YR Residential Trip

[nobutyestbut]

Please help resolve a debate I'm having with another school parent

Our DS are going on the yr6 residential trip and we have to pay £290,

I believe this is a mandatory payment, she says it's voluntary as is part of the curriculum

Who's right?

Ours is a voluntary trip but you have to pay. Cost is £220, but school subsidises it so it's £140.

Might be worth reporting your thread, and seeing if they will slip the 6 into the title.

I believe the trip is voluntary, but if you agree to go, payment is mandatory (ours said if you we in receipt of free school meals go talk to the head about it - so sounds like there is some funding available).

Quite apart from the fact our school cant physically take at the Y4s - 80 in the year, and they said 65 places available.

My dd didn’t go on her y6 trip: had no desire to. She wasn’t the only one; it was entirely optional to attend and therefore not “part of the curriculum”.

The y6 trip at my DD’s school costs this - curious to know if it’s the same one!

The residential trip my children went on was the only one where payment wasn't voluntary. If parents choose not to pay then their child didn't go.
I think it's because this trip is supposed to be fun and teach them confidence and team building etc so it's not actually classed as part of the curriculum.

The contribution may be voluntary but if people don't pay the trip may have to be cancelled.
Children don't have to go, mine never went as they didn't want to.

It's not mandatory so no you don't have to pay. But if you don't pay, your child doesn't get to go.

Why aren’t kids wanting to go on these trips ? Are you sure it’s not parental ‘influence’ making their minds up for them?

Dc1 is going on her this year(Y5) & it’s optional. She can’t wait to go, she & her friends have been talking about it & planning since the original consent letter came home in July (end of y4 to see what the uptake would be). Dc2 (currently y4) has said he doesn’t want to do it next year but I’m hoping his sister telling him about it will bring him round to the idea by the time July rolls around. Dc3(y2) would go now if she could

you don't have to go on the trip but if you go you have to pay for it.

Ours is 3 days, 2 nights & has cost us just shy of £130 this year.

Residental trips are not mandatory- you choose whether to send your child or not so don't pay, you don't go.

My children's school (admittedly its a big school with 90 in each year) limit the number who can go. There is usually at least 10 I think who stay behind.

It is only trips that are linked to the curriculum that payments are voluntary- although if not enough paid they couldn't go ahead. I do think for these trips if you can afford it you should pay, I have heard of some parents even reasonably wealthy parents who wont pay out of some wired principal because they don't 'have' to pay.

@fedup21 me too!

Chilli my DD genuinely did not want to go. She'd been on a residential in Y5 and it was essentially the same trip. By Y6, enough of the kids in her class were making her life sufficiently miserable that she decided she'd rather not spend extended time with them. No parental influence here!

(Not a single child from her primary is at her new school)

They can’t force you to pay, but of course they won’t pick up the tab for you if you’d rather not pay. Your child will have to spend the week being bored in one of the Year 5 classrooms.

That’s quite sad, madness. Fortunately it’s very much the exception.

I don't think this counts as part of the curriculum at all. Why does your friend think it is?

Schools cannot charge for teaching the curriculum. So, a residential trip might be set up to look at coastal areas which is in the geography curriculum. The school can charge for transport, accommodation and food, but not for the teaching element. So yes, a trip can be part of the curriculum and attract a charge at the same time.

If a trip covers the curriculum, DC not going have to cover the curriculum back at school. It’s usually less fun for obvious reasons. If you don’t want to go, it’s not mandatory. Usually trips work on minimum numbers so if not enough go, no one goes.

Residential are rarely classed as part of the curriculum because no school could afford it! There will be a little ease for families that are really up against it, but there is a tipping point at which nobody will go, and that is when parental payment plus extra funds just aren't enough to cover costs. Paying parents aren't subsidising non-payers.

It's not part of the curriculum it's an extra.

There may be a discretionary fund to help some parents but generally it's Don't Pay Can't Go

Is the other parent intending to pay even though she mistakenly thinks it’s voluntary, op? You haven’t made that clear.

It's an extra. So pay if you want them to go, but they don't have to go.

If you can afford it, then I'd suggest sending them - they are brilliant weeks away with lots of activities.

If you don't pay your child won't go.

@Chillicheese123 - my child didn't want to go because he's autistic. Mainstream school is a pretty exclusionary place for neurodiverse children and school trips are the least of the 'sad' moments to be honest!

The exception not to want to go? There were a good few that didn’t for a huge variety of reasons.

Dd is NT but is very different from her peers. Y6 was horrible.

Ds did not go on his year 6 residential. I paid the deposit at the start of the year but things went down hill and he had a very difficult year 6. He was undiagnosed at the time but he has ASD.

School told me I would have to pay the whole lot as they had reserved a place for him. I never did and they didn't ever chase me up for it. Unlike his present school who demanded we pay for the counselling sessions they had referred him for and withdrew home school communication and made things difficult for us until we did.