To ask how many of you pay for your children's school trips.

[psiloveyou]

This week I have paid
£10.50 for ds1 trip
£14.80 for ds2 trip
£5.00 for dd3 trip
Now dd4 has come home from nursery with a request for £17.80 for a trip to a local farm.

All the letters state the money is a contribution but if enough parents don't pay the trip will not go ahead.
We are lucky enough that we can afford it. I have no problem with parents on a low income only paying a small percentage.
I just wonder if there are any parents out there who can afford it but choose not to pay.

Well he spent every single penny cj on the trip to France/Belgium... To be fair, they had to buy their tea on the ferry on the way home which cost him 11 euros for a burger so really the money doesn't go far. By the time they buy snacks and drinks etc on a trip there probably isn't a lot left.

I do wonder if half these trip are just an excuse for the teachers to get a nice cheap break.... Vegas is just utterly ridiculous. The Hoover Dam takes less than two hours to visit. And there is absolutely nothing else of educational interest within a few hundred miles. Its a bloody desert.

a nice cheap break?
what with 30 odd teenagers?!

I loved Vegas as both my boys did. In fact it was one of the best holidays we have been on. Hoover Dam is fab as was the Grand Canyon.

Do the teachers have to pay for their own tickets? I bet they dont.

I remember the school trips I went on. The teachers spent every night getting pissed out of their heads.

Squeaky, I work in a school (not a teacher) and would say that is so not true.

I loved seeing the Dam, we have been twice now, but I wouldnt be happy to send my teenager to Vegas on a school trip. It is a very seedy place day and night and not at all suitable for kids.

Have always paid, as not on benefits.

Currently saving £1800 plus spending money for next year's History trip to New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

My parents couldn't afford to send me on any trips so I'm ok with it

We always pay, but our school seems to have a lot of trips (at least 2 per half term).
We always end up paying at least £50 for trips, more if the school has an enrichment week.
As we are not entitled to any benefits, I don't think we can't pay for the trips, so my dc will have to stay at home.
I wish they'd limit the trips.

Bella, I do imagine the teachers these days are a bit less carefree.

I am talking 25 years ago. The photos of our France and Italy trips are on facebook. Believe me, the Daily Mail would have had a field day with them if they were taken nowadays

Seeing my PE teacher cavorting about in her bra and knickers on the dancefloor of the hotel was certainly and eye opener for most of us!

I didn't think Vegas was seedy at all.

£150 for a 3 day trip to Inverness
£15 for a camping trip.

This is primary school

Bella, did you not get the clicker blokes with their little business cards accosting any male who was with you? My husband did.... and it drove him mad.

It isnt called Sin City for nothing. I do love it there though. The hotels are just amazing and I would go there every year if we could afford it. We dont gamble either, just love the atmosphere and the food!

We pay.

The trips are quite reasonable. Ds1 is in Yr1, and ds2 in the nursery class (full time within the school)

But what really gets me, is the notice, or rather, lack of notice we get. Ds1 had a letter on the Thursday, and the trip was the following Tuesday. We are fortunate that we can afford the trips, but we still have to budget.

I remember not being allowed to go on a skiing trip when I was in Comprehensive, because me parents said that a) the cost would pay for our family holiday, and b) they didn't want to pay for the teachers jolly. (Tbh, you couldn't pay me enough to look after a gropu of teenagers for a week)

Dh never went on any residential trips. He has a fair few siblings, and didn't even ask his parents as he knew the answer would be no

His view on trips for the ds (more so for residential trips) is do the ds need/deserve/will benefit from the trip. Then we look at finances.

I'm a bit about trip to vegas. What possible educational value could it have? And also I may be wrong but I am pretty sure you have to be 21 to even go inside most of the places people visit vegas to see.

You have to be 21 to drink or stay in a casino.

You can take children through the casino ( no choice as that is often the only way to get to the rooms and always the only way to get to the restaurants) but you have to keep moving, no stopping, and they are massively strict on keeping to that policy.

It really is an adult playground.

Squeaky, yes we did get the clickers - we just ignored!

The hotels are amazing, although we stayed slightly off strip in a resort. We do not gamble either - well DH likes the odd game of poker but that is about it. He did actually play cards in Florida in the resort we were staying in (it was outside and still very warm) DS2 got DH a glass of water and as he put it down said "ooooh dad, I see you have an ace, king, jack of clubs.."

We have stayed at the Mandalay, Luxor and the Orleans which was just off the strip too. The prices are just so cheap, Orleans was £25 per room, per night. And in comparison to a UK hotel, it is easily 4 star. Huge air conditioned rooms with two extra king size beds and a free shuttle bus to the strip which was half a mile or less away.

Apologies for vegas hijack!! :)

My parents paid for two foreign exchanges, various G&T trips, class trips...probably came to about £700 in the end. But they were very keen for me to do stuff- they also wanted me to go on the £800 ski trip and adventure weekends and things...they were worried that I wasn't social enough (pre-ASD diagnosis!) and nearly hit the roof when I said I didn't want to go on the sixth form induction thing. Money never really stood in the way of everything, they're generous. Like someone else said, they spend less on brand names and gadgets (our TV is 25+ years old :o).

• stood in the way of anything

My twins went on a trip to a free art museum in Edinburgh, on the wrong date so no guide available, with the nursery and ds1 has been nowhere this year so we have been lucky.
End of term nursery trip would have cost £30 for the 3 of us, which is a fair chunk of my food budget, so we are going to go into town if its a nice day instead. I would have had to endure the whole day being glared at by the arsey mums who decided I was not good enough to talk to mid way through the year, something about the twins leashes not being tight enough for their liking from what I can gather [bothered much?].

We sacrificed the family holiday (caravan - seaside) to let ds1 go abroad with the school unfortunately we probably won't be able to let ds2 do the same as things are tighter now and we can't afford a holiday this year. I pay for day trips. I didn't know it was optional.

Don't apologise squeaky While Vegas does sound fab you are doing a good job of convincing me it is a daft place for a year 8 school trip.

On the subject of residential trips. DH is a parent govenor and goes on a lot of these jollies educational trips. The does come out once the dc are tucked up but I'm pretty sure the staff stay reasonably sober.

I pay because I don't want dd to miss out on the oppurtunites. My parents have their faults but despite money issues they managed to pay for me to go to Wales, Paris and Germany with school, all of which were great oppurtunities.