£400 for year 6 residential

[greenbluedays]

Two nights at a sports centre, two hours away

£400 just seems a lot to ask of families. Am I completely out of the loop or is this normal

My daughter won't be going on her 3 day, 2 night trip. She missed last year's trip as we relocated part way through the school year and all places on that were filled (a city break, lots of museums and sights, trying different modes of transport- she'd have loved that, though there was only one place we hadn't already visited as a family).

This year's trip is more activity based. Of three days of activities, more than a day's worth involves activities at height. My daughter suffers from vertigo at height (runs in both families unfortunately) and when I asked, they hadn't thought to offer alternatives. I don't trust the school not to try and coerce her into trying it and we wanted her to be able to go away without us to build confidence.

The school has also based the price on every single child attending (nearly £300), so this will increase as people drop out. I think I will see if any of the watersports places in the area offer a child's package she might enjoy trying instead, so she doesn't feel as if she's missing out.

Unfortunately offering alternative activities just becomes impossible to staff. Residentials are usually priced at something like £500 for the first 10 children and £50 per child thereafter (or whatever) so it's unlikely children not attending will cause costs to rise - I've never experienced the cost being recalculated.

Seriously?

Ours is £400 but Monday to Friday and at a really amazing outdoor education facility with very qualified instructors.
There are payment plans and grants available and the year group do a load of community fundraising too.

£325 for 2 nights, it's gone up £25 since last year. About an hour or so away and packed with activities, dc2 had a great time last year so I'm happy to pay it for dc3 but it is a lot.

Ours take it in instalments, which helps.

If children receive free school meals due to low income schools receive a premium for them and this is put towards their costs not other parent money!

Actually @Avocadono it states in the letter that the costs are subject to change depending on uptake for the trip. They have based the figures on every child in the year group attending. Last year, about 25% of the year group didn't attend the residential, the prices were increased slightly (so I was told). One year group that usually goes away didn't have a trip at all as uptake was so low.

The school are having a third party negotiate and administer the financials for the trip. I hope that means they have a wider bargaining power (maybe booking for several schools to get cheaper rates overall), but there must be a fee charged somewhere. I hope it works out for everyone that does want to go.

That'll be the cost of transport.

Logically... accommodation, activities etc wouldn't be affected by uptake.

But transport could be. 40 kids on a coach costs the same as 50 kids on a coach. But 500/50 = 10, whereas 500/40 is 12.5 as an example!

Actually accommodation and activities costs could well be affected by numbers.

If they are booking somewhere that's designed for school trips say it accommodates say 60 kids, 10 Dorms 6 kids in a Dorm.
They probably prefer not to have kids from different schools on the same corridor at night. Also you wouldn't want mixed sex dorms. So you could easily be under occupied
So then the school needs to pay for the who area.

Same with instructors for the activities. If they can have groups of up to 10. If you have 51 kids you probably still need to pay for 6 instructors ending up with 8/9 in a group. Rather than 10 in a group