I think my newbieness has wore off enough to allow a mild rant 
My 15 year old has just asked us to sign a permission slip to allow her to go on an Educational School Trip to The Trafford Centre!
I have a few issues with the terms and where the educational bit comes in.
Terms:
1. Cost is £5.50 to provide transport to and from the Trafford Centre, i'm fine with that.
2. Students are required to have a change of clothing with them, so they are not wearing their school uniform. I have a huge issue with this. the point of the uniform in these circumstances is so you can spot your pupils when rounding them up and also so the shops know who's nicked all their gear!
3. You are required to provide spending money for the trip! Well i now have an even bigger issue with that. for one i have no spare money to hand over to a teenager to runamok around the Trafford Centre, she's already blown her spending money for the next two months buying concert tickets. The trip takes place 3 days before payday and 3 days before my 40th birthday, which we have cancelled everything to do with because we're skint (see Redundancy thread). I know she has friends who get £100/week spending money from their stay away Dads. So how is this going to look if i scrape £10 together and say buy a t-shirt and the rest of the group are off buying Dolce. Maybe it's a Maths trip to produce a graph sorting out the boy's and girls into haves and have not. Plotting who took the most money etc etc.
4. What's the educational part. I was told it's about learning the value of £1, "great you can have a quid" was my reply.
5. They leave at 15:30 and return back at 21:30. If it's a school trip, do it in your time not mine. I assume i need to provide funds to cover eating out at a cost that would feed the whole family at home.
I'm thinking of phoning the school up to find out which Tool came up with this idea, you just know it's going to be the Cool Newly Qualified Teacher who still has to show ID to buy a beer!
Someone in the office has already asked if her friends nicked some school letterhead and produced the letter themselves.
And yes the real reason i have a problem with this is because i haven't got the money to fund it. I already know the child doesn't understand the value of £1 and i don't think a sponsored shopping trip is going to change that. This is a child who was so desperate to spend the last pound of her spending money at the supermarket (rather than save it till next time) grabbed a pack of white paper plates off the nearest shelf costing 87p.
I back my childrens education 100%, help with homework etc, but i think this trip is wrong.
