AIBU for £900!

[NCsally]

AIBU to think £900 for a 4 day school trip for 13/14 year olds is a tad excessive?? I would understand if it's a private school or even a school in an affluent area but it isn't! It's a poor area with very low wage jobs! Parents can barely afford school lunches let alone £900 for a trip which doesn't even include spending money etc

A lot of money for a four day trip anywhere in my book, no one goes long haul in four days, too exhausting.

The yr13s at one of our local schools have just left for a 4 day trip to New York

PyongyangKipperbang

I am with the OP.
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If you are senior management at a school in an area where there isnt much money, some (many) parents struggle to pay for lunches, where uniform is a problem due to lack of cash.... why on earth would you put together a trip that would cost £900?

The take up (or lack thereof) will mean that the trip probably wont happen anyway.

The destination could be Skeggy or the moon but it makes no difference if no one has the money to pay for it.

Agreed.

I can’t think of many scenarios in which £900 for a school trip would be reasonable tbh. It just excludes too many pupils purely from a financial point of view. It’s worse if it’s a genuinely educational trip, rather just a jolly, because it puts poorer kids at a disadvantage academically rather than just being disappointing.

DS is doing history for GCSE and they have the option to go on a four day trip to a European country during the summer term. They are charging £500. For us, it was either pay for that, or put that money towards a family holiday. Luckily DS understood this and would rather have a holiday but I still felt bad not letting him go. We don’t live in a very affluent and DS says there has not been a huge uptake for this trip, which makes me wonder why the school even bother. To me it would make much more sense to have some cheaper trips to the many important historical sites in this country.

I agree with you OP, the destination is irrelevant, I would not be paying that much for a 4 day school camp..... ever.

4 days for $1800au, that's more than I would pay for a weeks holiday for our family of four.

Begrudging other people doing things because you can't afford them is not the answer.

I don't begrudge anybody doing whatever they/their family can afford, but school should not be the broker for this. One of the main purposes of school uniform is to encourage unity and equality and to prevent school from becoming a fashion show, with the kids in unbranded clothes being bullied. Who's to say that children whose parents can't afford the holiday won't be bullied or looked down on for being poor and/or having parents who 'don't love them enough' to pay? There will doubtless be a lot of enduring memories being shared about the holiday, that the poorer kids will obviously be/feel completely excluded from.

It's a bit like if a family chooses to pay for a top-flight tutor for extra lessons at the weekends or during holidays, to give their child a head start or advantage over their classmates, I would have no problem with this at all. However, if a state school sent out a letter offering all parents the opportunity for their children to have some lessons away from the other 30 kids in their class to be taught 1-to-1 in a different room - as 'we believe this would be very beneficial for their education' (and not for any SEN or similar purposes) - in exchange for a very high fee to be paid via the school, which many parents couldn't hope to afford - I think most people would find this utterly outrageous.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I totally agree.

The have not students dont need their noses rubbed in it. They already know that life is unfair.

£900! For four days? That's about £1500 a week. I wouldn't pay that for me, never mind a child

Exactly, it's 4 days so it's almost certainly going to be mainland Europe at most, although I have also seen Iceland or New York suggested but the latter seems unlikely TBH, so with that in mind £900 is a lot considering the accommodation and food is almost certainly going to be quite basic and shared with at least 4 in a room based on what trips I went on, or do school trips use luxury hotel rooms these days?

If I wanted to book a 4 night break in Europe I could get flights and a quite nice hotel for 2 adults for less than £900, so that's why it's expensive, even if it includes all food and several activities, attraction entrances etc

Our private school puts together an extremely good quality week-long ski-trip including all tuition, ski-passes, ski hire and food for that, so yes, I would say it is excessive!

It doesn't matter where it is because schools shouldn't be proposing £900 trips to students that they know aren't likely to afford it.

That seems excessive OP, but I can see that many people seem to think it's acceptable - obviously dependant on where trip is to!
Dd is going to China with Uni for 3 weeks and 'only' has to pay for air fare ( which was £615) visa ,and evening meals.....all accommodation and excursion costs met by exchange programme

It’s a lot of money for a compulsory trip, and also a lot of money for a four day trip.

Fairly standard fior optional ski trips, for example, which usually last longer than four days,

You could have a holiday for a family of four in Europe for a week in a gite in France in the summer for that price.

Schools offer trips abroad in secondary. The justification is that they are educational. Yes it is a lot.

For £900 my DC' s school went skiing 8 days! And 4 day trip to Barcelona is £550

So yes, £900 for a 4 day trip does not sound good value, was it NY?

DD (Year9) is going on a trip next year that is £1100 for 5 days. They've given us almost a year to pay by instalments, which has made it easier to bear. It's not a compulsory trip (obviously) but it does have an educational link.

DD is very excited and understands she is very lucky to be able to go. In a school with approx 300 per year they struggled to find 30 who could go (to make the trip viable), so have opened it up to another year group as well. To me that shows how out of touch the school is about their demographic.

I think it's a lot and I say this as someone who spends a fair bit on holidays.

I understand they may be going to somewhere expensive but that doesn't magic up more money for parents to send their kids.

They should choose something more affordable so more can join in.

I'm can see your point OP, and that where it is doesn't really matter. When I was in school, there was a trip to Disneyland Paris which would have cost about £500 (mid 90s so a more at the time than now!). My school was in a very, very deprived area, huge unemployment rates, about 70% of the school on free meals. About four people ended up going, all of them from the more affluent families. It was very divisive, and disappointing to a lot of kids. I know there is a line of "why should everyone suffer because" but the kids that got to go generally went on at least one foreign holiday a year, lived in a nice house, had all the nice clothes etc. It was the kids living four to a one bed flat, going to school hungry wearing charity shop clothes that suffered. I think schools need to look at the socio-economic make up of their students and have a think before deciding on these trips.

@Acis Seriously? I know the price includes things like supervision...

Not sure what you mean by this? Teachers don't get paid to go on school trips. Or do you mean the students cover the cost of the teachers accommodation?

But even if the trip cost £50 there would be families who can't afford it. The point is more about whether £900 is anywhere reasonable for the trip on offer.

I would only see that price as reasonable for a 4 day trip if it was long haul, very luxurious or included several days of an expensive activity such as scuba diving or ski-ing. It's not reasonable for a trip to a European city to see some museums and notable sites and stay in youth hostel type accommodation.

You think £900 is a lot? Dd was offered a trip (year 10) that was £3950! 2 weeks to Borneo to "volunteer" building houses for orphaned orangutang. State school but middle income area (certainly not posh)

Puts a lot of added pressure on parents, £900 is a lot of money.

The school will deny it but you will be subsidising the teachers accomodation and meals because I very much doubt there is much room in their budget for this

Why would they deny this? The tour company will provide a teacher place for every x pupils to ensure safe adult:child ratios and the cost is factored into the cost to parents. Teachers don’t pay to go on school trips. Why on earth should they when they are giving up their holiday, evenings and weekends to take on the enormous responsibility of acting in loco parentis?

The question is should the school be arranging any trips costing that amount of money in an area of deprivation NOT is this trip worth £900.

Having said that just to be nosy I'd like to know where it is!

I organise several school trips a year,and prices have shot up over the last couple of years. Personally, I try to keep the price as low as possible, so we travel by coach, stay in cheap accommodation etc. However, a colleague has just taken over the Spain trip from me, and the first thing she's done is to decide that they'll fly instead, resulting in an instant price increase of £200 per person. I can see how a visit can come in at £900, depending on destination and travel costs..

Sounds like an awful lot of money for one child's school trip for 4 days. What about everyone else in the family? If you as a family don't have that money does it really matter where it is?

At this child's age I could never ask my parents for that sort of money, however much I wanted to go, as I knew how tight money was.

The school will deny it but you will be subsidising the teachers accomodation and meals because I very much doubt there is much room in their budget for this
I rather wondered this too.

I think it’s a bit expensive. DC are at a private school and the most we have paid was £1200 for 12 days to Taiwan when DS was 14 (though this was an exchange so no accommodation costs). DD(13) is off to Italy for 4 days next month and that is £700.