Paying for school trips

[Workinghardeveryday]

I was under the impression that no child could be excluded from a school trip even if it wasn’t paid for?

We got a letter on their first day of high school advising there is a school trip for RE in less than two weeks time.

I rang to give consent, to be told I had to log onto Parent Pay, make my payment of £30 each child and give my consent there.

I explained I don’t use Parent Pay and would give my consent over the phone or via email.

I was advised this is not possible the deputy head rang me, she advised she wouldn’t want my children to be excluded from the trip (twins so £60!!) unless I pay.

You have said you expect school to pay. That is what people are disliking about your posts.

Where did anyone say that about teaching? You're just making that up.

Precisely. She's just resorting to making things up that people never said.

Not really. 99% of clients don’t require a visit. Anyone who requests one will. It is not taken into consideration with fees at all.

@Workinghardeveryday

*You have a valid point here. The parents charge will be covering the cost I bet, not the school.

I do know when all 3 have been on an activity week away, the kids slept in dirty basic dorms, while teachers got a very plush en-suite room, very pretty. Kids got very small portions of very basic food, teachers got starter and main of a completely different meal.

Their costs added to kids fee confirmed by teacher attending.*

Well then that teacher is either wrong or they are a very rare occurrence.

The residential centres know the children can't attend without staff so they have a number of staff that go on the trip WITHOUT extra cost. Eg 30 children-3 staff places. The charge for staff does not gets divided between the children.

As for what the staff accommodation looks like-of course they get their own rooms...they're adults! If you want a trip where the children individual rooms then you really would be whinging about the cost of you're struggling to find £60 and if you expect staff to sleep in dorms for the week then you'll find trips just won't happen-why should they rough it!

Maybe a school should trying sending the kids on residential without any staff and see how that pans out!!

it’s like me ringing a client and saying, yes I will come and see you, it will cost you xyz for my fuel costs

No, it’s not. The comparison to that would be a teacher claiming expenses to get from their home to school in order to do their job. Not a teacher going on a school directed trip after they have already paid to get themselves to their contracted place of work.

As an aside, on more than one trip, teachers and TAs at my school have car shared to get to venues to enable the school/parents to pay for the smallest and cheapest possible coaches because you usually need far fewer adults on the coach than you do at the venue. Then, like with every other thing they’ve paid for that they shouldn’t have needed to, they haven’t claimed the money back for it. Although that may start to change now that petrol costs are so high.

You seem to believe teachers are getting perks paid for by parents and it just isn’t true. Even when they do have to travel on coaches.

Yes, if it means payment has to be made before the trip essentially meaning my kids could not attend.

I explained to school I can’t afford it, as in I can’t actually come up with the money.

remember I have had hardly any notice for this. It is not an unreasonable request is it?

If there is an entrance fee for teachers (though I don't think there is for most places), that should be covered by parents, same with transport, insurance etc. That is all part of the cost of the trip.

In an ideal world, there should be money for these things in school budgets. However, there just is not. Schools cannot afford this, so if trips are to happen, parents need to pay.

There are many people angry with me and, believe it or not, I do have feelings. I've not read through them all but I stand by ALL children being allowed on school trips. I don't think teachers should pay, the school should. If they can't afford it for all then not at all. I also don't think teachers should moan about working outside 9-3.

Hope everything goes ok OP.

@AMindNeedsBooks

'oh I'm a teacher and my life is difficult because I can't leave at 3pm'.

I've been teaching 30 years. At no point in that time have teachers ever left at 3pm so any current teachers are certainly not lamenting that issue.

The notion that teachers start at 9, finish at 3 and have 12 weeks holiday a year is peddled by the Daily Mail and believed by idiots.

How long was the risk assessment you wrote for the birthday party? Or the individual permission slips for every child that you had to chase up?
Oh that's right, parties aren't the same as school trips at all.

Here here!!

Don’t take personally the nasty posts, some people just thrive on being mean x

You haven't read through my posts because you think I'm angry at you, but I'm expected to read yours? Nice double standard there.
Still not seen any teachers here moaning about their working hours. Just the ones you made up to suit your anti-school rhetoric.

*@AMindNeedsBooks
*
I also don't think teachers should moan about working outside 9-3.

Teachers don't moan about working outside 9-3, they moan about dickheads thinking that they only work 9-3 or dickheads thinking that they moan if they work past 3pm.

Teachers do however get a tad pissed off with people thinking the job is such a doddle and so easy.

I hardly think it's nasty to point out when a poster states people have said things that they haven't.

Why are you being deliberately obtuse? The company's money comes from the revenue generated through contracts with clients. Therefore all of the expenses associated with the cost of doing business have been built in to those contracts. If it wasn't already factored in, the company wouldn't be reimbursing you for fuel. It's not some magnanimous gesture at the cost of profits.

The other kids are paying. It's really that simple

@Workinghardeveryday I suggest you email the teacher who has organised the trip, copying in the head of year, and explaining that you can't afford it at the moment and asking what facility there is to pay in instalments. I would work with the finance office to try to help a parent as much as I could in this situation.

Just tell your twins they can’t go.
this is life.
to be fair I’d of been made up at that age not to have gone on some RE trip.

I think you meant to direct that at AMindNeedsBooks, OP.

@AMindNeedsBooks I'm saying that teachers get FREE residential places!! I have no problem giving up my time to go on a residential, I love them and I love what children get out of them but I'm big going to start paying for my place 🤣

Parent pay items can be set up to allow parents to pay a contribution towards the total cost. But you haven’t tried logging in to parent pay so you have no way of knowing this. Sign up for parent pay and check!

I also don't think teachers should moan about working outside 9-3.

How many teachers do you know who have actually moaned about working outside 9-3?

Certainly none of this thread have complained about needing to work outside of their directed time on occasions. Almost all teachers work way behind that as standard anyway, it's impossible to do the job without and the norm.

Let's face it, unless part time NO teacher works only 9-3 anyway, most school hours are more than that, let alone adding in other directed and undirected time!

You're just pedalling the 'red top' type teacher-bashing nonsense with that kind of comment, nothing more!

What some posters have said is that they shouldn't be expected to pay to attend a school trip when their presence is necessary for the trip to go ahead. And that, of course, teachers shouldn't pay to go overnight in residential - they are already 'paying' with their time, working 24 hours a day, being 'on call' overnight, all unpaid. That's not moaning about it. It's simply making a statement of the realities of a school trip.

...but surely we (I'm a teacher too) should pay out of own pocket for the experience!!?

What price should we put on a job where the shift runs from 8am Monday morning to 4pm Friday afternoon with absolutely no time off duty! Where we run on around 6 hours light sleep each night (max!) I particularly like the times where a child pukes in the night and we're changing bed covers at 3am, or someone is homesick and we're chatting, trying to reassure the child, in whispers while everyone else sleeps.

I have no idea why there's a teacher recruitment and retention problem-it's just a bloody laugh 24/7...sometimes I think we shouldn't get paid at all!!

@Workinghardeveryday

Maybe you could convince the other parents to not pay for the trip as well!

The school could then either cancel the trip so everyone will be at school so your twins won't have missed out on anything or the school could cover all the trip costs and over the next few years you'd see class sizes increase and support for pupils with additional needs reduced-or the maintenance of the school building would deteriorate...or they won't have adequate resources for the children to learn in school.

Brilliant plan-don't pay 🙄