Is £30 excessive for this school trip?

[Moaningturtle1]

My DD (year 9) has come home from school with a letter about an upcoming school trip. The price has concerned me and I’m trying to work out if it’s reasonable.

It’s to the Black Country Museum, which is 50 miles from us. It includes tickets and coach transport from the school. No food or activities included, pack lunches to be taken from home and spending money for the Victorian sweet shop.

£30 is half my weekly food shop or 100% of my weekly petrol. It just seems too much at the moment. Does it seem a lot? I’ve been on the website and an under 16 ticket is £9.95, is coach hire that expensive now due to rising diesel costs?

The transport is what costing the money. I don’t think £30 is too bad. They don’t seem to go on many trips these days and obviously throughout covid they didn’t go anywhere so I would happily pay £30.

yes you could get a family ticket for £50 but you would still have to pay for transport/fuel and I’m sure they want to go with all their friends rather than their parents?

I don't think it's too bad and I agree with others, it's the cost of the coach that will have increased the cost. If you would prefer to take the whole family and spend £50, I'd say that to them and just tell them she's not going that day. She doesn't have to go.

🙄

Every single school trip has 'free' staff places and every single student will subsidise the staff travel.

If a coach costs £500 and 50 kids are going and 10 staff. Parents will pay £10 each.

Venues will often give 1 free adult place over 10 kids or whatever.

We’re that distance away and it sounds like a very standard cost to me. I’ll check how much we paid last time they went with school - maybe 2019?

If there’s a 1/6 ratio of adults to children, that’s 50 adult places that need funding for parent helpers and teachers too.

you'll be spending c.£15 on petrol as well.

And any other spending you may do.

Have you organised one this year? I would guess that due to the fuel costs the prices will have jumped up a fair bit because they need to cover their costs

To the people who are saying OP would be paying on fuel if she bought a family ticket, the unchained passes - which you get automatically when you purchase a ticket - give you free entry for 12 months, as many visits as you like.

OP this sounds really expensive to me. If she wants fish and chips too it's a tenner, plus a drink, sweet shop and bakery that are open there.

For a family day out it will cost £50 for tickets and £10 max in petrol (we get about 350/400 miles for £60). We would take our own food so no extra expense as we would be eating that day anyway.

We like to have a few days out each summer so for us it would be uneconomical to pay £30 for one family member when we can spend £60 for all
of us and have it as one of our already budgeted days out. And probably use club card points or my BlueLightCard.

I’ll probably end up paying it so that it reduces the chance the trip will be cancelled.

I sense a bit of a hostile tone from some posters, I’m not sure why? I just wanted to know if we had got to a point where a school trip is now double the price it would have been a year or two ago. I’m not having a go at the school or anything. I predict the trip will be cancelled anyway because the letter states that if too many parents are unable to pay the school won’t be able to subside. We live in an area of poverty and high FSM uptake.

We often look at coaches etc for scouts camps and the prices are so ridiculous we don’t bother and get parents to drive them there instead!!

I'm not sure where the 'coaches are astronomical' stuff is coming from. We hired a 49 seater on a Sunday - was with us all day, travelled probably 80 miles.... £495 - so a tenner a head.
OP I think that sounds a lot, wonder if they cover cost of parent helpers in that?

It's 100 mile round trip. So would cost you £15.

I think that’s a bit steep, OP. It may well be that prices have just gone up so much recently. I know I was surprised at the 4 night year 6 trip costing £500 (inc. outdoor activities) when a similar trip with cubs/guides is about £100. It does make you wonder! I also think these ‘small’ incidentals add up for what people call the ‘squeezed middle’. If you’re well off, it’s fine. If you’re very badly off, costs are covered. If you’re on a middle income budget, no benefits, no help and do your best to minimize costs as inflation hits 9% (today’s figure), that £30 could make all the difference. I honestly don’t know what the answer is. I know we are spending minimum £250/month more than this time last year and no pay rises.

I think it's expensive, but I've just paid over £40 for DD to do something similar which is only about 10 miles away. 😱 I'd discuss with the school if the cost is really unmanageable.

I hope they all manage to go, including your child, it’s a really lovely place to visit- absolutely fascinating if you like history. And the food there is part of the experience.

@Sirzy not yet to be fair. We go in August and usually book 3 weeks in advance based on weather predictions

My dd is going on a similar trip with school - cost is £10 plus spending money.

They are very expensive these days but they do cover coach, fuel and apparently teacher fees too. I’m not happy about a school trip upcoming which is £40 for cinema and a walk in a free park, no food included. I don’t know how schools can justify costs like that when it’s unaffordable for many. Like many of you that would cover a weekly food shop for us but I worry about my dc being left out.

Ask school if school funds will cover it in this instance.. When my 2 x dd's were due to go on the same 5 day field trip (£180 each) the secretary actually suggested 1 dd was paid for via school funds. They put the request to the board of school governors..

It probably reflects the cost. However I think the school should have thought whether in the current climate a £30 a head trip should be organised.

Our primary aged children just went on a school trip there- it cost £13.50 each plus max £5 spending money for shop. Included chips if they wanted any and they also had to take a packed lunch.

It is local to us though.

We're paying the same for a trip to Legoland I've just checked and it's 50.94 miles so sounds about right.

They've asked us to send spending money too which really annoys me, luckily we can afford it but there is no limit and I can see it causing issues between those that do and those that don't

Enable the staff? Like it's a reward for them?!

Just googled. No in-depth reasearch but says average price is £865 for 47 seater. Say 45 paying kids with a couple of seats for teachers. That works out at £19.22 per child. Just for the coach!!

So how should the staff be paid for ?