The P7 residential trip is an important part of a child’s final year in primary school but it can be challenging for many families to find the money for their children to attend.
Audrey Ross, Head Teacher at Bannockburn Primary School, understands how difficult this can be, but she and staff at the school are also very conscious that when offering help it’s not just as simple as offering help to families living in lower SIMD zones or those receiving free school meals.
“That’s only part of the picture, because if it was simple as that we would miss children. So it comes down to relationships. If you know your families really well, then you can have that conversation where you go on the phone and say ‘listen I see that your child hasn’t put their name down for Dalguise. Is it about the money? Because see if it’s about the money, then let’s not make that a barrier’. We can have those conversations now. That’s certainly been helpful to some families.”
Staff at Auchenharvie Academy, North Ayrshire were aware that some young people would automatically self-exclude from trips and activities that cost their families money.
To deal with this the school now promotes trips and activities in the first instance without mentioning costs. Once pupils have let the school know whether they are interested in going, the faculty involved identifies pupils who might need additional support. The school gets in touch again and includes this statement:
“Due to additional funding becoming available within the school, we no longer require payment for your child to participate in this upcoming trip.”
Staff also call parents and carers to get the message over, and if a family prefers to pay they are given the opportunity to opt out of this process. This approach is used consistently across the school to ensure no pupil misses out and every parent and carer receives the same correspondence from the school.
Allison Hopton, Principal Teacher Family Learning at Auchenharvie, says that this approach is built on the school’s experience of their community:
“We often have to change our approach on how we deal with different situations so we don’t upset any of our families. The last thing we want to do is cause damage to any relationships we have spent years building.”
Staff at Girvan Academy have worked with learners to promote the support their school offers.
