School expense!!!

[laylasmummy08]

So my DD has just started secondary school last month. Standard CofE public high school. Obviously before she started we had to buy all uniform, pe kit, separate games kit, coat shoes bag, stationary etc which came to a grand total of around £400!! On top of that we paid locker lease, yes only £9 a term but still.....

Anyway she has been there a total of 6 weeks. In that 6 weeks she has had a trip, £19, lunch money, around £15 a week plus paying for food every week for her food tech class.

Now I know all of the above is necessity but what is really grinding my gears is the following......

All students have to have a tablet at a cost if £270 from the school. This is used the whole 5 years they are there. Fair enough. But I have had 3 letters about trips in the following 2 years. Paris. £450. Italy. £950 and Austria at a grand total of £1450 😵😵 now luckily my daughter understands money. She understands it isnt shit out every morning but AIBU to feel so guilty that I cant send her in these? Maybe one if we really save but the first one is in February so that gives me 3 months! Right after xmas!!

I just feel schools pit so much pressure on parents to send these kids to things making out its educational. Most of her friends are going in them and I feel like a shit mum!! Her dad no way will help out with costs. My partner, her step father, has offered because he is lovely but it will deeply affect our income as I'm on mat leave and we have other children to pay for.

Please just tell me not all kids go on these trips and I'm not being a shitty parent by maybe letting her go on the one in 2021 so it gives me chance to save 😭😭

HappilyHarridan

I don't think they should pay out of their own pocket but I don't see why the parents should have to pay for them when it's the school who has suggested it and it's already expensive for the parent to pay for the child, I think the school should cover the fund for the teachers seeing as they are suggesting it or they could scrap the expensive trips so then the parents don't need to pay or the teachers.

I just feel schools pit so much pressure on parents to send these kids to things making out its educational. Most of her friends are going in them and I feel like a shit mum!!

No need to feel like a shit mum. The vast majority of kids won’t go on all these trips - of a year group, the majority won’t go, it will be a minority that do.

It’s fine to save up, to choose wisely.

The school aren’t putting pressure on you - you’re putting pressure on yourself. You don’t need to.

Sounds like your daughter is old enough (and sensible) to help decide which one she goes on (if you can afford any).

Does she know at this stage which her friends might be going on? - that will prob be the most important factor. Figure out which ones are non-negotiable and which she has the best reasons to want to join

And can she put pocket money towards it to contribute?(ie if she really wants the expensive one)

NB if the Austria one is so expensive because it's a ski trip, it could be worth considering - purely because it's cheaper to send her solo with school than to ever pay for you to take her yourself......

Our school was like this. Pretty much the same destinations. My parents told us all we could go on one each and we all agreed and stuck to it. One is more than enough. Now I'm a parent I struggle to see how any working class parent could afford these trips. 450 is a week in center parcs for the family!

Op you are not a crap mum, it's fine.

MOST kids do not go on the trips abroad. I used to run one in yr 7 and typically 70 kids out of 220 could go, so most did not. Probably all her mates won't actually go either. It's not like primary where everyone goes.

Trips abroad are educational, our Normandy trip covered D Day and 1066 as well as offering the chance to gear and speak French and learn some independent skills, but it's not the end of the world not to go.

DS2 wanted to go on a £1200 ski trip but I said no, too much.

We are the opposite - DS in his second year of secondary and not a whiff of a trip so far, such a shame!

We could afford the trips, but if we were offered what you've been offered, no way would we do them all. So do NOT feel bad!

"I can honestly the most expensive part about having kids is when they actually start school! It's school that bump the cost up with all these extra expenses"

Insurance costs an insane amount, it bumps the costs up a lot.
I do think schools could potentially find cheaper options sometimes though

Our school has lots of trips. We have told DD1 2 'big' trips in the 5 years so she's signed up for skiing in year 8 so far. We'd never take them skiing so that seems fair. We're lucky that the cost isn't particularly an issue for us so we've spoken to other parents to set a reasonable quota for her which she accepts. Same will apply for her siblings. Local theatre trips etc will be additional but that's OK.

BTW my school ran a KS4 trip to Berlin for German and history at a cost of about £350 pp, Inc most food and all activities. I reckon that's pretty good. I know the colleague who organised it used to spend ages finding the best deals.

I don't know which center parcs a pp means but five days on our local one is about £1k++ in the school Hols (and I mean Oct half term) without food or entertainment.

Don't blame the teachers please.

Yes, education costs are being passed on to parents. Because people keep voting in a government who aren’t funding education properly. Schools aren’t trying to make a profit so they can have a lovely Christmas meal or something. Lots of schools are struggling to even pay teachers, let alone anything else.

If trips are educational, they legally cannot exclude a child who can’t afford to go. These would be ones where almost every child goes. So a letter to the head may get you a free/reduced place (they may still be able to charge for accommodation or something, not sure), particularly if your child is entitled to pupil premium. If lots of parents do this, the trip will be cancelled as they can’t afford to run it. If there isn’t anything in the letter stating this, it’s likely the trip is just for fun, eg skiing. Lovely if you can afford it, but most people can’t.

I haven't come across the attitude that all children are expected to go on foreign trips, a few do, the majority don't. By secondary I'd expect the pupils to understand that parents can't afford to do everything.

I read threads about school uniforms costing £££ and I realize that my DCs school must be unusual, the uniform doesn't cost anything like that, a locker is about a tenner for the whole time they are there and I've never felt under any pressure to pay for expensive trips.

The OP raises a good point particularly about the trips. I went through the whole timetable of trips and whilst we are lucky that we can afford them, the reality is that very few are educational and hence are run at the end of the academic year when whole groups of kids have an exodus to places like Sorento! The ones that can't be run then, such as skiing go during the half term breaks.

The cost of the trips at our school is £500 minimum to start and goes up to £1200 for skiing and higher than that for New York etc. We even had one sporting trip to Australia! This is despite the governing body having a rule that trips over £1000 must be approved by the governors. The reality is though is that whilst ours is an outstanding school, we have many kids from low income families and these trips are literally bordering a system of apartheid as their parents simply cannot afford them and they are left back at school, not doing any meaningful learning whilst the other students swan off to warm and exotic places.

Ds is year 10.

Every year uniform in September is &500/£600, luckily he loved his £100 Northface bag and this is the third year he’s used it. But at over 6ft, a rugby player, he dwarfs most of his teachers- hence uniform
Is a) not easy to get b) bloody expensive

Cookery- we provided say 4 ingredients unless he forgot in which case you donated £1 to school and have ingredients off them.

Charity- he goes to a Catholic high school, so they are always raising money for something. Non uniform today at £1

Lunch- £20/£22 a week put on his account

Bus- £15 per week (he’s not catholic but attended a catholic primary also)

Trips/activities- last 3 were £25 (drama), £35 fun day of activities, £30 ice skating

Abroad broad trips- that’s coming up shortly, we’ve been paying for almost 2 years, it costs £2000, plus kit, spending money, and 2 meals a day, plus new clothes to go, let’s add another 1k+ to that

Locker- £20 per year. Luckily ds said ‘why would I need one??’

Thankfully- no laptops or iPads etc, it’s assumed I that most kids have these already but I know there’s a pot that they use to purchase them for children who don’t have them. They don’t have to be refined at the end of school the dc get to keep them. However I think the most they’ve purchased in one year is 4, and the least 0.

I know shortly we will be asked have for:-
Donations for Christmas hampers
Boxes of biscuits
Boxes of chocolates
Boxes of mine pies
Money for Christmas trip (money on it being ice skating again!)

But it’s worth it for the school he attends. It’s a brilliant school, the best in the area, it’s produces brilliantly kids, have brilliant teachers, send kids to oxbridge and we couldn’t ask for more. Was it a shock when he started? No, because we already knew how the school worked, as I attended, his dB, my brother, aunts, uncles and cousins and friends children. So there was no surprises. If we had problems with the above, we wouldn’t have sent him🤷🏻‍♀️

I think this is just something to get used to tbh. It's a shock in year 7 but the reality is these things cost what they cost and the school needs to offer them. The tablet and trips sound reasonable and at least they've given you notice about the last 2 even if the first one is a bit short.

When I was at secondary school they did ski trips every year which I never had any remote interest in, only a select few when on those (usually the rich ones). GCSE history classes went to Auschwitz at the end of year 10 which I did, my parents paid in instalments.

Trips aside though, the actual costs of school are expensive even for primary school children. My DC started at a new school last year and I was shocked that they demanded logo jumper/cardigans and also charged for the Christmas nativity. Never experienced that before in their previous school, took me aback.

The tablet cost would surprise me. I teach in a college and the college provides laptops for low income students who don’t have one. You can loan one either for the day or for the term.

My DD didn’t go on a single foreign trip in secondary school. We just simply couldn’t justify the cost. Some of the trips were £2500 and it only cost £3500 for all 4 of us to go to Turkey all inclusive for a week.

Can't belive some of the costs people are quoting, most expensive trip this year at DDs school is £1k, average cost seem to be £5-£600.

Househunt1 I don’t think school budgets, which are already at breaking point, should be used to pay for teachers tickets when only a few pupils get the benefit of that. If parents want to send their children on these trips they should be prepared to cover all the costs, including the cost of whoever travels with the children to supervise them.

My ds came home with a letter for 2 nights camping -£280 he goes to scouts and they take the kids away for 7 nights every August for £145
I just cannot understand the costings.

It's ridiculous. When I did my training the school had two 'activity weeks' at the end of each year. Some went on the fancy trips abroad, some did (actually really good) things in school, some went camping for £20. I really liked it because everyone got to do something good, whatever they could afford, and no one got loads more time off normal school than anyone else.

It starts with the insistence on ludicrously expensive (and often poor quality) "branded" uniform that can only be obtained from one company

This makes me so angry. There is absolutely no excuse for it. It is in clear breach of DfE guidance but the DfE absolutely refuses to do anything about it and schools say they don't have to obey the DfE's rules (although, of course, pupils have to obey the schools' petty and frankly fetishistic uniform rules). Also, with the extensive cuts to funding of local authorities since 2010, support for families in the form of school uniform grants has decreased by 70% (www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/13/families-in-england-hit-by-70-cut-in-school-uniform-grant), so uniforms get more expensive and financial support for the least well-off families gets cut.

Thankyou everyone. I do feel less of a 'shit' mum now reading everyones reply. I have spoke to my daughter and I'm so grateful she has a good head on her shoulders and understands it's just not possible to go on all these trips. We have agreed to say no to the France and Italy trips just not enough time to save and they are place we can go anytime as a family and for much cheaper probably! I have said when we have more info on the Austria trip I may agree. Yes it's the most expensive one but it's not for another 2 years and it's a once in a lifetime opportunity as I know its somewhere we will never go as a family!

This is my first time with a child in secondary school. At least I am prepared for my next 2 when they start!