Guest Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 Hi, We are organising our first big trip out to a farm. We are registered for 18 children per session but have 27 on roll. We are running the trip on a Thursday morning when 18 children attend but would like to invite the other 9 children. Here are the questions!!...... 1) In addition to the trip cost do we ask the extra 9 children to pay for a pre-school session on that day? Or just let them come for free? And if they come for free does their parent have to come with them on the trip? 2) Is it okay to be in charge of more than 18 children outside of the setting as long as we up the ratios accordingly? 3) We will be asking the parents to drop and collect their child from the venue. If any grant funded children's parents were unable to do that due to logistics/lack of transport etc. where do we stand? Thanks
Guest Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 I am replying to myself as I am about to fall off the board on the right hand side and am really wondering if someone can help... Cait, Happy Maz, Panders, Shirel, other wise women of the forum... any idea?
Guest Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 Oooh big questions. Sorry I can't help much as we tend to do small trips with only our biggest children, but surely if you are inviting those children who don't attend on that day they can always say no thank you if the cost you put to them is too much. And while it might be nice for everyone to come, you can't even make sure they would by making it free as they might be busy that day anyway. So I would say cover your costs there. My gut says you would be ok regarding the registration as the number is based on space isn't it? But lets get someone else with more information on this one! In our LA if we close for a session we refund the session fees to the LA. So I kind of think you might have to do this if a parent of a funded child couldn't enable them to attend. This thought though works on the parent not being upset about the situation. If they were it could be different again. Could they work transport out between themselves?
Panders Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 Like your style Edlee. We do our best to only undertake outings of the nature you describe with all parents or a carer with the children. This is my personal opinion - if I asked the extra 9 and they were not coming with a carer I would charge as I would be supplying someone to look after them. If their parent comes I do not charge, but they must pay any entrance fee themselves on the day. We only take a minimal amount of children without their own carer, one or two per staff member at the most. If you have grant maintained children who cannot come along because of some logistical reason I feel you may be in breach of your contract with the Local Authority it's a bit of a grey area, if a parent complained that you were not providing care for their child that day because of the outing it could cause you problems Fortunately this has never happened to us. We only do very local trips to keep it as inclusive as poss - no excuse for anyone not to turn up - they can walk there if they have to! We also enlist the help of other parents on occasions who are happy to pick someones child up for them and drop them home and we care for the child on the trip itself. You would probably do well to look for a recent thread where this type of thing was being discussed - I'll go and take a look for it and come back. In the meantime I'#m sure someone more sensible will come along and help!
Guest Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 (edited) If a child attends a trip on a day that they are not funded for we charge them. Parents attend also, no child is allowed to come without an adult. Edited March 5, 2010 by Guest
Panders Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 There is quite a lot of input on trips out in this thread (sorry can't do links) its called Day trips out with pre-school dated Feb 5.2010 and it was initiated by mps09. Have a little look to see if you can find it!!! Quite a few people have had an input
Guest Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 We have the same dilemma this year, we always take the children who are leaving to go onto school on a trip at the end of the year. This year we have 27 children leaving and we are registered for 25 children. Our first concern was if we were insured, we have checked and we aren't as we are taking more than our registered number of children. I have emailed both Ofsted and our insurance and both have agreed our options are to only take 25 or we have to have parents for all 27 children. We had hoped that we could take 25 and then 2 parents for the extra two but no. So worth checking out your insurance companies thoughts on it before getting to much further down the line.
hali Posted March 5, 2010 Posted March 5, 2010 when i ran trips allchildren were invited - if due in nursery for the session they got the trip free (or paid the difference) any other children paid (all parents were asked to attend trips).
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