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!

But what IS a sensible ceiling? For some people £100 is okay, for others it isn't, same with £50 and so on

Who decides what is sensible? That's another issue - but it doesn't mean that it's not a good idea to have a sensible ceiling on these limits.

There are lots of reasonable ways in which a ceiling could be determined - it could be done nationally, locally or by individual schools. The Dept of Education could set it, or an LEA could set it, or schools could set it based on genuine consultation with parents. There are lots of possibilities.

Headsdown are you ok with certain pupils having the opportunity to go to France as their school/lea have placed the ceiling at that level whereas a neighbouring school has no foreign exchanges as their ceiling price is lower, is this inclusion. Where you live in the country also determines the cost of foreign exchanges.

If ceilings were to be set by schools and LEAs then I guess that would be up to the schools and LEAs. Perhaps some schools would set different ceilings in consultation with different sets of parents. I suppose that some schools might go on different trips to others (but most of the parents who don't support a price cap would be ok with that, I am sure, since "life's not fair")

More seriously, I am not sure that the overall price of a large foreign exchange trip would vary all that widely depending on the location of the school. A bit, but I'm not convinced it would be a deal breaker.

And even if schools/LEAs did set different limits, and put in place a policy ensuring that no child in genuine financial need was left behind, then at least it would get us away from the situation where one pupil can't go on the educational trip that all of his/her friends are going on.

And there's always the option of a setting a ceiling centrally, at the same level for all schools.

My daughter is currently at a daughters and dads camping weekend, am rather outing myself here but never mind. Dads and daughters theme as a girls only school. This took a great person to organise (not my dh) and the girls are, apparently, having a fantastic time. Cost not too much money and I think my dh is enjoying it more than the girls. He said today was just perfect - playing games on the beach for hours and back for supper with a campfire. Last night was a big walk and fish and chips on the sea front. 14 girls in the same tent and dads having a few beers and cooking great food.

For me the issue isnt so much the expensive trips but the fact that the kids who cant go are made to do normal lessons. Surely some effort could be made to have a fun time at school with some learning of the same things the kids on the trip are learning? Maybe something to do with drama if the kids are learning about the war and visiting war graves. Trying to make a meal out of war time rations in Food Tech, that sort of thing.

It is very divisive. I was the kid that went on the trips and am the mother who has to say no, so I can see both sides.

The trip that we were prepared to send dc1 on was with scouts - £450 for a week camping in Austria, and activities eg climbing, kayaking, orienteering etc etc, was cancelled due to lack of take up. We were surprised because it sounded great, much better than school trips dc's and friends in other schools offered which were pretty lacklustre in terms of content. Apparently the lack of take up was for a variety of reasons along the lines of children in the area generally going on more than one trip abroad each year with family and it this trip sounded like it would be hard work .

Our Scout group does a camp in Switzerland- it is once every 5 years because of the cost- but it is very popular and the cheapest way that anyone will ever have the experience of going to Switzerland.

Some people don't like the cheap alternatives either- e.g the French exchange - they get paranoid about the family they send their DC to stay with and don't want to host. They seem far less popular than they used to be.DS had a great time on his and the cost was low.

I think the argument that 'some parents can't afford anything ( there will always be inequalities) is slightly different to the argument that all school trips should be more affordable.

LaQueen -stupid argument as obviously considerably more parenst can afford 40p than £400.
Your post implies that you don't believe teachers have the common sense to know where to know where the line should be.

Stupid is the banned word in my house.

The thing that gets me is the fact that the children who can't afford to go on these trips have to do normal lessons. At dds school if you can't go on the trip (and a fair few can't) then they can't pay for everyone to go so they arrange a selection of other activities for the children. I know for a fact that my dd would be 100% annoyed if her friends were going to a chocolate factory and theme parks while she was doing maths.
I agree that they can' make the trips cost so little that everyone can afford them but normal lessons? Really? I feel so bad for those kids.

As the trip went ahead in the OP school their was enough interest and they may have used average income/ common sense. How do you give children the opportunity of a foreign exchange when above 50% of a school are on the poverty line, do those children who may have the ability to raise £400 for france not have the chance because of postcode. Every year the posts begin about catchments would this not cause greater difference the gap will not close but get wider. Where do instrument lesson fit into the equation if all the majority of the school cannot afford to learn the violin can no one not even the children funded by the school as it is not with the majority.

And the dc who haven't got 40p are the dc who the person running the cake sale ask to take something to the office and who are given a cake; like the boy whose mum's in a bad place gets his name put first on the parent led v popular after school activity and the money slips in quietly, like the clever child who sings like an angel has a case made at governors for peripatetic lessons. It's part of community - the local one and the school one. Perhaps we just went to a nice primary and I mean we because the parents should be part of the community. Perhaps because it was a church school. .....runs.

Sorry if this has been said already but re the 'life isn't fair' argument:

what about teaching the richer kids that life isn't fair by scrapping a trip? Surely if anyone is in greater need of a lesson in fairness and empathy it's the wealthier?

Fairness and empathy relates to more than school trips though. What of the child who's mum and dad scrimped for the trip which would have been their DC's one trip abroad.

Just because a child may have wealth doesn't mean he or she is happy or valued or has a functional home.

I think it's very bitter to say rich children need lessons in fairness to teach them a lesson. The rich children are likely to be having a family holiday anyway so your method serves no purpose but to smack of jealousy.

No, it's just to point out that "life's not fair" isn't much of an argument, and is no justification for not trying to improve a situation.

It's not about teaching kids that life is or isn't fair. It's about schools making an attempt to be an incubator of equality.

As many have pointed out, it is impossible to deal with mobile phones in school or what kids do out of school or any other number of social-economic status factors that leak into a school environment. But the school can attempt equality of opportunity with each step that the school takes.

I don't really understand the "how do you find a reasonable baseline cost for trips?". You take a look at the average income, how wide the distribution is, how well the school fund-raises for trips - and make a decision. Like humans do.

Crowler the trip in the OP went ahead, which must mean that the average income in the school area is high enough to justify that.

We don't know anything about the average income of the OP's school, only that they had sufficient uptake to meet the break-even point.

To say nothing of the distribution of the average income.

Our school tries to make sure that all children can go. This year's residential had three sets of twins in it and the school funded one of the twins in each case so that the parents did not have to find two lots of money. They didn't ask if parents could afford no sets, it was simply offered at the start and gratefully accepted.

I think in any trip there needs to be a built in fund for the child who wants to go or would benefit from going but whose parents cannot afford the cost. To date this has never been abused by parents....but am guessing there is always a first time.

I am talking here of Primary school Y6.

In secondary school when DS is older then I will explain to him if a residential is too pricey for us. I am currently on benefits and will be funding his Y6 residential by paying £25 per month. Have made two parents so far but his Dad is supposed to be helping too. I am hoping that by the time he is in secondary school that things will settle enough for me to go back to work (DS is autistic).