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!

Surely if anyone is in greater need of a lesson in fairness and empathy it's the wealthier?

There's an insulting implication if ever there was one!

Just because someone has a wealthy family, doesn't mean they have a 'perfect' life. A 'rich kid' may have everything that money can buy, but that doesn't mean that their parents give a damn/treat all their children equally/spend time with their children. Money can be great, but the love, care, affection and acceptance of your parents is priceless...and irreplaceable.

There is a big difference between a £400 trip that all of a class are meant to go on, and something like the skiing trip ds is going on which will cost about £1k once the kit and everything is factored in, that 40 out of 1,500 pupils from all years are offered.

If all of a class/year are meant to go, then £400 is too steep.

I got back yesterday from running a 2 day 'jolly' (UK, cultural, enriching rather than directly linked to curriculum, cost £170).

We took 90 kids from four year groups - so about one in eight of our students went. Some hadn't bothered in year 7, had heard from their mates that it was great, & saved up to go in year 8.

As organiser, I happen to know how many kids had subsidised places because they're eligible for Pupil Premium, a twin, or there are other unusual extenuating circumstances. They each paid £50 - in ten installments if necessary - we charge that because if we fully fund trips, we have in the past had kids simply not turn up on the day ('oh she decided she wasn't bothered, she's been invited to a party that night').

I won't be more specific about the trip because I don't want to out myself, but for lots of our party it was a genuinely enriching experience they hadn't previously encountered. Overnighters are also fab for building independence. Also, they had a hoot.

Meanwhile, I caught three hours' 'one ear open' sleep: between sitting on the floor of a hotel corridor until 3am, playing that classic residential trip game for teachers, 'Hotel Door Whackamole', & rising at 6 to amuse the early risers until breakfast time. & all of 3 parents took the trouble to thank us as we staggered back off the coach last night! In my case, to be greeted by a rather grumpy dh who'd had to entirely re-arrange his working Friday & cancel a planned day out of his own on Saturday to fit round our dc.

Don't get me wrong, if I didn't enjoy it & think it's really valuable for the kids, I wouldn't spend the time or put myself through the stress - I'm not complaining...but it's not all about showing off, or giving the teachers a freebie jaunt .

So why do teachers organise such expensive trips.

In fact an acquaintance was telling me her P7 was off to a city in europe to stay in a 5* hotel for £600. This is in a fairly deprived area. They managed to pay for it through borrowing and overtime, they could have done without the expense.

Surely if anyone is in greater need of a lesson in fairness and empathy it's the wealthier?

That has to be one of the most small minded comments I have ever read on this website.

As has been said, the 'life's not fair' argument doesn't work for either side of the debate.

Personally, I don't want schools to be little bubbles that we try acne force away from the reality of real life. I'd rather all our children were taught how to deal with life's differences and unfairness in a secure and supportive environment. That's just not going to happen if we try to pretend that everyone is the same, and it would lead to some children having a real shock when they left.

It's a sliding scale, really.

Our trip this week was a bundle of admission tickets/accommodation/travel. I actually took my own ds when a place became available at the last minute through a student dropping out (after offering it to the students on the waiting list, all of whom declined. & obviously paying full whack) because it represented much better value than taking him to the same things as part of a family trip.

There's no pressure to go - my year 7 group were chatting about it the day before as I was giving out their HW, & those not going (the majority) were saying things like: 'I went there last year with my dad' or 'I'm not really in to ' or 'yeah, it does sound good, but mum said I had to choose between this one or putting the money towards the ski trip next year'. They really were very pragmatic about it.

Our most expensive trip IS skiing - we do a European one, which is quite reasonably priced I believe, & a US one which tends to be saved up for from year 7. Think that's about £1200.

I'd pay for it for one of mine because it's an opportunity to go skiing. If they want to. We won't be going as a family, & as someone said upthread, it's unlikely dc will be able to afford it off their own bat this side of 25.

I do believe school trips represent great opportunities, & I can't see how you could replicate that provision (ie. for a child/teen to do something exciting which is never going to happen as part of a family holiday, & which can be, & is, discreetly subbed as necessary) if you banned them as the OP wants.

I totally agree and thank you for doing it ravenAK

Having money isn't "an ability", LaQueen.

My DN went to Singapore and Thailand.

I went to the Yorkshire Dales.

It is not fair.

If its going to be made obvious who the poor kids are through the divisiveness of some of these school trips then i dont think that their parents should be forced to spend money they dont have on expensive school uniform
The same school uniform that is suppossed to achieve the fact that no child is singled out rich or poor.

I understand the arguments that they should ban trips and allow trips, I understand the reasoning on European trips only if trips are allowed.What I do not understand is trips on average income/ affordable (words again with no real monetary value). The op was 400 to France and I do not see how this can be made cheaper so unless this school bans trips to France then pupils will be not singled out in school, however the school would be singled out. Subsiding for schools in trips where it is never intended for all to go is difficult. The school can do no right for wrong. The aibu thread that the school/PTA is using money to help the 'wealthy kids' go to France would be a pleasure to read. I know the school DCs go to fund a % on an out of the hat who qualify for FSM but that still would not help the families who cannot afford the trip but do not qualify for FSM.

I see your point squidworth.

I don't think it makes sense to do these trips in non-affluent schools. I understand the argument that it could be the only opportunity less affluent kids get to travel abroad - but these particular kids (ones whose parents prioritize such spending for their kids when they themselves can't afford it) by selection have good parents and will be OK. It's the really poor kids that I worry about, the ones who have pretty grim lives and I don't think they need this extra layer of stress.

There are scads of trips extracurricular trips that you can organize for your kid outside of school. I find it hard to imagine a better experience than doing a foreign exchange, which are easily found outside of a school setting.

I don't understand why this has to be within the remit of the school.

Yabu it's not fair that every other child should loose out because of a few that cant afford to go, everyone knows trips like these crop up during high school so why some that may struggle don't start saving when they start so they can afford to go when it gets organised.

The high school my dcs are going to go to in 2 years cheapest is £1000 this year and theres a payment plan available, I always feel bad for those that dont go as there only ever seems to be a small handfull left behind.

Sure there are. But how about from the time a child enters a school to the time the child leaves, the school endeavors to create a meritocracy wherever possible? I don't see how this is some kind of crazed liberal fantasy.

This is why schools have uniforms, ban jewelry, etc.

Maybe I'm just hopelessly naive (I could be) but younger kids seem not terribly clued into which kids come from wealthy families. I don't see this as a drop in a bucket of millions of inequities within the school environment.

LaQueen, you said that schools are 'rife with unfairness' because kids have different abilities - "children are always picked for the school teams, other children always come top in maths", but I think that there's a big difference between schools encouraging kids different abilities, and a certain amount of academic competition, and discriminating against different children on the basis of their families ability to pay for things.

Agree with Crowler above.

But using the formula that schools cannot offer services that all cannot afford would limit and actully be descrimination to schools with the poorer pupils. It is very easy to include a minority but how do schools offer services when the poorer children are the majority. how do these schools find the extra fund for inclusion. Ds2 special school has to rely heavily on donations from the outside community as the amount of parents struggling within the school is higher and the PTA limited due to this. The DCs previous primary PTA raised 20 thousand for an outside classroom, with a good percentage coming from private companies offering services within the schools, which not all pupils could afford but do benefit from. You either allow the abroad opportunities or they are banned, but to say the can only go ahead if all can afford is neither here or there as they are never going to be affordable by all no matter what the price.

Perhaps it's a generational thing - when I was at school the most exotic trip was the French and German exchange!

I think the arguments about inequalities at school are missing the point - yes life is filled with unfairness, no one knows that better than children on lower incomes.

We are talking about trips which seem grandiose and more about marketing the school than about what's good for children.

So most parents don't want trips banned but perhaps a little more reason and sensitivity in these difficult times. Poorer parents have their pride, also want to give their children every opportunity and many will struggle to get the money for these exotic trips at a cost to everything else.

squidworth, Pupil Premium is £900 per child from next academic year.

It's paid directly to schools for any pupil who has received FSM at any time in the past 6 years - so schools with many poorer children will receive more substantial funding which they can, if they choose, use to subsidise trips.

We undoubtedly have students for whom skiing in America is out of the question, but the vast majority of our residentials are in the UK, with a few in Europe, & no-one misses out on those because they simply can't afford it.

I agree that some trips, run by some schools, are grandiose, & I definitely wouldn't have a problem, as a parent, saying to any of my dc 'No - we need a family holiday far more than we need just you to go to chuffing Barbados!' but I think it'd be a shame to impose a ban.

Pupil premium is for FSM, which would still not cover those in the earn too much but not enough bracket, which some schools feel uneasy about using for foreign trips as these our generally for a certain % of children. There would then be the parents complaining that this money should be spent on TA's/computers/music/after school-breakfast provision, along with the complaints that parents who do not work children have a free trip when parents who work in low paid jobs do not. I would hate to see the withdrawal of foreign trips but I also cannot see how they can be fully inclusive esp when secondary school cannot take a whole year.

Sorry to rejoin the thread at this stage but the pupil premium is for use at the discretion of the HT and doesn't just have to be spent on the FSM children. That could be impossible anyway if you had PP for children who left the school 5 or 6 years ago - where does their allocation go? It is also any child who may only have had FSM for even half a term. Given that there is discretion the HT can use the PP to help any child go on a trip even if they don't get FSM. So, parents who are really struggling could be helped. The difficulty is always separating those with the genuine need regardless of their income from those who could afford it but try and milk the system for what they can get. I think any HT would be fully justified in making sure that everybody goes on residentials if they are really educational but I do agree that it is hard to justify sending children abroad.

That said, I do know of one school local to here who send the whole of Yr 8 (and, I think yr 9) to France at the beginning of the school year to allow time for the new Yr 7 to settle in and to learn French obviously. I presume that they must subsidise the poor children.

What BBB said; it's not ringfenced to individual children. Linking it to the number of kids who've ever received FSM on roll is an admittedly 'broad brush' & imperfect way of ensuring it that the funding goes to schools whose students need it most.

We use a proportion of ours on a discretionary basis to fund trips for students - not necessarily those currently receiving FSM - whose parents can't manage it.

I don't know if anyone's complained that we should be spending it elsewhere, but I do know that the HT is a big fan of trips - ours are generally both modestly priced & educational - & keen for that funding to be used to ensure no-one misses out.

It's not ring fenced but if a school has a higher number of children eligible for FSM than it would be within reason to suspect that the school had a higher number of children who are still needing financial help but not qualifying for FSM (maybe not London or similar cities). This is even more harder with the SEN devolved budget and schools already stretched too far. Getting sidetracked my original point was that inclusion for all on foreign trips would be a grey area for the use of pupil premium esp as the schools fund those in financial difficulty for whole class trips.