to think that expensive school trips should be banned

[Nicola10]

Year 8 pupils have, today, left for a school trip to France. Very exciting for them, yes, considering that they will be going to a theme park, as well as educational stuff. But, for the rest of the kids, whose parents could not afford it, including my twins, they have to do normal lessons.

The cost for each child is £400 each!

Really?

Really?

Because they say: The school would like to take those that can afford it on a lovely holiday somewhere.

Everyone else can fuck off.

Its quite good timing, this thread.

I have just opened an email from school. My dd is doing History GCSE. In year 11 they have to do a controlled assessment. This has to take place in Germany. If they do not go to Germany, they cannot do the assessment which makes up a percentage of their final grade, so in effect,the trip is compulsory. and it costs £210.

"due to the trip being so important we are offering several options to facilitate everyone. You can of course pay in full. You also have the option of paying weekly or monthly over the next 6 months. If there is no possibility of raising the money or paying by instalments, please make an appointment to see the Head of History. There is a fund available for students who are unable to pay the amount due to financial hardship but you will need to apply as soon as possible. We are committed as a school to ensuring that every single student can attend this trip."

It depends really. I don't think they should be banned though as generally they are very positive experiences.

Efforts should be made to get expensive trips into the school holidays so that it is not "in the face" of any child not going. Also, teachers should consider the means of the parents when planning trips.

I do not agree that this sort of stuff should be banned. A lot of the trips offer children things that they might otherwise not get to do. My (large) family have never been on a skiing holiday but they were able to pay for me to go on a school skiing trip with school which I loved and still remember.

Kids know that things cost money, I doubt there are very many kids who get everything they ask for or want. Even my 5yo knows that toys cost money, so does food and electricity and you have to spend money on the important things first.

Having been on both sides of the fence the poor kid who never went on trips to now being able to allow DS and DD two foreign trips during secondary school, I would say that tbh not going on trips was not what made me feel poor as a child. Bad clothes and free school meals where the big problems. Inclusion for all leads to opportunities missed for some which I would be against. It would mean private, academies etc offering services that state schools could not. If for instance you banned private music lessons because all cannot afford the children who ares subsidised would lose out. The same with trips the state school not offering where as the academy a mile away offering their pupils more would too be a bigger divide.

So is that only offensive for school trips?

Or should schools ban proms, fete's, day trips etc because only those who can afford it can go. Everyone else can 'fuck off'?

And what about those nepotistic rich bastard parents who then buy their child a scientific calculator and revision guides which poor parents can't afford. Should they 'fuck off' too?

Where do you draw the line? I just don't understand the argument that we should dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator and that somehow makes things fair. I'd argue it's the exact opposite.

You have a prom that everyone can afford.

Fetes cost nothing, they raise money. Everyone can contribute to the effort by donating either goods or time as able.

Day trips should also be available to all.

If children need scientific calculators, schools should provide them. Any good school provides revision classes and revision guides of their own.

Your arguments are non-arguments.

Apart from anything else, how shit is the argument:

LIFE ISN'T FAIR SO LET'S MAKE IT EVEN MORE UNFAIRER BY TAKING RICH KIDS ON HOLIDAY WITH THE SCHOOL

Not really. Above people say they literally cannot afford £2 a week.

Given the budgets for proms nowadays that renders them impossible.

Fete's don't cost nothing. Have you been to one? How much did you spend there? If you can't afford £2 a week then surely that's much more damaging to your child's self esteem than a one off expensive school trip which is much easier for a child to accept they cannot afford.

All you are doing is dumbing everything down and life isn't like that. IYou can't stop others doing something because a few cannot afford it. It's a false principle which helps noone in life.

It's not a rich vs poor thing. Most parents bimble along on low to average incomes. Yet judging from the responses at our school, the vast majority of parents can afford it.

Why is it "dumbing down" to offer every child the same opportunities in school?

That is mad.

TantrumsAndBalloons
That is actually ! as said before, I really do not think expensive school trips should be banned on basis that not everyone can afford them (even though there is little chance for my DCs to go on them) but to make it compulsary (or your grades will suffer!) is outrageous and close to bullying parents into an activity that could 100% be done if not on site at least in the country the pupils reside in! What if you do not feel comfortable with your child going abroad for several days regardless of being able or not to pay for it?

niceguy revision guides are the thing that make me furious. And it may sound like a little thing. You say it in a sarcastic way. But it makes me so angry.

The teacher, science teacher in ds1 case said to the class you have to have these books to revise for your 1st exam. You have to. It will be the difference between getting a good grade or just scraping through. The books cost £26. Everyone needs to buy them from the school office by Friday. It is essential.

Ok. So I bought the books. Ds1 friend phoned him the next night almost in tears. Because his mum could afford the books. They could barely afford to eat FFS before anyone starts with all the "budget better" crap.

I gave DS the money to give to his friend and spoke to the science teacher because I was so bloody angry that if these books were so "essential" why the actual fuck are they not given to the students?

Why is it that something that can apparently have such a huge impact on a students GCSE result has to cause so much anxiety. And people not eating or not paying a bill so they can buy them?
Fuck school trips, they for the most part won't impact on actual education. But books? That you can only have if you can afford them?
And if, God forbid you are struggling, you have to live with the fact that your child may not pass their exams?

All wrong.

Tantrums, it's also laziness. The teachers should provide revision guides, most do at my dc's school

Because those "same opportunities" are only based on what the poorest family can afford (ie. nothing).

And tantrums that's shocking. Revision guides should never be pushed as some sort of necessity. My DD's school had loads of them sat in the library, most people either didn't know or didn't bother. Muggins here was buying them. Told DD to go borrow them instead.

Forgive me if someone's already said this, but at DD's school they lay on enrichment activities when there are fancy trips on. DD has enjoyed both sides of the coin.

They should provide them IMO, they certainley should not cause anxiety for parents who cannot afford to buy essential books.
Essential equipment should be provided. And trying to guilt trip parents into finding money they actually do not have is disgusting.

Sorry I know the thread has probably moved on but I had to reply to the £1600 NY trip. Absolutely over the top in my view. If you want to learn about drama/theatre there is plenty to do here which may even be more useful. Trips to Barbados as one person mentioned sound crazy too - I'd really want to know what was planned. Are these trips to entertain the staff or the children?! And do the teachers cover their own trips? Although I must say that DH as a teacher would probably find supervising kids on that sort of trip - or managing the supervision - a bit of a nightmare. I don't know.

And I honestly can't grasp doing these trips during term time.

I grew up in the US and there were trips to Europe but they were in the holidays so basically if you couldn't make it you weren't 'left behind' as such, scribbling away in the classroom.

Actually the prom thing is another bug bear of mine. It is ridiculous for primary aged children and the requisite limo is unaffordable to many.

At my ds school the kids that get to go on y6 leavers trip get a special school sweatshirt that you pay for. Those that don't go don't get it and don't get their names included on the back.

Just so everyone knows who can't afford to go.

The attitudes here are why schools get away with shit like this.

Silly name. I certainly know all about it. My mum actually ended up in hospital when she didn't have enough money to feed us both so fed me and went without.

I had to go without lots as a child, but my mum did her best, always managed to scrape together the money for me to go on school trips. But I also knew she couldn't afford them all so I didn't ask to go on them all.

I will struggle when the twins get to school age and then the following year when the next one has the same choices. But I won't winge and moan if some people go and some done. I will explain it to them

The main value of trips is so that kids can gain independence away from parents. As a parent you weigh up the value of that trip compared to the actual cost so Flyinglad in yr 8 has just done the French trip. In cost £400 and included a full on day trip to Paris, some (but not much I have to say) experience of French and a trip to Disney plus some other activities and trips. We go to France a lot so I didn't do it for that reason but he has medical needs which require injections/management. He does this himself but we knew that this time there was not going to be someone there overseeing everything. It was up to him. He managed fantastically and now means I am far more confident about him managing in the future. Plus, the trip, full board, with all the trips offered good value. Disneyland is our idea of hell and we rarely go to theme parks so for him to spend all day there, with no queing was worth quite a bit. Now, if there was a Spanish trip, we would have opted for that rather than the ?french one because he has not travelled there before. We did say 'no' to the ski trip because is was over 1K and that's half our two week summer budget plus the medical needs could have more of an impact.

Flyingboy, who has lots of SEN did his schools ski trip. He never would be able to go on something like that without the level of support. He LOVED it and it gave him such confidence. He has loved all his trips and they have been enriching for him.

There does seem to be a thing now of running exotic school trips and it seems to be a marketing thing by schools. I remember looking round one private school for an interview and the head said that parents now expect the netball trip to be run to somewhere exotic rather than Bognor Regis. The problem with this is that staff have to juggle their own lives and childcare to be able to do it and it does lead to discrimination in the workplace as who are you going to hire, the woman with two kids whose not going to want to go to South Africa with the netball team or the young nqt with no ties whose dying to go? Anyone who says 'trips should be run in the holidays' needs to consider staffing. Think on it. You are going to preclude certain staff like me from going because we have children. Also, teachers are generally knackered at the end of term and need their holiday. Runnning and taking a trip is not a jolly. You are in loco parentis of a bunch of hormonal teenagers a long way from home with a lot of organisation, juggling and things to deal with like travel delays or kids being sick.

The Germany trip to do coursework is bollocks and obscene. I also think these school trips are going a bit mad and yes, what is wrong with going to Wales or even Ireland for a trip. Why do you have to go to NY for a drama trip?

Tantrums School should at the very least have a few copies available to borrow or offer to photocopy relevant information from books if they really are needed that much!

On a different note, DH pointed out the actual 'silliness' of uniform policy supposedly to make it fairer and more affordable for everyone; Dcs in high school have actually shot up in size and both needed new black jogging bottoms. The official school ones, plain black, cost £20 a pair whilst the ones we went for, Puma (almost invisible tiny logo near waist, covered by top) plain black, superior quality to the official school ones costed us £9 a pair. Surely, in the name of fairness, the uniform should cost less than supposidly expensive highstreet branded stuff?

hully I think you are awesome.

Fundraising, sponsorship, selling stuff, its all great community focused stuff. Why is that bad?

I have been to/organised/spent money at-

50 mile cycle ride, 7 dads did it, all their family and friends sponsored them, they raised £2000. That was 7 people.People just have to be bothered.
Fetes- raised £200-£600
Car Washes, Bake Sales, BBQs, Games nights, Balls, Festivals, Ice Cream cones after school, work placements/sponsorships.

They can all make a difference and if done well and year round then there should be a big pot of money that the schools can use to fund trips.

I would hate for schools not to organise trips, I know 1st hand how great they are. I also know from leading a 3 day residential how exhausting they are for the staff.

I am just staggered at the number of people who want kids to know how shit life can be, and suck it up. If you marginalise people in this way then people become disenfranchised = Big social problems.

I do feel very sad about pupils financially unable to participate. I've always thought that should I win the lottery, I'd set up a fund to pay for these pupils to go.

So many pupils simply do not take the trip letters home because they know it is out of the question