to think that this is too much money for a school trip

[aquariel]

Hi all,

Eldest son (13yrs) brough a letter home from school for a trip they are planning to Iceland in October 2015. Cost of trip is £790 and will take place during October half term.

I run a very tight budget (currently clearing off all credit cards etc aiming to be debt free by 2018 - just in time to help him with fees for university no doubt!) and while we could stretch to it if pushed this seems like an obscene amount for one child (although I guess at his age he's probably charged as an adult on international travel). School has said they'd like a £50 non-refundable deposit to secure a place to be paid immediately (I couldn't pay till payday anyway - mid month for us) so probably wouldn't be able to commit to the trip.

I really don't want to disappoint my son as he rarely asks for much and he seems really excited about the (possibility of) this trip. We have in the past paid up for trips to London and Belgium for him so I'm not worried about him missing out on that side of "the experience" (although I appreciate Iceland is a totally different kettle of fish) but the most either of those trips cost me was £350 including his spending money.

So .. what do others think? Reasonable price or unreasonable?

I think school trips are so divisive. Especially the foreign holiday type jaunts. I get that they are fun for the kids, but only the ones who can afford it. I remember how gutted I was when I was the only one my ftiendship group who didn't go to Paris. I think school trips should only be run educationally necessary and every one should go regardless of agility to pay.

And i also think the teachers should get time of in lieu plus overtime if they go.

funny I always say that to people considering private school - it's not just about the fees, it's about the lifestyle and it can be very hard on kids if their parents don't have or can't afford the cars/houses/trips/hobbies. Some schools are definitely much 'worse' than others for this, but it's something to consider before sending them there :(

Firstly, I would like to offer Tee and appreciation.

Also, I think that we need to get back to the idea of schools offering genuinely educational excursions, not "holidays of a lifetime". If education is the focus, then there are generally ways to offer residential trips which cater to this without the parents having to sacrifice their family holidays or put themselves under unreasonable financial pressure.

I mentioned the example earlier of an Art Department trip to New York, at great expense, to visit The Met. Completely unnecessary when the school is a twenty minute drive from world-class galleries on its doorstep which would offer the same degree of relevance to the curriculum. Yet some subsequent posts have implied that pointing this out is to somehow suck the joy out of life. It isn't. It's just common sense.

There is plenty of time for kids to learn that life isn't fair- attending a state comprehensive shouldn't become an exemplary exercise in separating the haves from the have-nots in this way.

I'm not suggesting that there isn't something very valuable to be gained from residential trips away from home, because that would be unreasonable: pupils can learn all sorts of confidence-building skills, enhance their subject knowledge, and simply have fun together. But the benefits of this kind of experience can be offered in a way which is far more accessible to students from all backgrounds, even if it involves fundraising to make it possible.

There is far too much emphasis these days on trips which are being promoted to the schools by profiteering travel companies, and we are in danger of being dazzled in their headlights and losing our sense of perspective. It's a bit like those charity Andes hiking expeditions that annoying colleagues expect you to finance- what's wrong with a sponsored walk a bit closer to home? Why must everything be the ultimate in exotic travel? What is the point?

I've been on a once-in-a-lifetime holiday, and I tell you what- never again!

Mmm I'm sorry you didn't get to go to Paris. However, I don't see why every other child should miss out because one person can't go. That's life. Not everyone, can have everything, everytime they want it. Some get 'yes' much more often and some get 'no' much more often, most get a mix.

This article sums it up for me.

Iceland is most definitely a genuine educational excursion for those studying physical geography.

The article doesn't sum it up for me. One of my sons was offered a similar trip- we just said 'sorry, we can't afford it'. There were lots of others who couldn't and it was in the Easter holidays. It shouldn't mean that it isn't offered and that others can't do it.

It seems rather unfair that the parents have to pay for the teachers to go

Whaaaa? That is Unreasonable Or perhaps the staff could charge the parents for 24 hour wrap around childcare.

My sister's school cancelled all school trips because the selfish twats parents refused to pay for the teachers' expenses. Teachers were already giving up Saturday mornings, after school etc etc for these children, and then their parents expece teachers to pay as well.

"I could never trust the scouts with my children after the documented incidents of abuse."

Because it's not like there have been multiple schoolteachers also convicted of abuse or anything

I think you're being daft, to be honest. But if that's your choice, they're your kids. They'll just have to miss out.

(I'm a Scout skills instructor, trusted with other people's kids on a regular basis. The safeguarding measures in place to prevent me from being alone with a child ever are far greater than when I was a helper in a school, when I was out of sight of the rest of the class reading with a single child on a regular basis.)

Not only daft but insulting.

Sorry, hadn't realised I was responding to a poster who is in the US. I don't know anything about the regulations there.

Here they're very strict (to the point that I as an adult am not allowed to share a tent with either of my kids, nor are they allowed to share with one another.) For cheap camping bonding trips, Scouts or similar is absolutely the way to go.

I disagree that schools shouldn't offer trips to see art galleries around the world when there are world class galleries 20 minutes away from the school.

That point just completely misses the point IMO. If my child was interested in art and we had amazing art galleries 20 minutes away, I'd have taken them there plenty of times myself, there would be no need for the school to do it and so it would end up being the most boring and pointless school trip ever. That I would resent paying for.

And if we were planning a family trip to NY, which we probably wouldn't because that's just not the sort of thing we do on family holidays, then going to art galleries would be way down on the list of things I'd choose to do on a short city break. If we did go to them, then I, as someone who isn't an art teacher and who doesn't have much interest in the subject, wouldn't expect to be able to enable my children to get as much out of it as someone who was.

Art galleries are a particularly bad example because they all have different examples of art in them. Unless they are all a Museum of Department Store Art where identikit pictures feature in all :)

If a trip is for educational reasons and they intend taking all the class then it should be subsidised heavily for those on lower incomes.

If it's basically a jolly (like the trip to china our school is offering to 30/60 children out of over 1000) then it shouldn't

Which is no help whatsoever!!

Nearly all travel is educational for children and young people, but the education budget can't be expected to pay for everyone. Parents have a responsibility to their children's education too.

I agree that trips that take place in school time and that will be directly relevant to children's work should be subsidised, by the PTA or whatever, but trips that are optional are just that.

It really depends where you draw the line of something being educational or not, and it's worth bearing in mind that the same experience can be educational or not depending on whether the adults involved explain things and involve the dc.

I genuinely don't understand what has happened to school trips. I went to a private academic north London day school - prime territory for little Sophie must have a chance to experience everything educational the world has to offer. And with the exception of some world challenge private company in the summer holidays four week trek thing none of our school trips came to over £500. In fact, the only trip that came to more than £250 was the classics trip to Italy. Geography field trips went to Wales. Language exchanges were coaches or flights, insurance and a few museum tickets.

No-one needs to go to New York on a feckin school trip. And it's horribly divisive organising these kinds of trips because half the class won't be able to afford it.

Seriously, no-one needs to go to New York on a school trip. You will not fail to get into Oxford or lose out on the place on the graduate scheme because you didn't go to New York or Iceland when you were 15 with the school. You will not walk around with half a brain, under educated, under cultured and incapable of higher level reasoning, creativity or interpretation of complex ideas of political, historic, linguistic, geographic thought because you didn't go on that trip when you were 15.

Granted, these trips are nice things to do. (But with forty of your classmates? shudder). But having a school which doesn't do things to entrench the class divide between pupils is also nice. (Yes, I went to a posh school. But the absolute majority of my contemporaries there weren't rich or posh. The school actively discouraged shows of wealth. A friend who went on a full bursery said to me the other day that it wasn't until years after we left that she was aware of the financial difference between her and another friend. I like that kind of approach. And I think that it's equally, if not more, important that the state system fosters it. And I think that trips like this go against it).

What's also really nice is having parents who aren't in debt, or going without, or under huge financial stress because they prioritise this kind of trip. Not the parents' fault - they want their kids to do well, and if the school suggests it, well...

For 800 odd quid you could send your child to after school classes in a language that isn't on offer at school (and that really would give them the edge over their contemporaries). Or you could do a mini-break as a family. Or you could buy all the books, DVDs, lecture and exhibit bookings on their subject of interest and still have a few quid left over.

Rant over...

Cheers Owl, I had realised that galleries tend to have different stuff in them . The trip wasn't to see any particular exhibition, so I still hold that it is not an outrageous suggestion that the school might consider exploring a spot of culture closer to home before racking up unnecessary air miles.

I agree the school might consider it, but I also think that they might consider that parents would already have taken their children to local places that were relevant to their chosen subjects, and would conclude that a trip to local places was pointless, and the responsibility of parents instead.

I agree with you BOF. Even if the school had exhausted the local galleries, Britain has marvellous art collections (and very often gasp world class exhibitions) across London, Bristol, Oxford, Cambridge, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow, Edinburgh. And indeed, half the art collections of Europe are a short flight or coach and ferry and a night or two in a youth hostel away... all is much cheaper and less divisive than NY, not to mention easier on the carbon footprint...

DS's school had a yearly ski trip which was open to the whole school. We said he could go on it once and he went in year 10 with some friends. It cost about £700 plus some clothes we had to buy and spending money, it did seem good value for money and not something we would do as a family.

We thought it was a better idea that it was the whole school as we could choose if and when he went and and only a few pupils from each year went so pupils didn't feel left out if they didn't go.

This was the only expensive trip the school did, all the rest were under about £250.

I have no problems with these trips existing, but I don't think that schools should waste time and resources "facilitating and promoting" (because I'm guessing most of these are packages put together by private companies aren't they?) them when so few benefit.
Of course, by secondary lots of children are aware that their parents are poorer than their friends and as a poster said up thread "that's life" but I don't think schools have any business highlighting this fact unnecessarily.
Let private companies run these trips directly if there is demand for them and run "school trips" that are more inclusive.

PS I'm not the fun police. Travelling with school friends and being away from home are educational in themselves so I don't care if school trips are all waterparks and sunbathing - they just ought to be feasible for many and not few. IRL I expect that £750 is pie-in-the-sky money for many parents.

I think there is great potential for state school parents to get in financial trouble trying to pay for these trips. I think they might think ok we cant do x but can do this.

I could quite see some parents would prefer to take the kids themselves as you can get cheap flights if you change more to some destinations and say a family could all share 1 room in NY.

24hrs in Ny we saw wall street, ellis island, statue of liberty, memorial, times square and celebrated new year and saw lots of the other main buildings.

School trips should only be run if they allow all the children to benefit from the experience. Irrespective of house hold income. New experiences can be found whilst camping or staying in hostels in the uk. A lot could be gained by children visiting other parts of our own country eg Scottish kids to Cornwall and kids from inner London to the high lands.

A school trip should be a bout all children having a shared experience not the rich ones getting another skiing holiday in.
And I say this having sent my own kids on the school foreign trips, because whilst schools insist on running these socially divisive and exclusive activities I don't want them to miss out socially.

I think that £790 is a LOT of money for one week away.

However, with more than a year to pay installments towards it - I'd be one of the first to be sending permission slips and the £50 deposit.