£1800 for a school trip

[Patchw0rk]

Is it just me, or what are the school thinking?!

DC desperately wants to go of course- all their friends are, of course 🙄and we could possibly afford it with a lot of hard work (on my part, overtime!) but we could take the whole family away for that.

DC is 13 so old enough to understand about money really but so wants to go. It's a week skiing in Canada. I want them to have brilliant life experiences but it's just so much money.

I just think school have lost the plot. Could they really not have come up with something more reasonable for a y9 trip?

What happened to a week in Germany or France where the best part was singing Grease songs on the never ending coach journey?!

1800 is very extravagant, continent hopping seems a bit tin-eared in a year many are struggling and travel prices are up.

i did go abroad on a school trip once, can't say i enjoyed it one bit and now feel weirdly off about how it must have cut into the savings of my single mum.

Exactly this.
I live in a ski resort in Austria. The season is becoming shorter and shorter. Why? Climate change. They try their best with snow-making but that uses electricity and also the water to make the snow has to be drinking water quality. However, they can only make snow when the temperature drops sufficiently and the last few years has been problematic as it has been too warm too late into the season.

So what do a lot of people do these days because the snow is shit in Europe? Fly to Canada for the guaranteed snow, contributing even more to climate change.
I don't think schools should be running long-haul ski trips. It's completely unnecessary. The ski trips to Europe are questionable too.

I would be writing to the CoG. Absolutely shit for all the children and their parents who can't afford this. It's almost designed to make the 'poor kids' feel worthless and their parents feel useless.

Trips should be within reach of the majority of the kids and free/subsidised for FSM pupils. And I think there should be statutory guidance on it

Et voila.....the teacher bashing starts.
Because teachers want to spend their annual leave being responsible 24/7 for a large group of excitable teenagers abroad.
And yes, I have done that- and yes, it's stressful!

Our eldest DD’s school (independent) does a skiing trip each year and it is usually 1500 - 1700 for a week in Europe. On the one hand, a bit more for Canada sounds great, but for a local school especially with some less well off parents it sounds a bit steep. I know that some of the local schools in our area do skiing trips for around 1K.

I feel quite passionately about the importance of school trips. I really believe they ended up influencing a lot of my choices. My parents never went abroad- never really went much further than their local town but the school trips abroad broadened my horizons, gave me a love for travel and that has given me so much. If the school hadn’t run those trips I doubt I’d have loved abroad and done some of the things I did as a young adult.

Not everyone will get to go on a ski trip. I never did but there will be lots of kids on those trips that wouldn’t go with their parents otherwise. Lots of kids who develop a love of a sport that will stay with them into adulthood. Now those kids aren’t going the most deprived but why shouldn’t they get those experiences? For trips during term time and supporting the curriculum then yes trips do need to be accessible but if the school are willing to provide it and pupils want to go then I don’t see the problem.

Haven't read the whole thread yet, but just have to offload that these trips boil my piss. My kids (state) school does them too. One example - over a thousand quid for theatre studies to go to New York to see a show on Broadway. We are in London!

That is disgraceful. I don't think we should all be banned from flying and going on holiday within reason but flying a group of kids to New York to see a show is ridiculous with the climate the way it currently is.
It's not setting a good example to the pupils to be aware of how our actions affect the environment. They live in London for goodness sake - there's not exactly a shortage of outstanding theatre there!

It is an expensive school trip to choose although I understand why the money is needed considering it's a week skiing. It's sad because so many kids won't be able to go. For Year 9 as well, I think it's just a bit much, my daughter had a trip to Belgium in Octoberish for 2 days and 1 night and I think it was around 200ish pounds??? I feel like something like that is better than a whole skiing trip.

That's just a ridiculous amount!!!!! Wow my kids going to be extremely disappointed when she's older!!!!!...... but thinking back...so was I when all the "ski" trips happened for all the cool kids in '99.......

I thought this was dds school but theirs is over 2000.

its shit. But it also sounds amazing.

you can take your whole family on holiday for that, so no way

When my school organised an expensive trip ( I was a teenager) I simply didn't tell my parents. I chucked the letter away. I knew we couldn't afford it and didn't want to upset them or have them trying to scrimp on other things we needed more for a few days away for me. I knew that I wouldn't enjoy it anyway because I would be thinking all the time that it was a poor use of what money we had.
I only told Mum decades later, and though she thought I really should have just given them the letter and explain why I didn't want to go, and said they wouldn't have tried to persuade me to go if I had not wanted to, she understood why I'd binned it at the time.

Agreed. There was a thread on here at Easter about all the stuck coaches and anyone, who commented from memory that their dcs were away said they spent at least £1200. We paid £1300. Dd flew to Austria.

My dd definitely got a lot from it including an appreciation that this was the sort of thing she wanted to do as an adult. It helped instill a passion to achieve. She's an adult now with a good career and her own home. I like you was a single mother and I'm glad I let her go, the sacrifice has more than been worth it and it wasn't something I could have given her outside of school.

That's very good value, assuming you're in the UK. My son went on a trip earlier in the year much much closer to home and it was about 1300. He had a really great trip and improved his skiing no end but if he hadn't gone he wouldn't have been on his own as lots of people didn't go. If you decide not to go for it then maybe a family ski trip next year instead? You can get good deals late in the season at the very start of the Easter hols.

We paid £890 for DD to go term time in Jan with her school. This was after they received a fat grant from an outdoor education charity.

I'm 51 and never got to go on the skiing trip that was offered in high school back in the 80s. So they've been offering these expensive trips for donkeys years, it's not a new thing. I survived not going as did all the other kids who didn't get to go. And my children will survive because they sure as hell won't be going on trips like this.

if schools want to offer these trips then let them crack on. Your kids will deal with not going.

You do what you want to do no one is forcing you to give are they? It is called a choice. Ignore it or contribute. The choice is yours.

It's also not in Canada, and doesn't seem to include lessons or ski hire, and is only bed and breakfast. Hardly comparable.

And heres me fuming my dd school are asking for £22 for a trip to the local museum which is free entry 😂 i best start saving now for her going to comp.

@Patchw0rk are you on the north west coast by any chance? DS's school is the same (maybe literally the same!) and there's no way I could pay that. I just don't have it and can't get it. Fortunately he hasn't mentioned it, because I'd have to say no.

And it's 5 nights as opposed to 7, and also doesn't include transfers from the airport.

It's expensive but achievable. Start thinking about how to fundraise to make up what you can't afford. Car boot sale, coffee morning etc.

This is wierd- my school was shit and we didn't go on a single trip in the whole of secondary school.

Not bankrupting my parents for a weeks skiing hasn't held me back.

Have yet to see an explanation of why this is so amazing.

Why can't they go somewhere educational? You could probably tour the sites of Italy for that