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!

YANBU

I agree with belle's great post. The "life's not fair" brigade are ones who can afford it. I can't believe people are airily declaring that poorer families should 'just budget'. It really makes me wonder just how out of touch they are.

If it is a genuine, essential educational opportunity then no child should be disadvantaged by not being able to go.

If the trip is just a jolly then there's no need for the school to make children from poorer families feel excluded. They are schools, not travel agents.

couthy good for you

However, some people just dont have any money to budget with, and struggle to cover necessitis.

Some parents ont prioritis their children at all, and couldnt give a damn if they dont get to go on school trips

Couthy My DM was too busy saving for coal to stop us freezing to death. Sometimes you just don't have £2.

Couthy....feels good to agree with me doesn't it?

I'm not rich but neither am I poor. We have a good standard of living and no debts except for the mortgage. Yet I can tell you that none of my kids will be going on any skiing trip. We can't afford that at all.

But that doesn't mean for one second I begrudge others going. My kids will have to learn that there are limits to what we can afford and our priorities are elsewhere. It's a good life lesson for them.

Sometimes you just don't have £2.

Oh please. If your family finances are so bad that you LITERALLY cannot spare £2 a week then your problems are way bigger than a school trip.

Whether or not your child can go on it would seem to me like the least of your problems. And I suspect the fact you are really THAT broke is far more damaging to your child's self esteem & confidence than not being able to go on a school holiday.

Exactly, niceguy. Some peoples problems are way bigger than a school trip.

But that doesn't mean that the school trip isn't important to the child.

And quite frankly yes, coming from a very poor family can be damaging to a child's self-esteem and confidence - especially because of the ways in which it can isolate them from their peers - schools excluding pupils from expensive school trips is exactly one of the ways in which this happens.

Nice. You are fucking up your child's life anyway so being even more out of touch with their friends is ok!

Uurrgh!

IME there are many, many families who will simply never be afford to be able to raise £100s if not £1,000s to send one child in the family on a school trip. Particularly if they have siblings in the school who will also wish to take part in these types of activities. Those posters who are saying you need to budget obviously don't have experience of living hand to mouth where every penny is already accounted for and there is no way of saving anything for luxuries such as holidays abroad. School trips should be capped, at the very least.

You can scrimp and save all you like - and will then discover that the car fails its MOT, or the washing machine breaks down - and unfortunately that becomes the priority and wipes out any savings you had.

In all my schools the pupils who have excitedly swanned off to Egypt, Kenya or gone ski-ing are the ones whose parents will also be taking them to Florida, Cyprus or Italy in the holidays. The pupils stuck in school doing ordinary work are the ones whose parents will not be taking them anywhere at all that year, because they simply don't have the money.

HeadsDown makes an excellent point.

*If it is a genuine, essential educational opportunity then no child should be disadvantaged by not being able to go.

If the trip is just a jolly then there's no need for the school to make children from poorer families feel excluded. They are schools, not travel agents.*

It is shit to know that you are missing out again on something fun because you are poor. And horrid for a child who is powerless to do anything about it.

I literally do not have £2. But, I also don't have any debt. I have no luxuries, but my child is fed and clothed and warm. I live hand to mouth, but my child should not be excluded because of this.

The school uniform point was a good one. If we tell them they're all equal, but show them they're not, which bit do you think they'll pick up on? And then the merciless bullying, kids can be so cruel.

You can afford for your child to go skiing or whatever? Good for you. Take them in the holidays. I cannot afford it, so mine won't be going. But give all of them a few more years of innocence. Because the reality is that everything is down to luck in the end, and that's one of the hardest lessons to learn.

DD2 says their sports thing has been cancelled due to lack of intrest, which means she is now ££££££££ behind her sister in money blagged for trips.

They didn't run the Europe trip DD1 did and DD1 did a foreign Guide thing.

I don't mind saving the money, but it's getting difficult to feel Im being fair.

Ski I dont mind, I went skiing, my parents would have hated it.

I'm usless so very bappy if the DDs go on their own, but I'd love a trip to Rome.

Just out of curiosity, for those who are saying that you can't afford school trips, how many of you have actually gone to the school and offered to coordinate a fundraising effort to offset the costs for students?

I dont have DC so ive been reading these school trip threads with interest ( i also made the point about school uniforms on a previous thread) Its the cost of these that shock me.
I went on the school trip to Switzerland in 1986 for a week and that was £160 . We went by coach and ferry. We were driving through Paris in the middle of the night so didnt get to see EIffel Tower but it was a good trip. I was homesick for two days and cried but in the last few days enjoyed myself so much i didnt want to come home.
Still at what these trips cost now though.

YANBU. Families with enough money can go on their own holidays to theme parks. Far better to arrange a trip that everyone can join in, instead of the "all or nothing" of ridiculously pricey outings.

A teacher with imagination should be able to come up with something affordable yet still just as fun and educational. There's a myriad of things to see and do in this country, which I'm sure no school has yet exhausted.

Elquota. There is also a flip side to your comment. Those that may never be able to afford the opportunity to go on a trip as a family may be able to afford to send a child on a school trip.

My sister went on a 6th form trip to Madagascar. It was horrendously expensive (can't remember the exact amount as it was 14 years ago) but she would never have done it if they hadn't arranged it.

The trip was educational, and as there were limited places they had to pick the names of who went out of a hat ( we could probably cause outrage to some that some of the children couldn't go because it was a lottery, but that is a different thread!)

To ensure that money was not an issue ( even though to a lot of parents at the school it wasn't ) and that it was inclusive the school insisted that at least half, if not more of the cost was met by fundraising through various community activities.

If you can't afford to send a child, why not see if you can't raise the money through other means (although not by getting into debt or illegally!).

If the child is old enough see if they can go round cleaning the cars of locals. Or do a sponsored silence. Or whatever you can think of.

At my DS's school when there was an expensive sports trip a few years ago we held a disco to help reduce the costs for some of the boys. This was all done very discreetly, one of the mothers was aware one of the boys on the team would not be able to join the tour and the disco funded his trip, however it was all managed by the school's finance director who simply told the family they had a discretionary fund.

Most of these trips are for a very small number of children in the year and the vast majority are indifferent to them. I keep asking my son if he'd like to go on the ski trip, Pompeii trip, cruise of the Med, trip to a French Chateau etc and every time he says no.

YABVU.

At 11, my dad died and my brother went to university and that was the end of family holidays. My holidays were school trips from then on, which included two trips to France (y8 & 12, language and DoE residential).

That was in the days when y9 camp could still be done in house on a scout camping site with the PE staff leading the activities. These days insurance, litigation and beurocracy mean that schools source out to protect themselves and that bumps the cost up. No way could a school get away with the scummy hotel that we stayed in in y8 20 years ago.

I organise Brownie Pack Holidays, and our costs have suddenly jumped up and nearly doubled in the last couple of years. Accommodation has soared. We can only afford to transport in leaders'cars/ public transport. Legislation changes mean that our leaders can't drive mini-buses on our liscence codes, and hiring transport and driver is astronmical(that's just the petrol) Food has also rocketed. Schools will face the same pressure on their budgets. They won't be making any profit from it. The teachers that are involved are sacrificing their time because they believe it's worthwhile.

My brother can't go on the Geography trip to Iceland this year. His parents worked out that for the same price they could do it as a two week holiday, because once there, the cost of camping (cheap there), cooking for yourself and hiring a small car (petrol marginally cheaper) will be a lot less than the costs the school incurs on hotels and catering (eye watering), so doing it themselves was the sensible option.

Whichever way you do it, someone will miss out. I certainly didn't go on every trip on offer, but I learnt that it's not reasonable to say yes to every opportunity. Some are more worthwhile than others.

It's a shame that modern pressures and standards have made costs rocket making the trips less affordable.

I don't think they should be banned.
I tell the boys now that we can't afford xxx because we are saving for yyy.

Dd asked about going to New York in 2015. Was going to cost £980. Dh worked out how much a month it would be. We agreed we could do it as I no longer pay for child care for her. Register interest... Gets a place and turns it down. Dreading what she'll muck me about with next year

My DCs got a lot out of school trips- they didn't go on them all but they had some wonderful opportunities. I don't want a drab education because you can only do what some people can afford which is nothing.
I know that some people can't afford it however they budget but a lot of it comes down to choice. I didn't have a ridiculously expensive pram when mine were babies- it came out if my neighbours shed, they had second hand clothes etc- babies don't care! I saved the money for when they did want it - e.g school trips to Iceland and chose a school that offered them.

You know at birth that they are going to be expensive- start a fund then.

Most schools are going to have a residential in yr 6- don't wait until yr 6 to find the money.

Ds's school is doing a trip to Japan. It for one week and they estimate the cost to be between £1600 to £1900.

I'd love to be able to afford it, but it's a lot of money for me. It's a lot of money for most families. Personally, I think it's a bit ridiculous.