree that the limitations necessarily imposed on a school trip are likely to be irksome for a competent 18 year old - and I said so at the outset.
All my kids arranged and did trips themselves at 18 or younger. Not ski trips - far too expensive. But youth hostelling, camping, hitching to Glastonbury, cycling to the Isle of Wight etc. As did I - I planned a two week youth hostelling and walking trip through the West Country in 1963 - I learnt a good deal more than any school trip would have taught me. I had to plan the itinerary to have reasonable walking targets each day, think about shopping (we cooked for ourselves), deal with the constant rain, learn by trial and error how to keep some of my gear dry, etc etc
I went on a school ski trip - which I loved - and couldn't afford to go skiing again for 26 years! But I was 14. I really don't think I'd have wanted to go on a school trip when I was 18 unless it was that or nothing. Far too restrictive!
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I think that they may be pretty well stuck , however you could find it becomes interesting
the adult supervision should be of a higher standard that the kids capabilities - its going to be no good having a teacher who cannot ski taking
out a group of black run kids - stikes me the best option is to approach the school now - and see if they can organise the skiing ahead such that the better skiiers
are grouped to gether with a good sking adult.
at 18 they are legally adults though - so there must be some form of opt out ? maybe there is a highly qualified friend who may be able to look after a group.
other option is to go along yourself, and help with the supervision, if you are a really good skier - then it will be difficult for them to refuse !!!
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Gazzza wrote: |
I think it's absurd they can't have any ski-in-their-own-groups time.
Red tape, and over the top risk assessment, and health and safey and blah blah blah. What an utter holdall of excrement. Whilst there has to be a basic level, the rest should be common sense. Once kids reach a certain age there should be rules and guidance and advice and then they have to make their own decisions within that - and be punsihed if they go beyond it.
Seems like we (as in the nation) are intent on breeding and raising a nation of pansies, wet legs, and blame culture kids who've never been let out of sight and have had their hands held all their life.
Frankly, schools should be proactively teaching our kids to take some responsibility and risks for themselves, not prohibiting it. That includes letting them off the leash, albeit with some advice and guidance and some (appropriatte) rules... |
I agree with you 100%, but as a former governor, to operate within the rules set out by Govt. and Local Autorities, that's impossible. In fact, I'm surprised that any teacher wants to go on a ski trip or indeed any school is still willing to organise one.
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post deleted. Too boring
Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Tue 11-01-11 15:21; edited 2 times in total
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| gazza2 wrote: |
| at 18 they are legally adults though - so there must be some form of opt out ? |
Yes, there is an opt-out. They can go on their own ski holiday. Nothing which says it's school ski trip or no skiing at all.
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rob@rar, my kids can be very inventive and efficient when it comes to ways of spending our money! The aspect for me is how we can hold back the expenditure, not encourage it! It isn't a question of value of school/DIY, it is just that it is hard to say they can't do something that their school is organising and which their mates may be doing and which they may have been doing every year.
Independence forms a natural break point and turns our necessity to fund the activity from the obligatory to the discretionary.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Ray Zorro, all very sensible, and if I had kids I hope I wold take a very similar attitude, as did my parents when I was a kid. It's only looking back as an adult that I understood the sacrifices my parents made to afford to send me on several school ski trips when I was a teenager. I have a lot to be grateful for to my parents for being so generous and to the teachers who arranged those trips for the opportunities as they had a profound impact on my life.
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| An excellent idea. I look forward to the legislation that prohibits schools and teachers being sued, until that time I guess it's sensible for schools to protect themselves from society at large which seems to want to have its cake and eat it. |
Well quite. It is a society problem and a sad indictment of the US style if-it-moves-sue-it culture that invades us more each day.
Another (semi-related) example of society gone made here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-12160124
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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Gazzza, I tried to see a way past the endless rule books, but the whole of the last Govt's culture was restrictive rules, thousands of over-paid wooly headed do-gooders, who's sole purpose was to make stupid rules and generate endless reams of paperwork.
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| Gazzza wrote: |
Seems like we (as in the nation) are intent on breeding and raising a nation of pansies, wet legs, and blame culture kids who've never been let out of sight and have had their hands held all their life.
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+1 but unfortunately in the litigated world we live in and our wonderful media's OTT reaction when anyone dies or gets seriously injured in an accident schools ain't going to be the place where they spread their wings.
Interestingly skiing in the US last week I noticed a number of young kids skiing quite hairy terrain (trees/rocks etc) with instructors who didn't micro manage their lines. I've no idea what the legal waiver for the parents for that "adventure" programme looks like.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Quote: |
it is just that it is hard to say they can't do something that their school is organising
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Sorry, I must be very hard-hearted, but I can, and did, quite often say no. Only a minority of kids in most schools will be lucky enough to go on a school ski trip even once, let alone every year.
I agree entirely about kids being inventive about ways to spend their parents' money - so the faster you hand decisions over to them, the better. They rapidly become quite canny when the decisions are about their own money. My daughter still remembers one day on holiday, aged about 6. "Mum, can I have an ice cream?" "Yes, of course". "Can I have one of those big ones?" "Yes, if you like, but your spending money won't last so long if you buy such big ones".
Her face was a picture; she decided she didn't want an ice cream that much, actually. 
One of my kids had the cheek to moan about having to go on a family ski holiday by coach, one time. I pointed out it was £50 a head cheaper than flying - so £250 for the family. He had some small savings - birthday presents, etc. I suggested he might want to spend his savings on an upgrade. His face, too, was a picture.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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| rayscoops wrote: |
| Confucius says sometimes it is best to go with the flow and bend with the wind like the great bamboo rather than be like a rigid tree and get blown over !! |
Did he really say that? I thought he was a bit more highbrow than that!
Either way, it's a fantastic saying, and I shall plagiarise shamelessly henceforth.
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Poster: A snowHead
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Children of 5 can readily understand the concept of opportunity cost; they grasp it instantly. "If Mum's paying, I want an ice cream; if I have to pay, I don't think I'll bother."
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| rob@rar wrote: |
| gazza2 wrote: |
| at 18 they are legally adults though - so there must be some form of opt out ? |
Yes, there is an opt-out. They can go on their own ski holiday. Nothing which says it's school ski trip or no skiing at all. |
We do live in a very odd world...
I am perfectly at liberty to take a carful of 6 and 7 year olds to gymnastics practice, but to take the same kids in the same car to an official display or competition requires CRB clearance, which I don't have (and won't get, because I'm a miserable non-compliant g*t.)
I guess a similar legislative minefield exists for what those in charge of school trips are allowed to let their charges do.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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| Spyderman wrote: |
| I agree with you 100%, but as a former governor, to operate within the rules set out by Govt. and Local Autorities, that's impossible. In fact, I'm surprised that any teacher wants to go on a ski trip or indeed any school is still willing to organise one. |
I'm astonished that any schoolmaster is prepared to do anything outside the classroom. Hill walking, let alone skiing - or supervising a rugger scrum.
But then I listen to some of my friends with schoolchildren whinging about schools and how they constantly want to take things up with the Head, and wonder why anybody would want to become a schoolmaster at all.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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| Quote: |
wonder why anybody would want to become a schoolmaster at all
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a very good question, James the Last. There are, thankfully, a number of people who genuinely have a vocation for teaching. My son in law comes from a family where his mother is the Head of a tough primary school in Brixton, his father is a pastor and his older brother runs a sailing trust which does a lot with under-priveleged youngsters. My daughter comes from a less altruistic family but with a bit of a public service ethos.
They are both genuinely committed to trying to do their best for the kids in their care - which sometimes means being tough but fair and consistent on discipline. some of the most challenging kids come from homes with few boundaries and very inconsistent (and sometimes violent) discipline. My daughter's school has a very good Head who has turned a previously failing school around - now Outstanding. Unfortunately the Head of my son in law's school is too soft, inconsistent and doesn't back up the teachers trying to discipline kids and enforce the school rules. I don't think he'll be staying at that school too much longer - he gets very frustrated. He's a PE teacher and is fed up with kids who "forget" their kit and then lounge around chatting instead.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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My kids all went on at least a couple of school ski trips but when they were younger than 18, much more prep school age. I am not sure they would have wanted to go on a school trip when they wre 18 and it wasn't long then before they had trips at uni - they always funded those themselves, not sure how though.
When they were quite young and we used to take them to Austria every Christmas/New Year they used to be given a certain amount of Austrian schillings each day and it was up to them how they spent it. Blow it all in one go and they went hungry - I remember our daughter and another friend sitting up having rather a large lunch at the end of the week somewhere and they had just saved a little bit every day in order to treat themselves. Mrs T would have been proud of them.
I went on one of the trips when one of our sons was about 12 as an accompanying parent - all very well behaved little chaps at that age but I still think that the staff involved worked their socks off and deserved whatever it was that was free for them.
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| pam w wrote: |
| Quote: |
wonder why anybody would want to become a schoolmaster at all
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a very good question, James the Last. There are, thankfully, a number of people who genuinely have a vocation for |
The children I have no doubt can be difficult, but that's a separate point. It's the parents that would put me off being a teacher. I recall my parents talking to my school, outside annual parents' evenings, precisely never. Modern schoolmasters expect emails from parents the whole time, and - worse - are expected to answer them instantly.
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| Quote: |
I remember our daughter and another friend sitting up having rather a large lunch at the end of the week somewhere and they had just saved a little bit every day in order to treat themselves.
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| sunnbuel wrote: |
i thought this little statement taken from a well known school ski trip operators website may shed light on the question.
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As the person responsible for the well-being and safety of a group of school children during their tour, you, the party leader, have to feel completely confident that the operator with whom you are dealing shares your sense of responsibility and strives to set and maintain the highest possible standards.
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in other words, the party leader (teacher in this case) is the responsible person. As rob@rar, indicates if the worst happens you can be assured that the public and media will go for the reponsible person. We have all seen it happen time and time again. |
I thought this said it all...........presumably the TO has some experience in this sort of thing.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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When I went on my last school trip a couple of years ago I was already a BASI instructor. I didnt find that the instructors ever held me back and any students that were holding the group back were often moved down so as not to hold the group up too much, its also much better having an instructor to make sure that any problems that do arise on the slope are dealt with properly.
I now instruct on the trips and were often asked by teachers if there are any students that need to be moved down and always try to challenge the students as much as possible. School trips wouldnt work if certain groups of people are just allowed off to ski by themselves, there would be younger pupils that could be just as good as your child but woudnt be allowed to ski by themselves, its all down to being able to make sure the students are looked after as any injurys or damage that is caused is all on the school/teachers shoulders.
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Thought this story was relevant to this discussion. A bit of fun in the snow, one error of judgement then the teacher is sacked and has a huge professional black mark that may well blight the rest of his career.
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FAQ
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