Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to think that expensive school trips should be banned

654 replies

Nicola10 · 06/06/2013 20:03

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!

OP posts:
Boomba · 06/06/2013 22:18

hmm...and how about the parents who are already working 2 jobs, just to pay bills?

Cosydressinggown · 06/06/2013 22:24

Getting a pay day loan or more debt so your kid can go on a school trip is ridiculously stupid.

Your DC will miss out on a hell of a lot more when your debt catches up with you, and is also missing out on a vital lesson about only having what you can afford and recognising the value of things.

I do agree that these school trips are too expensive by the way, I really see no need for them to cost so much or be so extravagant, and I honestly don't think that they're all that beneficial - no more so than a family holiday anyway.

HerrenaHarridan · 06/06/2013 22:25

My next door neighbours kid had to fundraise herself.

The whole class did, it as a project that carried on over a whole year, with several events that they all thought up, organised and benefitted from.

Money raised was collected by school and EVERY child went

Tbh I think this approach teaches them useful lessons about working hard, achieving long term goals, team achievements etc as opposed to just teaching them that life's not fair!

LynetteScavo · 06/06/2013 22:25

But BelleEtLaBaby there will always be someone who can't afford the trip to London.

valiumredhead · 06/06/2013 22:27

Completely agree OP.

Theycallmestacy · 06/06/2013 22:28

Yabu, dd Y7 is going to Paris next month. I have used her portion of CB to pay for it.

VenusUprising · 06/06/2013 22:29

Like in Sweden, no parent pays for school trips in Ireland.

It's spurious to say parents could budget for these expensive and pointless trips: 2quid a week isn't going to get you skiing or to NYC.

I find it a bit puzzling why the children can't go to the theatre at home, or have a trip to the west end instead of going to broadway - same plays are on, sometimes the same productions, and sometimes they even have the same cast!

Are there not fundraising drives so as the cost is reduced for every child? Or a bursary fund?

Tbh, it sounds like the teachers want a jolly.

You sound very clued in BellEtLaBaby! Bravo!

Boomba · 06/06/2013 22:30

lynette if the cost per child is lower though, it woul be more realistic to subsidise it though, so allowing all children to go

our school asks for voluntary contribution; so you send your consent slip back with or without money...if the parent consented then the child goes on the trp regardless of whether any money was paid. Sub'd by 'Friends of School' organising events and fund raising. Whole school is involved in events and fund raising. Much better than the poor kids having to do odd jobs in the nighbourhood IMO

Boomba · 06/06/2013 22:31

stacy CB gets eaten up by food etc, for a lot of families

VenusUprising · 06/06/2013 22:31

HerennaHarridan, that sounds like a great fundraising project!

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 06/06/2013 22:32

Dd got a paper round, packed at supermarkets and did bake sales to go to Kenya. I think all that was really good for her, and I think YABU.

McNewPants2013 · 06/06/2013 22:35

what other choice will I have.

these trips are educatinal and i dont want my son being disadvantaged because i am too dull to be able to get a high paying job

ubik · 06/06/2013 22:36

Life isn't fair, that's a fact, deal with it.

They shouldn't have to miss out on a good opportunity because of someone else's parents.

this is an opportunity to explain to your child how economics works

They don't have to go on them all. 500 doesn't sound unreasonable to me

It's ironic that the children who need these trips the most, are the ones who can least afford them.

But perhaps you are right, perhaps it's best they learn early their place in the world.

SirChenjin · 06/06/2013 22:37

Sounds as if Sweden and Ireland have the right idea.

Maria33 · 06/06/2013 22:38

YANBU We can afford it but I think that really expensive trips pre-16 are unnecessary, especially if they have no educational value. I've shelled out £300 for the French Exchange but refused the £900 for the ski trip. Toolkit all 5 of us away for £1000 instead.

Agree with fabetternow

Surely school trips are more about a shared experience - time to travel later and on money you've earnt. it also pisses me off that if I took my family skiing in term time, I'd be truanting Hmm

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 06/06/2013 22:38

But the school can't just make all the trips free. And if they don't do any trips, it's another bloody thing for the pro-private brigade to say that at State Schools Just Don't Do!

Maria33 · 06/06/2013 22:39

Also in a mixed comp these trips are divisive..

TheOriginalSteamingNit · 06/06/2013 22:39

And we haven't done the Florence trip or the cape town trip or the skiing trip, and my children are fine with that!

BelleEtLaBaby · 06/06/2013 22:41

LynetteScarvo thanks for pointing out the obvious. That's why my £60 London trip is at the end of the second year. Students can pay 50p a week into an account with college. For that they get a backstage tour and talk at the National Theatre, a major production, and coach travel back and forth. They all boring sandwiches and we eat them in a park or on the bus. It's very educational and not very expensive. It's all done in a day so no accommodation costs and the kids have an excellent time, a great experience, and aren't too tired to enjoy all of it. The college do help out too as the trip is seen as essential. I also run a lot of smaller trips - a £5 trip to a local theatre, and a free one to a local Uni where we watch their show and get a Uni tour. The uni pays for the bus. I won't run anything that everyone can't access and I have paid for students to go on trips from department petty cash before where there has been real need just so no one is left behind. I teach equality in everything I teach.

I imagine the 'life's not fair they may as well learn that' brigade are mainly the people who can afford to send their kids on these trips in the first place. I can't imagine any of you have ever had to scrimp and save to send your kids if you're throwing out that crappy old argument. I remember my mum taking on extra cleaning work to be able to pay a pound a week for me to go on the France trip when I was in y6. I loved it and it was great, and I would have been the only one not going if she hasn't have done that for me. It taught me humility and to be grateful. It also taught me that people can be bastards when one little girl piled on me for weeks because my mum was 'poor'. My mum was cleaning this girls house for the money for the trip - and it was obvious her mum had told her that because it was in shool hours. I never told my mum the girl picked on me but I did learn a lot about how people with money can look down on those without. I go out of my way as a teacher now to yeah kindness and equality until they are old enough to figure it out for themselves. It's amazing how the kids begging for a New York trip are the ones who could afford it - and they do always look a bit baffled when I explain why I won't do it. Let then save up and go if they can afford it, and spare the ones who can't yet another humiliation. It's not the fault of the students/children whose parents can or can't afford these trips, but it is the children who bear the brunt of the humiliation.

Boomba · 06/06/2013 22:44

Nit with a fair old contribution from you too, I expect?

Those things arent an option for alot of kids, that dont have support and encouragement; have complicated issues to deal with at home and lack confidence huh?

Maria33 · 06/06/2013 22:44

A round of applause for Belle

I agree with every word.

Cosydressinggown · 06/06/2013 22:45

what other choice will I have.

these trips are educatinal and i dont want my son being disadvantaged because i am too dull to be able to get a high paying job

You will have the choice of saying, 'we can't afford it I'm afraid'. You always have a choice - and getting into debt is not a sensible one.

They are not particularly educational, and your child will be in no way disadvantaged by not going. They will be disadvantaged by having a stressed out mother who is in debt, or debt collectors turning up at their door. They will be disadvantaged by thinking that they can have anything they want just by putting it on a credit card/loan.

BelleEtLaBaby · 06/06/2013 22:46

That was full of typos. Sorry: iPhone screen met 2yo a week ago and it's hard to see!

IndiansInTheLobby · 06/06/2013 22:46

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Andro · 06/06/2013 22:47

I can see an argument for capping the cost of trips in state schools, especially for term time trips.

That said, I'd be a stinking hypocrite to say 'ban them' given that I went skiing every year I was at boarding school as well as on every other available trip (British based or abroad). At least where I went, the students who's parents really couldn't afford it didn't miss out - they were there on academic scholarship and the trips and kit were included in their funding.

Swipe left for the next trending thread