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.

If you can't afford a trip all state schools will have a remissions policy where for certain people portions or the whole cost will be covered. Ask the school office for the policy. We do get regular requests for remissions and most of them are granted to some extent or other. The money comes from the school budget so its not the other parents picking up the cost.

No, we can't afford to. We have help from PTA, MS Soc, gp's etc. Tbh, a lot of trips are over-priced; they don't need the ott coach trips every time. God knows what you do with twins or triplets. Phone the IMF?

Alice, as I have triplets, a poster earlier told me I was 'pathetic' to only pay for 2 out of the 3.

So far we've paid but we're now in dire financial straits and if something comes up this last half of term we won't be able to pay (for either child, have twins).

It entirely depends on the cost and if I deem it to be decent value tbh. Day trips tend to be worth it as DS2s primary school subsidises them, so we the latest one to come up was an olympics themed sports day at the local university which was going to cost £12:50. Most of that was the transport costs but did include and ice cream for them all so I was happy to pay that.

DS1 is at seniors now and is going on a residential trip in the last week of term. It is for 5 days and includes a trip out to Alton towers and various really damn awesome sporty activities like abseiling and caving. It is an optional trip but I was happy to sign him up for it because he loves that sort of thing and it isn't activities that we could do at home all the time. It came to £240 for the 5 days, then an additional spending money of £25 which is mainly for the Alton towers trip so they can get themselves drinks during the day. That is fantastic value for what he gets, so I was only too happy to send back the slip saying he could go. Had it been £400 for the same thing, it would have been too much and he wouldn't have gone.

When it comes to trips that are expected (like DS2's Olympics day) and form a part of the work they then do in class for the next week or two, I think it is important for them to go so try and make cut backs in other areas to be able to afford it, but i do think it is a bit unfair on this who would really struggle to fund them. End of term jollies are a different matter though. They have no educational value but of ocurse everyone wants to go to a day at the theme park, so e poor sod who can't afford to pay misses out on the day or parking about, but also has the shame of spending the day in with a different class (and often different year group) where it will be really obvious that they couldn't afford it and tbh probably won't be learning much with the other class anyway. Those ones I object to. But still pay through the nose for, as i don't want my kid to be the one left behind or missing out

Do children actually learn anything on school trips?

If teachers find them hard work and parents struggle to pay - then what is the point?

I can't speak for residential trips as DS1 is only 6 but so far he has been on 3 day trips 2 of which cost £5 each ( they were subsidised by the PTA) and the third was free as the school managed to access funding from the Local Authority.

We pay a monthly direct debit for trips

We paid at our last school and nursery. At current school they've only had trips to local free places using own transport so far. But I have no objection to paying towards them if you can, although for us, when all 5 are at school it may be another matter, hopefully I'll be in work by then so it won't be an issue.

im with MrsKravits,, lol you all just wait though my daughters got a school trip to new york comming up for media studies its around £1,000 ive absolutely no idea how ill manage it but i really dont want her to miss it it sounds fantastic opertunity (think ill jump in her suitcase )

opportunity even

At my kids primary school they run a residential trip every year from Y2 onwards. When I had 3 kids there it was very expensive - the whole trip burden cost in the region of 400 quid a year.

Now I've got 3 at various secondary schools and 1 at the primary - it's still expensive

However, they do gain a lot from them. DS2 (who is 7) went on a residential last month and as well as staying somewhere new overnight got to do rock climbing and archery. Experiences we couldn't provide at home.

I have had to say 'no' to secondary school skiing trips though, I can't pull 3 grand or so out of thin air!!!

I am at the contempt shown for some teachers here 'i bet they don't have to pay' etc. Well no we don't (although on some we may have to pay a proportion - school ski trip for example) but there is also no over time for the run of 24 hour days, no personal incentives for the teacher to spend the hours and hours planning them. Schools make no profit from trips, it actually cost the schools a fortune when trips were stuck overseas due to the ash cloud. You cannot even start to think about the responsibility involved, I will never forgive the teenager who drank himself into a coma on an overseas trip dh ran, it wasn't his parents or the school picking up the pieces when my dh fell apart, it was me'. Said teenager was fine and as dh had done everything correctly there was no trouble in that sense ( the kids were given a couple of hours to shop in France, parents were aware of this free time before trip went and could opt to have their kids stay with teachers). That said i did a trip where a parent turned up mid way through to supply her child with alcohol! School trips are expensive and as many have said, it's the transport that does it. Unfortunately the only alternative is not to run the trips.

bulby I couldn't agree more. We pay for all our kids (multiple) trips and rarely say no (with the exception of residential 2wks after starting a new school).

DH took a group of year 9/10 students abroad earlier this year. The 'trip' ie. travel, bed and breakfast. We paid the cost baggage, eating lunch/dinner out, when they treated the kids to ice creams one afternoon and hot choc's another. No one pay's for the 24hr day he is working or the prep required, form filling and general stress of having so many kids out of the UK for 5 nights.

He is due to take a group of 20 on a golfing trip in a few weeks. He recieves the same reduced rate as the students, but it is still costing us £50!

Yes, we always pay. But are fortunate to be able to afford it. This week we've had a letter regarding the children going to a museum - the museum entry is free, but the coach is expensive - so it's £13 a head. I believe coaches with seatbelts (although I'm unsure if it's a legal requirement for coaches to have seatbelts now?) are more expensive, and of course we all want our children to travel in a coach with belts so swallow the cost.

My son's trips have ranged from £5 to £20.
3 Day residential Trip in Y5 £75.00
He is Y6, and has got a 5 day residential in july. Which was supposed to be £175.00. Although our school has contributed towards this one as, I couldnt afford it all.

He starts High School in Sptember, where there is another week to a outdoor pursuits centre. I dont know if there will be help towards this or not yet. But I will be asking.

We pay, but obviously a lot of DS3's year don't as TWO trips were cancelled as not enough parents had paid :(

These weren't 'jollys' but serious filed trips, so was somewhat annoyed.

Having said that - the school was a bit amiss by asking for money for two trips at the same time.

We pay but at the moment only have one child in school. I'm also a teacher and, as others have said, a lot of the cost is in the coach. If your school's PTA/Friends do a lot of fundraising and fund the coach then you'll be paying a lot less. Every child now has to have a seat to themselves with seatbelts, whereas I remember going on trips as a child where 3 of us were squashed into 2 seats. I paid £10 for ds1 to go to an aquarium lately. It would cost us over £50 as a family, so no cheaper.

I'm quite at the trend for 12 and 13 year olds needing to go to New York and Las Vegas.

If you can't afford a trip all state schools will have a remissions policy where for certain people portions or the whole cost will be covered. Ask the school office for the policy. We do get regular requests for remissions and most of them are granted to some extent or other. The money comes from the school budget so its not the other parents picking up the cost.

All state schools don't have a remissions policy - it's not a requirement. And schools who allow a portion of their budget to be spent on trips may not do so as readily as before, given budget cuts.

Ime, parents who genuinely may not be able to pay are the ones who will empty their purse to pay for it anyway. And some parents who won't pay definitely take the piss. We have some parents who flatly say 'I'm not paying for any trips - school should pay.' And they are not badly off, either.

Mine go on trips at least once a half term (theatre, museum etc) which cost around £5 each a time. Then there is the main school trip during the summer term which costs about £15, plus £5 spending money. There are residential trips in years 4, 5 and 6 which cost between £100-£150 a time.

I have 3 (close in age) DC and I'm not sure how that is different to triplets? I wouldn't dream of only paying for 2 of them!

We pay and sometimes it is a struggle especially for the twins as it is always twice the cost as they are in the same class. I am saving now for their residential trip which is in a couple of years. On top of that there is cubs/guides camps. It's expensive.

To amend my previous post - schools don't have to have a remissions poilicy, unless they plan to charge for activities. Which, I guess, would involve every school (although we do have a policy of keeping all extra-curricular clubs free).

our primary school has a few clear expensive yearly trips.

Thank fully they have started sending out information about the trip and the cost of the trip in September as school starts and they open a book for savings where parents can pay weekly/monthly towards the trip.

Also the pta have been asked to pay for the increase in costs for the coming year it has been quite a hike for both the venue and the travel.

Jemima it is different to multiples because although you may have to pay out for 3 children ( presumably you chose to have them close together, don't think people get a choice with multiples) that have trips at a similar time you probably wouldn't have to pay for them at exactly the same time.

I don't even have any multiples but can see that unless you are very comfortable financially, the constant paying out for 2 or more at same time, and not being able to pass things onto subsequent children which you can do when you have singles must be hard. Why is that so hard to understand

We are fortunate in that we can afford to pay and because of this our DD have been able to go on all the trips on offer.

However now that they are both a Secondary School there is a letter about a trip at least every half term. These aren't just trips to local museums but 2-5 day residential trips. In years 7-9 they do 3 languages so that is 3 different European trips, a maths residential, a history residential the list just goes on. We are about to start year 10 and I think that is at least 1 trip per subject.

Primary School was minimal compared to this.