Trips Guidance

We are constantly reviewing our performance and our systems and are committed to ensuring that we provide you with an improved and more efficient service, this includes our processes regarding trips.

The law states that we cannot allow a child to attend a trip unless we have written permission for that child to attend from their parent or carer, so we do need those slips in from you, preferably as much in advance of the trip as possible.

If we have not received a permission slip from you we do text and call you to chase this up. We appreciate that this may feel burdensome and intrusive and we know that sometimes you have sent the slips in and they have been lost or misplaced in transit. We apologise for any inconvenience caused in the latter case. We are currently reviewing our processes to make them more efficient.

We are investigating systems which enable parents and carers to do as much as is possible relating to trips (and other business with school) online. We do have an online payments system and we urge those of you who have not yet signed up for it to do so. All you need to do is request a letter from the office which will inform you how to set up online payments.

We know that our online payments system can be much improved and we are working with our current provider to ensure that those improvements take place speedily: if they do not, we will be changing our provider.

To enable us to reduce confusion and frustration, we would really appreciate it if you could do the following:

Check the website and newsletters for forthcoming trips.

I urge you to do this because sometimes trip letters given to children do not arrive home. We post all our trips and visits online as soon as they have been approved. Go to the Diary section on our home page http://www.rushmore.hackney.sch.uk. The diary section automatically displays a few forthcoming events, but if you click on ‘More Diary Dates’ at the bottom of the events/trips listed you will see all forthcoming events including trips for the remainder of the year.

Return permission slips as quickly as you can to the school office. Please do not hand permission slips to teachers as these can also go astray. You can post all permission slips into our two post boxes in the playgrounds. These are checked at the beginning and end of day every day by the office team.

If permission slips have gone astray we will accept an email from you as evidence of written permission. Please send emails to info@rushmore.hackney.sch.uk copying in caziz@rushmore.hackney.sch.uk The text of your email could read: I give permission for my child (name of child) in class (name of class)to attend the trip to (cite trip) on the following date. Please write your full name at the bottom of the email and ensure that it comes from your named email account.

We are working with our online provider to ensure that this option is in place soon and will review how effectively we are improving our systems in January of next year.