Expensive school trip - why do schools do it?!

This has been explained SO many times.

How ignorant or lacking in imagination do you have to be to believe that being responsible for a crowd of teenagers 24/7 for a week is remotely like a jolly?

You can't send them home or to a higher authority if they misbehave, however dangerously or maliciously. You yourselves are foreigners in an unfamiliar place, whilst managing all this responsibility.

Have YOU ever volunteered to help with even a school day trip, using a day of annual leave? Most of these trips are in school holidays, so teachers are giving up their time to do something that's very hard work and potentially extremely stressful.

When I was a teacher on a school trip it was hard. Dealing with a collapsed child and getting urgent medical help when I was the only one able to speak the language, and that was only what I'd taught myself in the previous couple of months. Trying to keep girls safe when a bunch of drunk local men were leering and approaching. And so much more.

A friend of mine was leading a school trip in London on 7/7. One group of children were cut off on the other side of town and couldn't get back for ages. No mobile phones working, so no one knew if they were alive and safe.

Maybe just think it through before making more comments like that?

Really? So the kids going on the trip got no more pleasure than they would have from the dry ski slope two miles away and then home for tea?

I took 3 children on a 10 day trips to NY 6 years ago.

Flights and accommodation approx £2200

We did all the usual things, I think the total cost for everything including food was about £3200. For 4 of us, in August.

Your school has no idea how to budget OP!

While I totally agree that the cost of some of these trips is crazy, there seems also to be a view among some parents that teachers are manipulating prices to get a free holiday paid for by parents.

This is rubbish. It is true that the parents' contributions are paying for the teachers' trips but that is because these are part of the cost of the event. If the teachers did not go there would be no trip, and they are working 24/7 the whole time they are there, making sure your kids are safe and having the time of their lives. This is not a freebie for the teachers.

This.

The PE dept ski trips to the Alps at my school were an excuse for the staff to get a free ski trip on snow.

Kids wanting to ski could go to the dry ski slope two miles from the school.

The kids that don't go on that trip won't learn that lesson, will they? People don't always stay rich who start rich.

If so many teachers don't like these trips because they're done in their own time, the responsibility etc, why don't they individually, or collectively refuse to take part? Surely it isn't mandatory to go? So there must be something in it for them.

Either the trip is educational, in which case every child should be able to afford it and there should be enough places for all to go, or it's a "jolly" that isn't educational, in which case the school shouldn't be running it at all. Schools are there to educate, not organise holidays.

The idea that children miss out on some of their education because their parents can't afford the cost of trip is antithetical to and incompatible with the concept of State-funded free-at-point-of-access education.

Also the rather paternalist implication that the South Americans don't have builders.

School trips should not be the way to teach that life lesson. And if the purpose of a 3k school trip is not to teach children they are poorer than others, then what is the purpose of a 3k school trip ? Genuine question.

While I agree the sum is ridiculous, it's not unfair at all for kids to think that. Tbh, most kids that aren't wealthy are very aware of that fact. It's life. While disappointing, it's not a bad lesson/fact to learn , realise and accept either. Otherwise, that's how you end up with some people in debt and struggling because they're trying to keep up with others around them and have what everyone else has.

But WTF is the point in a trip that only 20% of school children will be able to go on? Can any teachers come on and explain what it is I seem to be missing. Why are these pricey trips organised?

I once moaned because my son had a trip that cost £70 decades ago 3 days in a wood somewhere in essex.
But over the years ive heard of some trips costing ££££££££ schools are taking the piss.
My good friend's daughter had a trip to france costing £1800 per child without spending money.
She didnt go nore did others the school called it off in the end due to hardly any kids going.
But a few mums at the time said they must be paying for the teachers to go at that price.
It makes me think do teachers say its one price then put all the odds in a fund so they have a free trip at the parents cost.

I think it's outrageously unfair - it makes me livid. I don't know how it's allowed or how anyone can afford it. It so not fair to make some kids think they can't afford what others have.

£3k for New York shocking my son went a few years ago for £995 did Empire State Building,broadway musical, statue liberty, ice skating in Central Park and the zoo,freedom tower and memorial and a full day at the malls etc that was food too they having you on OP

I am aghast - £3000! For one child? Who on earth thought that was a good idea?

It's over 10 years now since my DD was at school but, even allowing for the passage of time, none of the trips on offer came close to that,and she did a few good ones.

She got to go to the London Olympics, spent two nights and saw two events but even that was quite reasonable. Coach there, stayed in Halls of Residence and we had a year's notice so could pay in instalments.

One trip she didn't take. At the start of the GCSE course we were told for one of her subjects there would be a trip to Berlin. Forgot about it and it was never mentioned again. Much later when GCSEs were over I commented on this. She eventually admitted that it had happened but she never brought the letter home because the trip cost about £800 and DH was out of work at the time so she thought we might not have been able to afford it. Gutted! We had savings and I was still working FT so we would have managed somehow.

Remembering that I feel for families who have to deny their DC trips because of the expense. And £3000!!!

That’s insane. Years ago when I was at school I didn’t even ask my dps about the expensive skiing trip - I knew it wasn’t affordable. I’ve always assumed that our dc would be able to go on these trips when the time came (and been so grateful to be in that position) but £3k is ridiculous.

It’s basically an excuse for the teachers who go to have a jolly. It’s like when you go out for a meal in a group and you handle the money with everyone giving you £20 or whatever and you manage to cover your share with it too 😉

Oh god, or a week trudging up the North Sea coast in the rain looking for fossils and then being sent down pot holes, praying it wouldn't rain again while you were stuck underground.

Best days of our lives, according to our parents anyway.........

When are they going? Time of year/during half term will affect the prices too.

I don't know anyone who would pay £3k for a school trip. If I had £3k, I'd take my family to New York myself!

My daughter year 7 trip was £2,300 for an 8 day ski trip - she did not go, nor did a lot of others as it was mixed year groups so from year 7 to 11 could apply. Whatever happened to a week in the Lake District 🤣

Exactly. I’ve been 3 times. Last one with my 5yo. No I’d not be happy of him visiting it in a school trip too much responsibility for the adults going with them , too many risks that I don’t think are worth it.

To be clear I love New York and have visited many, many times.

But as a school I would view it objectively as a high risk place to take a whole bunch of kids that weren't mine.

That is a ridiculous amount and unless your children are at the most expensive private school, i’d say its very out of touch to arrange a trip at that cost. Im all for school trips abroad and there will always be a certain percentage of the school year that its out of the question for, but surely at that price, it would be most of the year saying no.

We spend 3-4K on the main (and only) abroad family holiday of the year. I know what I would rather spend my money on for the kids.