state school ski-ing trip too expensive?

£880 for DS's last two ski trips, by coach to a posh Austrian resort. I thought that was good value given everything they got to do, and the hotel looked excellent.

I admired the teachers for doing this - 50 kids for a whole week. They deserve a medal.

£750 is the going rate for state school ski weeks - and that's a lot of money. There's also clothes and spending money to factor in.

Like SecretSquirrels I would always try to pay for and encourage my DCs to go on a school trip/experience we could never afford as a family - but £1500 just seems mad. I certainly couldn't manage that.

I thought our school ski trip was expensive at £900.
I encouraged both DSs to go though on the grounds that we will never go as a family. If I had wanted to go skiing I would have done it 20 years ago. It's not my idea of a holiday.
DS2 is going next Easter in the holidays on a coach trip.

DS's school had a skiing trip to the USA earlier this year for similar money. Out of the whole school only 35 kids went. I suspect the ratio will be similar at the OPs school so its not as if it is a handful kids left behind to watch dvds in the classroom while everyone else is on holiday.

Lol. It is. Email. Go on. That'll be two of us. Bloody school

I think the difference between taking a whole year group to see some coastline (nightmare-ish) compared to taking 20-30 vair naice kids skiing to USA is not to be underestimated.

Im a teacher and dont really volunteer for most trips (young family etc etc) but would put myself forward for this one!

I actually do think its for the teachers benefit- why couldnt they organise a skiing trip to France/ Switzerland etc?

Oooh lake tahoe is my favourite favourite place in the world to ski.

Worth every penny then IMO - but wasted on the kids

My SIL is a teacher at an independent school. They have gone to the US and Canada for as far as I can remember, . She openly says how fab it is...and why wouldn't it be in Whistler followed by whale watching in Vancouver ?

Its not a hardship for her ...she actively puts herself forward and her kids are go on holiday with BIL. They have a family ski holiday at Christmas / new year.

Nice work if you can get it !

Ah, right. that's a big different. Hire a train carraige maybe?

only 10 not going out of 200 - so it's a lot of kids to ferry around.

Laurie Yeah, I'd heard coaches are quite expensive, I think that more than doubled the Yr1 trip costs to the local caves. I guess they might need it up there too for trips out round the Lakes, though you'd think with just 10 going it would be cheaper to hire a minibus or two. I wonder if any of the teachers would be prepared to go for HGV licences and hire a big minibus / coach?

That's much too expensive. DD's school have put on ski trips to Austria and Italy for about £700 all inclusive - food, ski hire, tuition, excursions in the evenings etc. We did get a letter about a ski trip to the USA for over £1000, but I think the response from the parents was clear - too expensive, so they are sticking to Europe.

As long as everyone is given plenty of notice, I don't see the issue.

And yes I do know what it is like to not be able to afford to go on these trrps - I remember it well. Didn't bother me remotely. It was the minority who could afford to go; it would be a bit churlish and even spiteful to begrudge them an opportunity they quite possibly wouldn't have otherwise.

DDs school is struggling to get enough staff to go on the DofE trips - which at Bronze don't involve very much other than sitting around in a minibus, and having a takeaway curry on night one. But, it's time away from home/family/own life, and difficult to get volunteers.

deepfriedcupcake - no one knows why the Lake District is so expensive All we could come up with on here is the coach - it's incredibly expensive now for coach trips. And it is a week.

That's one lucky school Rabid where teachers get their name in a hat to go - my dh has worked in 4 schools in the last 15 years and it's a nightmare to get teachers to go on trips. Relies on a lot of goodwill.

I think it's far too expensive and therefore excludes a lot of children who could afford to go to a place which was a bit less costly. Out of touch with the price of ski-ing holidays. But they are usually much more pricey than other types.

really? I have heard of a draw to decide which teachers could go!

Crikey, DS1's only in Yr1, should I start saving now?

And how is the Lake District so expensive?

OP, I hope they run something for the less well-off kids to, I know I would have loved to go on overseas trip at school but they were always way out of our league financially.

"If its such a hardship, why do they bother".

They mostly don't. It's incredibly difficult to get teachers to do trips like this as they can't afford their contribution or the time away from work and family.

In fact they mostly rely on the very young teachers to do trips like this as they are the ones least likely to have family/caring commitments.

Most holidays like this are out of the reach of students/staff so very few go anyway. Hence there's no stigma as so few can go.

What is disappointing is when trips in Britain are so expensive - there are only 10 out of 200 NOT going on Dd's school trip - £600 trip to the Lake District as it's still expensive.

I KNOW that teachers love going. It's totally their indulgence.

O for goodness sake, please no heart breaking stories of teachers forced to fly to the US and go skiing in their holidays.

If its such a hardship, why do they bother.

In fact WHY DO SCHOOLS DO SKIING AT ALL?? It just seems a bit silly.

dds private school do one but it is to Europe. The US seems massively indulgent not to mention highly enviromentally unfriendly