Have a Good Trip!

These are two words which strike fear into my heart. So many things can go wrong. It takes hours to plan them and from the second you send the letter home, announcing that we are going on an educational trip to The Best Place Since Sliced Bread, there is a sense that something can go wrong. From out of thin air, come the What Ifs.

What if……

We don’t have enough parents making a voluntary contribution and we can’t cover the cost?

We can’t scrape together enough adults to meet the children: adult ratio?

It rains?

One of the adults is ill on the day?

The bus breaks down?

We lose one of the children?

We forget the sick bucket/ first aid kits/ childrens’ inhalers/somebody’s lunch?

Consequently, it’s a nailbiting time, right up until the moment we step on the coach. The cost of a trip is always high- by the time the coach and insurance is paid for, it’s difficult to add on a £5 entrance fee to the Sealife Centre or a zoo, as it just makes it impossible for the families who are on a low income or the families with two children within the group on the trip.

My Top 5 Awful Trip Moments

Trip to Hunstanton with Year 1 and 2

This was the day that the boy who was Allergic to Everything left his lunchbox in the classroom and his teacher didn’t notice until we got off the coach in Hunstanton. He was 6 years old, but couldn’t recite what he wasn’t allowed to eat (which scuppered the chances of us cobbling him a lunch together from the adults’ lunchboxes).  I had to telephone school, in the days before mobile phones (which meant I had to find a phone box first) and ask the secretary to contact his Mum to ask her what we could give him to eat. I then had to find a shop, so I could get change to phone the secretary back, to get the list of approved food, then I had to find a shop from which to buy it.

Lesson learned: Make sure somebody has the job of giving the classroom a final sweep before getting on the coach.

Trip to Hunstanton with Year 1 and 2

This was a different year to the one above, made memorable by the fact that we were going to the beach, to explore the rock pools. It was quite a walk from the car park to the beach, and there was no shelter. Unfortunately there was a sudden downpour and a sandstorm when we were amongst the rock pools. The children started screaming and crying because the sandstorm was stinging their legs (most of them were in shorts because it was a beautiful day) and we all had to make a mad dash for the coach. On the way to the coach, my Mother-in-Law (who had been drafted in as a responsible adult) had a funny turn and we almost had to call an ambulance (but she didn’t want a fuss).

Lesson learned: Don’t trust the weather forecast, wear trousers and leave the old people at home.

Trip to Snettisham Farm Park with Year 2

It’s hard to enjoy a day out when you can smell sick. One poor little girl was violently travel sick the second we got out of town. I can ‘do’ sick (I can’t ‘do’ blood ) so I was the designated Sick Mistress on the journey. Armed with wet wipes, soothing words, a bucket and a heaving stomach, I sat with her all the way and tried to make her feel better. The thing with sick though, is that once you have the smell of it up your nose (or in your hair), it’s very difficult to think of anything else. This was, of course, in the days before handy little bottles of sanitising gel- an invention which has made school trips much more savoury.

Lesson learned: Take some sort of deodorising equipment/air freshener/body spray to get rid of the ‘Eau de Sick’ fragrance which will cling to you like you are giving it a life force.

Trip to Mountfitchet Castle with Years 4 and 5

This was going to be a long day, as it was an hour and a bit journey both ways, but none of us was prepared to be on the coach for 7 and a half hours. There was an accident on the M11, just after the slip road which we could have used to make a sharp exit along the back roads. Our two coaches, full of excited children who had done nothing but talk about the trip for weeks before, were stuck on the motorway for the whole day, whilst the road ahead was cleared. One coach had a television and dvds, the other had a radio. Both coaches had a chemical toilet at the back (hooray!) which quickly became full (oh dear). As this WAS in the days of mobile phones, we were able to let school know we were safe and we could check the news to see what was happening. The children were brilliant- very disappointed, but they were so very well-behaved and took it all in their stride. Once the road was cleared, we were able to travel onwards to the Service Station at Stansted, where we all trooped in to use the toilets. Having made the most of the facilities, we then got back on the coaches and came home again. What a day!

Lesson learned: Take extra food and drink, a book, phone charger and a class set of incontinence pants, just in case.

Trip to The Shire Horse Centre with Year 2

This was my first year at a new school, so I didn’t have a lot of say in the trip. Had I been asked, I might have expressed my concern at a 3+ hour round trip, where we couldn’t fit all of the children on the coach, so we had to take a mini bus as well, together with the fact that I was 7 months pregnant and didn’t think I could travel that long without needing the loo. I was assigned to the mini bus, along with several  “spirited” (challenging) children and the only saving grace was that our driver was our Chair of Governors, who was also a Paramedic in his spare time. This gave me a little bit of comfort, medically speaking, for all of 30 seconds, until I realised that should anything happen in the baby department, I would never be able to look him in the eye again. Yes, I knew he was a professional, fully trained and highly skilled man, but I was 7 months into my pregnancy and my raging hormones and overactive imagination had kicked in. We set off on our trip, with me fully expecting to give birth on the way there in a layby, with 9 “spirited” children looking on in horror/amazement at the spectacle before them. Thankfully, I was wrong, and we arrived at The Shire Horse Centre in the late morning, where I elbowed the children out of the way to take advantage of the one (yes, I said ONE) toilet they had for public use.  

Our trip actually went very well- nobody got trampled by a horse, which is always a bonus, and it didn’t rain. We each took our group of children around the shop and most of us kept a close eye on what they spent their money on. As the time was drawing near for us to leave, it took us a Very Long Time to make sure the children all had the chance to go to the one toilet before the long journey back. It is the journey there and back which really sticks in my mind on this particular trip. Our poor Chair of Governors had to drive home with one of the boys on the mini bus constantly snapping at him with a shark’s head on a stick which he had managed to buy whilst being carefully supervised by the adult in charge of his group. It was one of those sticks with a trigger on the end, which made the shark’s mouth snap when it was pulled. I estimate that it was pulled about 5 times a second for an hour and 45 minutes.  I wasn’t a lot of help- I’d queued for 20 minutes before we left, for the toilet, only to find that once I got in there, I didn’t need to go. Obviously, 15 minutes into our journey home I would have given my right arm, left arm and as yet unborn child for the chance to queue again, but it was not to be. My predicament curtailed my ability to disarm The Boy With a Shark on a Stick and I had to put all my efforts into bracing myself every time we went over a bump, so that we didn’t all go home with wet feet. The Boy With a Shark on a Stick was completely oblivious, and declared the journey home more exciting than the rest of the day!

Lesson learned: Stick with the paramedic if you’re pregnant, invest in incontinence pants Just in Case and ditch any child who has something snappy on a stick.