Residential trip COST!!!

Good points Gah. People forget all the 'behind the scenes' costs and only think of food, accommodation and instructors often. Lots of people also do make comparisons to things like Scouts which are run by volunteers and so include much of the work for free and have the back-up of a large organisation for things like insurance and training. So it's not really comparing like-with-like.

Clearly there is a price differential. If your child can benefit from all the positives of an organisation such as Scouts or Guides, then yes, they can do lots of activities at a lesser price - all good. In purely activity terms it might be similar, but being on a school residential is different simply in terms of the fact it is with your school group and although the he activities are part of it, there is more to it too. And it is is about the collective, not just the individual - something many parents don't seem interested in considering. Here I, not talking about those who opt out because they genuinely can't afford it, but those who opt out saying 'we've done it before' or 'we can do it cheaper with Guides' - because when a few start opting out, the whole experience becomes different, because it's meant to be a collective thing which becomes a common experience and memory, if it's for a whole year group. And for some children, who aren't in Guides or Scouts, or whose whole family can't afford to go on an activity holiday, going on a school trip, which whilst expensive only involves paying for one person, the school version of the activity will be the only one their child ever gets the chance to do - but I guess people don't really think about that bigger picture and the idea of supporting what the school is trying to achieve, but just their child and childs experiences.

Currently on leading a scout camp. £175 for Saturday to Saturday, includes two activity sessions a day, all food and a day trip to London zoo. We did parent drop off at camp which was about 1.5hrs from home. Obviously there are a lot of differences, we cater for ourselves and camp rather than use dorms, but £400+ is excessive. Enroll your child/children in scouts or guides!
I'm a Guiding Leader so understand where you are coning from, but:
as a volunteer many of you will have undertaken instructor training for activities. Our activity insurance is paid for by annual census: schools' aren't. Your parents did a 3-hour round trip to drop and collect (and may have stayed to help with pitching). The cooks and cleaners and orderlies were all unpaid. Your admin is done by volunteers.
I'm off on camp this weekend, and if the organisation, form filling and admin, printing costs etc alone had been paid at a the living wage it would have added £10 per head on to the cost for the girls. Businesses can't fundraise to cover the costs of equipment, staff training, cleaners etc. If you can do bare bones for £175 not including any staff costs or travel with 2 activities per day, then actually a PGL cost at £415 which includes 3 activities with staff per day, fully catered, bedding, cleaning, coach transport etc starts to sound more than reasonable!

@ChocolateWombat i didnt suggest or imply it was the schools fault and i havent been pestering the school. Please dont make assumptions, i have issues with PGL and their processes, nothing to do with the school or the teachers.

i would be quite happy to pay for school trips like this, but as a carer for my husband i find it quite difficult to pay for them as you can imagine its a really tight budget, if as parents we could be informed a lot earlier as even a year of putting money towards it still means 40.00+ a month which is a lot to us on limited income.

Currently on leading a scout camp. £175 for Saturday to Saturday, includes two activity sessions a day, all food and a day trip to London zoo. We did parent drop off at camp which was about 1.5hrs from home. Obviously there are a lot of differences, we cater for ourselves and camp rather than use dorms, but £400+ is excessive. Enroll your child/children in scouts or guides!

DS1 is going to South of France at the end of August with school on a Sailing Holiday. It's cost nearly £600 but we have had nearly 2 years to pay for it.

I would have moved heaven and earth to get DS1 there even if it meant scrimping on other things...for him it's not just a holiday but a huge confidence building exercise in putting him completely out of his comfort zone and learning to be with new people.

Cauliflowersqueeze - yes, it’s the dreadful quality of the activities I object to, not the principle of a school trip. I also think that the big organisations like Kingswood have a vested interest in the trip lasting from Mon-Fri as that suits their organisation and occupancy but IMO trips really don’t need to last that long to be effective. The quality of the activity is far more important than the number of days as a driver of effectiveness.

The Kingswood centre at Ashford that my DD’s school went to was about as educational as a Butlin’s holiday camp and the staff about the same calibre...

Did it all in for £190 for 130 kids.

We go away the last week of term, tue-thu. Ppl was about £250 plus coach and ferry to Isle of Wight. We went to wildchild-same activities plus bushcraft but tents not dorms. Kids preferred it and I liked the camping element. Was much nearer London so coach was much cheaper and near enough for parents to collect ill children!

Those residentials are a total rip off - that’s the main thing I have against them. Parents could do so much more with their children for the money. What’s sad is how people have got sucked in to thinking they’re a good idea/value for money. They aren’t.

Well, user, how about donating some of all these surplus funds you can splash about so that other children can enjoy all these quality experiences you think they can't do without.

How sad. Children getting a school trip for Christmas? What’s the world coming to.

PMSL! We don't all live in your world. Mine don't get the trips at all. Break out the violins! We can't afford them on top of family hols and we consider those more important. I didn't have residential school trips growing up, nor did DH. Our families couldn't afford them as well as family hols for everyone. It's hardly going round with an empty belly and rags on your back.

As it is the fucking trips would never be a Christmas gift for any of mine because we don't have a £400 budget for each child.

But YOU might not consider giving a school trip as a gift, because YOU can afford countless other experiences and quality outings already, so presumably you can afford the school trips too. However, are you lacking awareness that some people can't provide their children with lots of outside school trips and that finding the cost of the trip is a real stretch - for many, it will be a present OR the trip, not both and often several family memebers might chip in - and we are probably not talking about a curriculum based trip to a museum here (although we might be) but more likely a residential trip that the child is desperate to go on and will gladly give up another Christmas present for, especially if they don't usually get to do that stuff - so to suggest a school trip can't be a present or is inappropriate just seems to show a lack of awareness of the situation of many people sadly.

People gift all kinds of things that others might consider their right or not 'gift' type items at all - pants and socks in Christmas stockings, stationery, toiletries, batteries - and they can all be gladly received, along with a card telling them they are going on the PGL trip with school or on the French Exchange. It's a bit sad if parents or children would consider such a thing not a gift but their right.

Cauliflowersqueeze - my DD did a one night trip away with her German teacher before Christmas - one night away is fine as there is so little in the way of packing/unpacking - the DC just took a backpack with one change of clothing and some PJs.

Honesty, we could have gone on a family holiday with some of the school costs my parents paid.

My son is only two but we've just forked out FORTY FIVE POUNDS for a farm trip - lunch not included. I refused to pay for sheer principle, I find it exploitative but pushover DH trotted down to nursery cash in hand so DS wouldn't miss out.

I would happily give a theatre trip or a family weekend away to a place of interest as a Christmas present. We buy our children countless quality experiences.

I think “experiences” are fabulous presents. Just not a school trip!

There is a limit to what to buy for a child who has "everything"; far better that money is given towards a trip than spent on more electronics or plastic tat. Much of what children will remember of their childhoods is about experiences rather than objects.

user I don't think that's sad. If for some families the only way to afford a trip that a child really wants to go on, is to give it as their present, isn't that 'better' than e.g. a new phone for Christmas?

How sad. Children getting a school trip for Christmas? What’s the world coming to.

Could you get the cost of the coach down by travelling at a different time of the day? Our local operators all have school run contracts. If you hire a coach for e.g. a 10 am start it is significantly cheaper than a 9am start as the operator can do the contracted school run first (assuming driver will still be within hours). Same if you can be back before 2.30 pm.

Would you get a higher uptake for a lower price if you ran the two trips Mon-Wed and Wed to Friday? You'd probably get more staff able to volunteer for 2 nights rather than 4.

Make sure you send out the information in good time, with the option of paying in instalments. Charge a high-enough non-refundable deposit to cover the cost of the coach as it has to run anyway and costs the same whether it is full or has 2 empty seats.

Try to time sending out information in the Autumn term, but with the closing date being after Christmas - lots of children here are "given" the trip for Christmas by their grandparents (we even had a gift certificate available from the school office so there was something to open on the day).

I went on a school trip to Paris in 1982, when I was in Year 11. Two years before that I went on a school trip to Cologne. In the year in between we went camping. All three trips were pretty dire! I loved my week’s trip to Umbria in Year 12, however - because it wasn’t with my class but with an opt in group.

Forgot username - your kind of issue which arises after every trip is another couple of hours work for the teacher organising the trip. That teacher has not kept your money and fleeced you, but is probably working to get the money, but it simply takes time or there are strict conditions attached to refunds, especially on the day - do you know what those terms were? Perhaps those teachers were then organising g the end of year school play, writing reports and doing other stuff for the children too.

Okay your child didn't get to go, which was a shame, but I wonder if you thanked the school for all the work they had put into organising it to make it happen or have you only moaned about the delay in getting your money back, from a trip which happened perhaps 6-8 weeks ago. If the terms and conditions promised you could have all the money back if Ill esso happened and you met any necessary requirements regarding medical note from doctor etc, then email the Head (politely) and ask how long you should expect to wait for your refund.

And to those who don't like the suppliers of school activities such as PGL, what do you suggest as an alternative, given many schools are now unable to run trips without the use of an external provider due to insurance and expertise provision - local authorities and academies just aren't willing to bear the burden of the risk of a big lawsuit which can arise from an accident or other complaint.

And in reality, if we remove all the optional trips or ones which a rent intended for who,e year groups, how many are you actually left with across a school career? I'd imagine that for many it's one or two primary residentials and one or two secondary residentials - not thinking about ski trips and all that kind of thing.