school trip for 13 year olds which involves setting off at 2am?

[Mintyy]

My child is going on a 3 day school trip to a European country.

Today I find out that the timing of the outward bound flight means that we have to get her to school for boarding the coach by 2.15am.

Aibu to think this is nuts?

Meh. Wouldn't be great, but I'd do it and wouldn't whine. It really isn't that big of a deal, but I'm not that precious about my sleep.

It may well come to that, certainly in primary I'm noticing far fewer trips than used to happen. Combination of curriculum pressure, insurance and coach costs, reluctant teachers and grumpy parents.
When I started years back, schools did a trip a term at least. Now there are more in-school enrichment activities going on, but parental complaints about costs are beginning to limit those too.

There was a trip to Iceland last autumn. For geography. It cost a fortune. We said DD1 couldn't go because we'd already spent a fortune on a new piano for her that year. And there's a limit. She completely understood. She got the top mark in the geography mock so not spending >£1K on a trip to look at volcanoes obviously didn't harm her education. Similarly, while I don't expect DS to ever get the top mark in anything I think his French GCSE (which he took this year in y9) was helped more by the tutor he had for the last few months than it would have been by a two day trip to Paris which was mainly as far as I can tell sightseeing and mucking about. Neither of them have had a moment's soul searching about 'missing' the trips.

Most of the pupils on our early start trip (and/or all the parents) clumped together and had mini sleepovers starting the previous evening, so only some parents had to turn out in the middle of the night.

One family emailed round saying they were going and may as well fill the car up, any takers? This encouraged quite a few others to offer. Obviously if only works if there are shares year group contact lists.

Such offers make an enormous difference to lone parents who have other siblings in the house. And were fun for the participants.

Well quite, Herc.

Oh good.
Mine have never been on a trip that cost more than £300 either, or minded missing out. But other children do get upset about it.

As a former teacher I wonder how long it will be before teachers simply stop volunteering to run trips given how unappreciative some parents are.

Of course though academy heads will be able to compel them to participate whether they want to or not.

I think the OP is being pretty mean spirited actually. I hope when she said her children can just miss out in future she was just venting and didn't really mean it.

Just one of those things you have to run with as a parent and school trips I'm afraid. Yes I have been there...

You volunteer for the children though, don't you? Because they have fun, it widens their understanding and perceptions to experience things not through the lens of their families.
In spite of some of the parents.

But I can certainly understand why parents wouldn't want to pay out for really expensive trips when they have prioritised other educational spending for their children.

We couldn't afford it, but my children knew that from the outset. It wasn't because I didn't feel like having my sleep disturbed.

"Your child may be distressed for longer, especially as they will not be a part of all the chat and gossip and socialising that follows an overnight trip."

Would you post that if a poster couldn't afford a trip?

Ilovesooty My DH is a former teacher too and he sees nothing to appreciate in trips starting at 3am when many pupils live some distances from the schools (our kids are at different schools but the MO for trips is the same, and it is determined by the combination of the location of the schools relative to transport infrastructure combined sometimes with the 'keep the costs down' thing). He is also at a loss about what there is to appreciate in eye wateringly expensive skiing/exotic location trips which are dangled in front of the pupils when many just won't be able to afford them.

This summer DD1 is spending a week in London at a conservatoire on a course, and another week up north with a national ensemble. The combined cost of both, together with the travel, will still be less than the Iceland trip (or the regular skiing trips) would have been.

You need a support network.
I am always surprised by posters on here who get all 'sniffy' about 'mums at the school gate' as if they are a breed apart and not women just like the person posting! Or the ones who 'are not going to look after other people's children and won't have them to tea etc.
You need them at this stage.
I had to get DS to a 5am start, 5 miles away with DH away and a 2 yr old and a 4 yr old in bed. The answer was to get someone to give him a lift. The answer here is get a friend who is going to give her a bed and take her. I don't know how you manage with teens if you don't share lifts etc.
I would be grateful they are getting trips.

No, I'd be talking about school fund and talking to the school about what's available to help a parent afford a trip they want their child to go on.
But it isn't cost, religious reasons, SN reasons or any of the other possibilities.
I'm focusing on the OP, who appears to be struggling with the thought of a couple of night's broken sleep.
Hence my suggestion that she doubles up with another parent, as I've done in the past.

A 5am start 5 miles away (so, at that time in the morning, what. 10 mins?) is hardly the same as a 3am start an hour away. And a 2 and 4 year old are easier to cart around than older kids who have to be in school themselves the next day. And a parent who has to be in work.

I do think that skiing trips and the like shouldn't be done by schools. I like a trip to have an educational focus.
But that's a purely personal opinion.

That wasn't the point Herc. The point was that you need a support network for all the many inconvenient timings that will crop up from now on.

Goblin child... In an ideal world, now mostly about ticking that box for performance management..

And no I wasn't getting two little children up at 4.45am.

She got the top mark in the geography mock so not spending >£1K on a trip to look at volcanoes obviously didn't harm her education

If you can't afford certain trips then fair enough, that's life. BUT, if you think that school trips are anything to do with getting a higher mark in their exam, I think you're completely missing the point of them.

The Yr7 trip to France at the DC's old school has been done away with because the teacher who ran it retired. Another teacher takes them on a day trip to France, in fact she does nearly all the trips, but once she retires I can't see anyone else taking them on. After this thread I understand why, which is very, very sad for the children.

I wonder what the school trip situation will be like in a decade?
Especially if fuel costs continue to soar and teachers get more specific about what their job is actually about, and parents have less and less time.
Who knows, IWBs have changed a lot of things, Virtual Reality could kill off school trips altogether?