Yep, I agree. This is a teachers vanity project. They continue to get away with these absurdities because some parents do stomp up .kids that age put a lot of pressure on parents “everyone’s going”, “all my mates are going” etc and it’s hard for parents who could just about find the money to pay.
parents need to complain to governors. It’s excluding harder up parents, parents of multiple children, and is completely unnecessary as skiing is available closer to home as are glacial features if they try to pull a geograpghy benefit (just bloody go to Lake District)
when this happened we did 2 things.
First we talked privately to parents of his mates, to find out actually which of them was going before we even would consider it. Ha! Found out all bar one were not able to afford it easily, a few said outright that it was a no, and others were riddling themselves with guilt. , thus dispelling the “all my mates are going” to “all my mates want to go”
Secondly , we sat down with dc and explained this was the cost of a family holiday. They had siblings. Their siblings were going to have to go without a holiday to allow him to go. And when their turn came he’d have to do the same thing. And we explained that there would then be other trips they all had that we could not afford to do them all. So, did he really want to end all future family holidays for the rest of his life effectively, so that he and siblings could take it in turns to go on one big skiing or whatever holiday (it’s always bloody skiing or “volunteering “ in South Africa ). And did he really think it was fair on us as parents and his siblings to go without family holidays- were holidays every year not important to everyone in the family? We asked him to compare which was better option, on overall balance, for him to go to Canada and rest of family holidays impacted or for him and siblings to keep going to all the smaller, cheaper, uk/European based school trips plus a family holiday
he did get it. Wasn’t happy. But didn’t argue with us. Over the next 3-4weeks we got a drip feed of this mate or that mate “aren’t going either”. Most of them didn’t. It usually ends up as a small select wealthy group of kids .
of course, once we’d set precedent with him, all siblings didn’t bother discussing these stupid trips. They stuck with smaller trips and occasional reasonable extra curriculum stuff we did in sixth form to help them with future career
for what it’s worth, over 40 years ago, it happened to me. The school (state comp) started running skiing trips to Europe. Virtually unheard of then. Myself and sibs had always gone on most school trips. There was no way on gods earth my parents could afford it - we didn’t go abroad at all like a lot of families, and rarely had holidays at all. It caused a lot of bad feeling between parents and school I later learnt, but once started it became a life of its own .
You need to be very careful. Can you repeat this for all your dc? What about the more expensive trips that are way more important for their studies and future? The foreign language exchange trip ? The law school taster weekend at a university, the orchestra visit to wales ? DoE expediations , chief scout expeditions, sailing, climbing or other outdoor persuit lessons… you are only just starting and it doesn’t stop , even at university if they’re doing certain subjects there’s field trips, exchange visits etc. You absolutely have to pace yourself and be highly selective in asking has my child already got a passion for this activity, or is it key to help their studies, and will going on this trip preclude later opportunities for this dc or other dc