School is bleeding us dry with trips

[Brewstersmillions]

My son and daughter have been at this school almost a year now and I'm all for them having trips but am shocked at how much these trips cost how frequent they are ,that you have to pay for things u wouldn't expect to and how they give you hardly any time to pay.
Every time I seem to get a letter it's demanding money for something.

Even after my sons assembly the teacher stood up and announced they was having a collection for a cause and could we donate on the way out.
I didn't take my purse to his assembly as that's not the place you expect to have to dish out money .on the way out when a child was stood there with a dish and I had to explain with all the parents queuing behind me that I couldn't give them anything was so embarrassing .

First letter since Easter term was for a trip to a reservoir close to where we live the school wants £18 for this trip for my daughter £18 ! For her to look at a pond !
I know that petrol is expensive for coaches but £18 per child for like a 2 mile trip thats free to enter is very excessive .

Next up was a letter for my son to go to a activity trip in Norfolk for 5days when he starts year 6 .thats great as I never got to do it when I was at school I was a big girl and the thought if going pot holeing scared me in case I got stuck lol .
so he can defiantly go but when I see it cost £240! It made me think twice it has to be paid ASAP plus spending money too
I had to pay £10 depost already then another £50 by june then the rest ASAP .

Next up a letter from the school saying my son is going to be having swimming lesson with the class at the seniors directly across the road . Now at there previous school they also has swimming lessons which were free and I remember they were free when I was at school but oh no the school wants £19 for each child to have swimming lessons . Which has to be paid for by next Friday :/

We only have one income coming ATM money is tight but we have managed to get this money together as I don't want my children missing out and being left behind but I'm just so pissed off at how expensive trips are these are all since Easter !

There are no after school clubs that are free for the juniors either

The school obviously thinks everyone is made of money

I wish I had millions ;) lol xx

That link has been a great help thank you maidupmum thanks for all the replies everyone :)
Will wait and see what the reply from the school is now
In regards to the swimming the pool is based in the senior school directly opposite ds school walking distance and will be during school hours so the only reason we are being charged that I can think of is if they are paying for instructors :/

My experience of organised primary school trips has been very good. The head teachers for the infants/juniors are very 'old school' about lots of things and there's lots of notice - all day trips with a coach come to £15; we are within 60 mins of Central London. One trip to the local water works within walking distance (no coach required) was £7 so I looked into that and found out that the water company charged the school the exact same rate per pupil. The Y6 5 day residential is publicised in the summer term before Y6 and there is a presentation by the school and Y6 pupils. You had to pay a deposit and then were given from July to February to pay with a number of options. They have a payment portal so you can pay on a credit card which can be more convenient. The cost is £360. I have to say that the parents are a very demanding bunch and expectations are pretty high on both sides - I can imagine the fuss if there wasn't proper notice.

However, in the secondary school we are finding the lack of trips/extra curricular opportunities disappointing. Y7 & Y8 have just 1 day trip per year and somewhere lame. The language trip to France in Y8 can only accommodate 45 so in the case of over subscription there's a ballot. DS and none of his friends got to go. Fingers crossed for Y9 trip! DS may go through secondary with no language trips - by 5th year seniors I had been on 3 French exchanges and a hockey tour of Belgium. There are compulsory trips at GCSE for Geography and PE that I know about.

My DC's primary, cofe, very leafy wasn't as expensive or as regular as this but nevertheless after the first year in reception I started to budget for school expenses and reckon even 15 years ago it was probably a couple of pounds a week per child.

DH continues to support the DCs primary to make sure no child ever misses out because he remembers missing out as a little boy.

But on the school trips I raise your the Galapagos Islands. £3,900. Most parents still snort about it and snort more about the families who paid it

I'm a HT of an inner-city primary school so I know what hardship looks like . Sometimes trips do cost a lot of money - it is usually the coach that creates the additional cost (even Alton Towers is only £6 per child for schools).
We do ask for money for trips & have had to cancel them if voluntary contributions aren't forthcoming. However, we never expect anyone on a low income to pay and use Pupil Premium money to subsidise them. Next year we're putting aside £10,000 for 'enrichment' & will use it wisely.
We've taken children out on trips who didn't know what a cow was (or a sheep, or a horse) and it saddens me that if costs keep rising, some children will never find out.

As a flip side, my own children go to a school with a very wealthy parent body & I have just sent them the school charging guidance as they were taking the piss with their charges.... they HATE me

Someone said 5 whole day triups a term! The private primaries do about one or two whole days in an academic year!! I am absolutely amazed at the difference. I had no idea state primary schools did so many day trips. I suspect the children might be better off with one half day a year and the rest of the time in the class learning their spellings.

JessicaMary - presumably that's a joke, you just haven't expressed it very well?

They can't charge you for swimming lessons. Swimming is part f the national curriculum just as, say, maths is. The request for money for swimming is just a way to get you to add money to the school's coffers. Which is no bad thing if you can afford it, but is not something you should feel obliged to do any more than you should feel obliged to pay for the class teacher teaching them fractions.

Writing to the school letting them know their expectations for trips are beyond your budget is probably a good idea - better they hear it in advance and adjust than find parents unable to contribute and have to keep dropping planned trips. Will possibly help them target trips better and prioritise the ones they think are best value for money or most helpful in meeting school goals. You might also raise the concern with the parent governors of the school.

Also, if you'd like trips without as much expense you could volunteer with the PTA and try to raise money with the purpose of offsetting school trips. I do this and we cut the cost contributions need to make in half, which is a huge support to families and means classes can go on trips they otherwise wouldn't.

Our school has a much better system. In September we get a list of all the trips for the year and the price for each. We can either pay it all in one go or pay a third each term.

They also have quite a few local trips and make the (infant) children walk if at all possible.

Even so, there do seem to be lots of extras which creep in - only a pound or two each, but it's a hassle remembering.

Dds secondary school runs trips to New York, trips to china.

She's been to Paris for a long weekend and will go on a German trip.

But it makes the £400 yr6 activity residential trip look cheap!

Thankfully at secondary school it seems to be smaller numbers of kids that go on the trips.

I suspect the children might be better off with one half day a year and the rest of the time in the class learning their spellings.

Ah yes, because all education takes place sitting at a desk.

I have had 5 children at private primaries and I have never heard of 5 trips a term. No wonder children in private schools are 2 years ahead of the state schools if the state schoolers are off on all these trips all the time. I can remember an annual trip to Duxford air thing and another half day to a rather nice Hindu temple but 5 trips a term seems completely pointless to me.

I don't think five school trips a term is the norm in State schools around here, unless you're counting a short trip (90 minutes or so) to the local library (walking distance) or river walks occasionally (maybe once a year).

We get two proper school trips a term and IMO are every bit as educational as learning spelling.

DS's class have just London Central Mosque for RE, and are going to the Musical museum next week. Other school trips have been mostly musuems.

All children in private schools are not 2 years ahead of the state school pupils. It very much depends on which state school and which private school you pick - similar demographic pupil intake tends to produce remarkably similar results IME regardless or the abundance or lack of school trips.

Two years ahead of state school pupils?! Is that the garbage you tell yourself to justify your expenditure, or the garbage the school tells you to justify their fees?!

Well hang on a minute then.

Reading that guidance it would seem that if a trip is part of the NC then the school cannot leave a child out just because the family cannot pay the voluntary contribution, right?

So how do these ridiculous trips like skiing and New York and China, all tenuously linked to educational activities, fit in if they are in school term time?

Are they part of the NC in which case surely all children should be able to go even if the parents can't afford it.

Or are they NOT part of the NC in which case why are they allowed to happen during term time, seeing as holidays during term time are now banned.

On and btw OP no YANBU. If you don't have that kind of money floating around it makes little difference that its a fair cost or good value!

JessicaMary We are doing five trips THIS term, not every term (we haven't actually been out all year, yet). Besides, they are five trips to forest school. Other schools have grounds; we don't have any green spaces. Most independent schools I know in the area do forest school once a week for the entire year.

I have taught children, who have come to us from independent primaries. Their academic standards were incredibly low in comparison. That doesn't mean that all children at independent schools are poorly educated (we may have just been unlucky to get those, who got left behind). However, I will not let anyone tell me that my (inner-city, state primary) class are being poorly educated or two years behind their peers at independent schools, just because I believe that children should have experiences outside the classroom. My 100% L4 and 78% L5 pass rate don't suggest that, either.

OP, I was thinking exactly the same thing when I opened yet another demand for school trip money this afternoon. £15 for a safari park. What the feck elephants and tigers have to do with what they are studying, I don't know. DS (13) needs £30 for Thorpe Park and £18 for a day trip to the Peak District. They also have a £1000 ski trip, open for all years, to Nevada. Luckily, he doesn't want to go

The residential sounds okay but £18 for a two mile trip seems very expensive. I think dd's primary school would make them all walk if it was only two miles. I think that it's unfair to charge for swimming lessons. If parents want to pay for them they can do it outside of school time.