Thoughts on 9 year old going abroad on school trip ?

If the parents are ok with it and the child is excited to go, please don't ruin it by putting YOUR anxiety and worrying onto them.

You don't want her to go, not because she doesn't want to go, but to make you feel better and to stop your worrying even if she misses out on something she wants to do.

Talking about sleeping in the same room as the children, IF I out myself here, then so be it in order to show how seriously I take these trips - which have formed a large part of my working life.
The Caroline Dickinson youth hostel case really really shook me. Especially as she came from our neck of the woods and the YH in Brittany was one I knew. When worried parents came to ask me what precautions I was taking, I said a member of my staff would sleep in every room, in the bed closest to the door, with the children. We piled all the suitcases up as a barricade and if anyone needed the toilet in the night we dismantled the pile. These were 9, 10 and 11 year olds. There was no way I was going to take any risks and parents needed to trust me 100%. Nothing is more precious than your child.
When school parties came to stay at my own property in France we took every precaution too, putting the two dogs by the front and back door.

Sorry to ramble here, the mention of the poor school girl churned things up for me.

Understand you feeling protective however it’s out of your hands. I wouldn’t want mine to go as think it’s too young but it’s parents decision.

Quite simply she is too young!!!

As to a nine year old going on a school trip abroad. What are you afraid of? No teacher is going to allow any nine year old, whether young or old for her age to wander round a foreign city without adult supervision!

Neither should they allow 12 and 13 year olds wander round a foreign city on their own but that is precisely what happened on DD's school trip.

Going on holiday with parents is a whole different ball game!!

We couldn't afford expensive holidays when they were young but we did go camping in France via Britanny Ferries (as well as in this country) and they made some wonderful memories, including playing with children of all nationalities on the camp sites.
We managed trips abroad when they were a bit older and always made sure we visited interesting places as well as days on the beach or by the pool, again with friends they made on holiday.

OK
I think I used the expression of no educational benefit when asking the OP if the destination were Athens. If it were Skiathos, then no.

As I say both my children went to Germany in year 5 and France in year 6. It was a very well travelled school. They gained enormous benefits from both trips.

If someone offered me Hadrians Wall instead of Greece I would be very unhappy

Joseann

But that's different growstuff as you, the parent, were with your 9 year old son and presumably responsible for him alone. I'm guessing you slept in the same room?

No, we didn't sleep in the same room.

I wasn't intending to comment on the wisdom of a school trip to Greece, but whether a 9 year old could learn from the experience. Some posters have denied educational benefits, but I think there are.

But growstuff he was with you not on a school trip.
My DGS aged 10 was in Greece last year with his parents and had a wonderful time. He wrote a blog and educated us all.

But that's different growstuff as you, the parent, were with your 9 year old son and presumably responsible for him alone. I'm guessing you slept in the same room?

By the time my younger DC were in P7, Dounans had closed (lack of government funding) so one DC was offered a weekend at an hotel to learn table manners amongst other things. We didn't let him go as for the same price we could take all 4 camping .
Our youngest had nothing at primary school but a week's coach trip in Europe in S3 (age14)

The best and most memorable trips were the exchanges with our Twin Town where aged 13 to 15 they stayed with a family in France and the French child came here.

I think children could learn quite a lot from a trip to Greece.

By coincidence, when my son was 9, we went on a holiday to Greece, which included a couple of days in Athens. When he returned to school that September, the history topic was Ancient Greece. The teacher asked him to take in some of the pictures he had standing in front of the Acropolis, some of the postcards he'd bought and one of those souvenir Greek vases. He wrote about the Acropolis and how it's much higher than the surrounding area and you could see for miles. He didn't have to imagine what it was like because he'd been there.

Something just made me look at travel advice on Govt website and for Greece it says in bold “terrorists are likely to carry out attacks in Greece.” It says they can happen in areas frequented by foreigners.

As Joseann says above incidents are very rare but parents do need to be aware.

If people agree for their kids of 9 to go to places which have warnings like that then that’s their choice but we all know from shootings in several countries that there are some crazy people out there.

Those type of incidents are very rare Primrose53 but I get where you're coming from.
The school can do all the risk assessments they like, but it's pretty useless when you never know what catastrophe will strike.

When he was 9 my DGS was musical and was the youngest member of a musical ensemble. The next boy nearest his age was 12 . DGS was invited to go with the group on a 4 day visit to Belgium to play at various concerts . His parents knew the head of the group quite well as he taught music at the school so allowed him to go .
He went and really enjoyed it the only thing was he had eaten only snacks and crisps the whole time as he didn’t like the food (fussy eater ). Also he hadn’t bothered to get washed or changed clothes in that time as there was no one to make him 😂😂😂 .

I think 9 is too young to be going abroad on a school trip Drina and wouldn't have wanted either of our boys to have done so at that age, but it's the parents decision.

grandtanteJE65

Personally, I am glad to hear that schools are trying to peruade modern parents to stop molly-coddling their children.

Unless you live in a very rough area, any nine year old should be able to walk alone to and from school. If they are not, then it is time they began to learn to go out and about during daylight hours alone, either walking or by public transport.

Likewise, it is far better that a nine year old learns that homework that either was not done or scamped gets her into trouble at school, than that she leaves school at sixteen still not knowing that actions have consequences.

Old fashioned views? You are at liberty to think so, but forty years of teaching children has led me to believe that it is harmful not to teach them levels of independence suitable to their age group.

As to a nine year old going on a school trip abroad. What are you afraid of? No teacher is going to allow any nine year old, whether young or old for her age to wander round a foreign city without adult supervision!

You can safely assume that the children will go everywhere together as a class, with the two members of staff who are with them at all times.

The girl wants to go, her parents are content to allow her to, and her teachers believe that the children they are taking abroad are obedient enough to do as they are told, otherwise they would not be taking them.

So please, worried gran, button your lip and stop worrying if you possibly can.

Oh come on it’s not mollycoddling to worry about a NINE YEAR OLD going on a trip to Greece. My kids played out close to our house, ran wild on camping trips with us and were definitely not mollycoddled but this trip would be a No from me.

Just thinking about terrible incidents of kids abroad on school trips and can remember an older girl drowning in a lake in France, an older girl getting raped in a hostel where somebody wandered in off the street, Madeleine McCann, little Ben who went missing years ago on his grandparents land wasn’t that Greece and little Emile who disappeared from his grandparents holiday home in France last weekend.

As others have said what can 9 year olds really learn from a trip to Greece? We have such wonderful technology now that they can learn so much from the classroom or their home and leave the travelling to their teenage years.

In P7 our older DC went to Dounans camp for 2 weeks in the Summer term
It was in the Scottish Highlands
The children slept in bunks in wooden chalets and ate together scout style. They had outdoor lessons and I still have some of the journals they wrote.
Ours loved it but even there, an hour from home, some children were unhappy, missed mum's cooking and came home after the first week. Some still wet the bed.
I know DC are more sophisticated these days but somehow 9 still seems too young to get much from a school trip to Greece
Greece is fantastic and with the family could be interesting to most DC but with the school?.

I’ll be honest, a lot of the comments here feel very old fashioned and domineering. It’s really not up to you what the school do and what your GC do if parents agree. And you think your daughter has been brainwashed by the school?! I’m cringing so hard I think I strained something.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up of having any say in your GC’s extracurricular opportunities when they’re older if this is how you react now.

Personally, I am glad to hear that schools are trying to peruade modern parents to stop molly-coddling their children.

Unless you live in a very rough area, any nine year old should be able to walk alone to and from school. If they are not, then it is time they began to learn to go out and about during daylight hours alone, either walking or by public transport.

Likewise, it is far better that a nine year old learns that homework that either was not done or scamped gets her into trouble at school, than that she leaves school at sixteen still not knowing that actions have consequences.

Old fashioned views? You are at liberty to think so, but forty years of teaching children has led me to believe that it is harmful not to teach them levels of independence suitable to their age group.

As to a nine year old going on a school trip abroad. What are you afraid of? No teacher is going to allow any nine year old, whether young or old for her age to wander round a foreign city without adult supervision!

You can safely assume that the children will go everywhere together as a class, with the two members of staff who are with them at all times.

The girl wants to go, her parents are content to allow her to, and her teachers believe that the children they are taking abroad are obedient enough to do as they are told, otherwise they would not be taking them.

So please, worried gran, button your lip and stop worrying if you possibly can.

My dad was a teacher and went on three school trips - one was the Channel Isles, one was camping in Wales and the third was France and the Loire valley - and mum went too. (Spouses were allowed to go too, in those days, as long as they paid. I don't know if that still happens.) Anyway, on the Welsh and French trips they were shocked by the lack of care and supervision by some of the other adults, including the people who were ultimately responsible. Mum and Dad did their best to keep an eye on all the kids but they were worried that some would end up lost or hurt, due to the general lack of care. Mum said that it was sheer luck that none of the children came to harm, and that she was never letting her kids go on residential school trips.

Of course, a lot of trips are well-run, no doubt, but I wouldn't bank on it. Particularly if my child was only 9 years old.

I would have reservations about a nine year old going to Greece as well. I appreciate some are more mature than others but in general I think it's too young.
As other posters have said I would question the value of such a trip for a nine year old.

I don't think you stated what time of the year the trip would be, Greece is red hot in the summer, in fact right now southern Europe is experiencing extreme 40 degree weather, not conducive to taking school parties out and about. As others have stated Greek history overlaps with mythology, and although the latter is quite fun to learn in junior school years, The Minotaur etc. it's as fabled as Disney. Nine is ever so young to take in wall to wall culture anyway, I remember doing Rome aged 20 and felt like running for the hills, all seven of them, after a couple of days When I returned twenty or so years later I was far more receptive to the amazing sights and sites on offer.

The first residential school trips our children did were in year 6 when they went to the Isle of Wight for a week which seemed to be well received, lots of child centred fun and learning activities, I was pretty relaxed about that, like you not sure I would have been if it had been abroad somewhere.