To be a bit scared about financial implications of new school?

[LovelyBath]

OK so it looks great, the local secondary school. However it does have very expensive trips etc. I know I should be grateful as it's a state school and has lots of opportunities etc etc. BUT I'm a bit worried about how much it's all going to cost. Apparently most of the after school clubs are free at secondary though so I suppose that's good.

To be honest some of the trips don't sound exactly necessary, but I guess if they didn't go on it they'd be well, left behind (which I suppose might be a lesson that we can't always do as we wish)

When we looked around I asked the boy showing our group around about the trips. What happens, about the trips costing a lot? He told me, well the ones who can afford it go and the others don't. I'm not sure how true this is or if there is some sort of a fund to help people.

I would have thought it might be better to have some sort of fund raising for charitable type trips maybe but the ones which were described were ones like:

A trip to (somewhere hot can't remember) to go snorkelling
A ski trip to the USA which cost thousands
Geography trip to Iceland

They have trips every year apparently so you can see that with more than one child this could add up!

Any thoughts? You might think, well don't send him there but it has a great reputation and it's our local school. Other options would mean a costly bus pass, which again I'm too stingy to want to do.

[ZiggyMoondust]

Only a small number go on each expensive trip. If you can't afford it, your kids don't go. It's great that teachers are enthusiastic enough to arrange so many trips. I'm happy that my kids' state secondary offers so may choices but there's no way they'll go on all of them. I have no problem in them only doing what we can afford, neither do they.

[BertrandRussell]

"And these are trips that every single child goes on"

Really? Expensive trips that the entire year go on? All 150/200 odd?

[Babelange]

Don't panic; there aren't many trips (2 DSs Y8 & 10) and they are fairly well spaced out eg. DS1 (Y10) is going to Iceland this summer for 5 days costing £870. The school have given us a whole year to pay with a deposit and then 3 payments. Payment can be made via the school portal with a credit card so you can further space out the payments or move onto a 0% card. I did do a cat's bum face about the ski trip in Y10 but there's another opportunity to go in the sixth form - which we'd consider if still interested as a reward for good GCSE results. The expensive trips come in the sixth form - month in Costa Rica or Thailand but generally as they are older, they are expected to work or fund raise for those (£4000ish). The language trips generally only take 1 coach load and there's a ballot.

As to 'haves and have nots' which you allude to in your post. Your DCs will go to secondary and meet loads of people and will mostly be in the dark about their circumstances. It's quite refreshing as they turn up looking like little clones in their school uniform and seriously - no one is any the wiser!

[LovelyBath]

Thanks for your replies, it is helpful. I agree it is the education that is most important not the trips. We will have to see about the trips as they come up, as to which would be good to go on and think of the cost at the time. I'm not going to pander to him just wanting to go on stuff for fun or because his mates are going, that sort of thing (or he can save up himself with a job or something for those kind of trips).

Even if most of them are going, there will probably be some who aren't.

[LovelyBath]

"They are expected to work or pay for those" (in the sixth form) That sounds like a good idea.

[LovelyBath]

"skiing trips and lots of fancy expensive holidays and they are usually in a ballot system so I just leave it a bit late to apply and he doesn't get on them anyway."

I will bear that in mind worth a try!

[LovelyBath]

Just had a look on the school website to see what it says about the trips. It just says this, so no idea of numbers etc. They aren't that sporty so that might cut some of them out.

"During their time at School the children will be offered skiing visits to Europe and the United States, projects in Lesotho or South Africa, sporting tours to Devon, South Africa and the Caribbean, together with language exchanges to Italy, France, Spain and Germany. These opportunities are supplemented by an array of experiences which they will remember for many years to come, led by staff who are passionate about the positive effects of such activities."

[Rememberallball]

Surely the pertinent word in the statement by the school is 'offered' trips to X, y and z place? Not that every child will attend.

At my school trips were offered - language exchanges, geography or history field trips, science trips. The science residential in GCSE years was pretty much compulsory as you had to do a project based on the experience but was only relevant to biology/combined science exams. There was also a skiing trip and outward bounds trip to Wales. The umportant thing was, except for course specific trips, they were all number specific trips and never more than 30-40 places so, if there were more applicants than places, they held a ballot for places.