After years of being the ‘slightly not in a box’ home ed group on visits and trips out, I experienced being a ‘mum on a school trip’ this week. Josie’s year went on a trip to the Egyptian area of the British Museum and I decided to go too. This was partly because I was convinced there would be a coach crash/fire/bomb/disaster and no one would know to rescue Josie BEFORE ALL OTHER CHILDREN 😉 and partly because I’ve never been, quite fancied it and a day with Josie seemed like fun.
So I went and escorted a number of extremely lovely school kids around for the day.
There were lots of interesting things to notice. One is that apparently home ed kids expect to spend much longer actually looking; my little bunch were exhausted after about 15 minutes. I employed my trusted technique of asking maths questions for every feet or tummy related complaint. This went down slightly too well… I ended up having to think of a LOT of times table questions 😀
The next interesting thing was… oh my days, how long does it take to get everyone to eat and go to the loo??? We spent SO much more time hanging around than actually looking.
When we did look, however, they LOVED having all the signs read out to them and hearing about how discoveries were made.
Maddy was very jealous we got to see the Rosetta Stone.
Amazingly, we DID have a fire… as we were sat eating the alarms went off and we had to evacuate all the kids. 90 nine year olds can get very worried in a very short space of time 🙁 To my credit, I didn’t pick up Josie and run, I actually managed to waft my little group successfully out without panic and Josie wasn’t even one of the hands I held. (It really was a fire too, though not a big one).
The weirdest thing about the day was experiencing first hand that not all home ed groups are lovely – I was utterly mortified to watch a group I am 99.9% sure where home educated kids treat our school with a contempt and rudeness I would have gone mad to see any of my lot perpetrate. School kids do not smell just because they go to school. Meh.
It was a good day though.
When all else fails, show small children a skeleton 😆
I must admit though, I preferred trips as home educators. £15 and 4 hours on a coach for a 45 minute talk and about 90 minutes of looking at exhibits is not enough value for money I think. Josie and I could have had a more educational day on our own, but being there and seeing her enjoying time with friends, part of a group, joining in and surrounded by lots of kids who like her, that was good. She didn’t get enough ‘group’ these last few years.
Trouble with having other kids around is you have to be careful taking photos 🙁
I pretty sure I got ‘cool group leader award’ from my little bunch though, mainly because I let them use my first name 😆
Subversive that I am 😉
What is the maths thing related to complaints? I’m intrigued.
Love that bit of the museum. Egyptian stuff always facinating – must take the children sometime. I remember being put out when in the Cairo museum that practically all the exhibits were labelled ‘this is a copy, the original is in the British Museum’. Quite a reminder of the plunderous behaviour of previous generations.
I am SO going to do the maths question every time they complain thing, what a win-win situation 🙂
Interesting to hear your perspective on the school trip. I always feel they look so rushed and never study anything in depth, and that is what I remember as a teacher too. It’s all about the logistics, and having to move on all the time. It’s easy to feel smug about behaviour too when out with home ed kids, as they are generally being much more sensible than the school kids, but as you pointed out, that is not always the case.
I love the British Museum, time we had another visit I think. Meet us there sometime? Maddy needs to see the Rosetta stone too 🙂