Cost of year 6 school trip.. AIBU?

[BanginChoons]

My dc came home from school today with a letter for a school residential. It's for 4 nights in the UK, at an activity centre. The children will be doing things like canoeing and high ropes. The cost is £360. Aibu to think this cost is too high? I would prefer a shorter trip and a lower price, I am concerned that families on lower incomes will struggle to afford this.

YANBU. On the one hand that's a reasonable/standard price for those types of activities on the other hand it's unnecessary for kids to do things like that for an away trip. I volunteer with beavers and cubs and we do camping trips for really cheap and the kids have a blast. They learn practical skills and have all the fun of being away from home without such a high cost.

That sounds about right. Is that for this term or next year? Parents on FSM may get some discount

It's for next year

Ours is about £400, same as my first son,, 3 years ago.
Our school sent an email about a month or two asking whether we would send our children if possible. I suppose numbers??
But our payments are slightly staggered - £150 now and the rest by the end of August.
I’m ok with this. Of course we contribute to the teachers going. Still a good deal with everything included.

That seems very pricey to me. Our similar sounding 4 day trips in Y6 were more like £160.

Ds1 (Y8) is going skiing to Austria for 5 nights next year, in half term, and that's £740. Seems nuts that 4 days in the UK is half the cost of that!

My DS’s Y6 4 night school residential was around £360 10 years ago. A couple of DC didn’t attend.

Ours is about this but it's organised 2 years in advance so you have plenty of time to pay. It's up on the school money website so you can pay £10 here and there

It's not compulsory and most schools will have some sort of hardship fund for parents who are struggling.

I'm not struggling as such. But I am a single parent on a fairly low income. The instalments will be a good sized cut of my disposable monthly income.

I just payed £312 for 2 nights for my daughter at the same sort of thing

Are you able to save for it?
FSM children may well get help, but that's a good thing.
BTW my DD has FSM throughout her school life, I paid full price for her residential in P7.

Is it PGL? That’s what I paid last year for my daughters trip and she had an amazing time. We were able to pay over a school year.

We paid £300 for DDs and that was 11 years ago.

Wait until you get the year 7/8 skiing trip letter 😬

Coach hire X2 or for the whole time
Teacher costs
Accommodation
Food
Instructors
Insurance
Activities
Administration

It does all add up.

(On the other hand.. we went to an Activity centre last weekend. Trying to keep afloat as they haven't got the youth groups and school bookings at the moment. Unlimited activities for 5hrs, on a turn up and queue basis, for £15 per person. We did obstacle course, cave maze, Laser tag, climbing twice, rafting and body boarding. Could have done Canoeing and axe throwing, or gone in the swimming pool as well but children were tired and ready for a warm shower by then!)

@Shitfuckcommaetc lol mine in 1990 was 68 for three nights 😂😂😂 bloody inflation

Ours was £450 for 4 nights / 5 days. Seems reasonable to me as most parents can easily afford this at our school. The ones who can't afford it get financial support and every child who wants to go, does.

Ours is just under £300 for 4 nights.

The school manages to ensure everyone is able to attend and the PTA chip in to cover families who need extra support.

@BanginChoons too many people do, email or texts makes it easy, some people are just not attentive to letters from school. If you are someone who replies in good time, glad to read it and sorry for any offence.

I'd have thought that this would be a lot of money to find even for quite a lot of parents who don't quite hit the threshold for FSM.

If you’re struggling at all or think you will struggle to pay, talk to the school. They’ll understand. Fwiw it’s pretty average- almost the same as the cost of my daughter’s a few years ago. The ski trip she wants to go on is over £800. Wow am I relieved there are no spaces left for the trip next year! Gives me an extra year to save up!

I think ours was about the same. Some of the high school trips are £800-£1000. (Although they're usually abroad - in normal times) and you have to apply via a ballot as there are normally more people that wish to go, than spaces.
I think it seems expensive (although I admit if you break down the costs it is probably reasonable value) because we usually only go away once, maybe twice a year and would spend about that on accomodation for 4 ,which is the biggest cost of the holiday. Most people where we are have pretty well paid jobs, though, and dont bat an eyelid at the prices. Then there are the world challenge type trips that are about 4k!!

@BanginChoons Sounds about right to me when all costs are factored in I’m afraid. Local high school here runs a mixed year group trip each year for S3-S6s (in Scotland). 2nights in Iceland followed by 3 nights in NewYork at £1750 per student! Really hard for some parents to afford but also difficult when a child’s whole friendship group are going and they’re the only one not!
In saying that, perhaps at that age (13+) it’s easier to explain the financials to them 🤷🏻‍♀️

£308 here for 4 nights at PGL….or £616 if you have twins as I do…
We’ve been paying in monthly instalments since March
It’s a lot of money especially paying for two at once but it’s the only trip they do in primary and a real highlight of year 6 so I do think it’s worth it

It's usually the coach that bumps the cost up - they're hideously expensive.

@Spied

Lower income families will probably get it paid for ( sorry- I've just been on the free school meals thread)

Good! It's not the fault of the kids that they come from low income households. Why should my kids get more opportunities than them?

Sounds about right. We were always given 9 - 12 months notice of the trip to budget for paying for it, which we could do monthly. School also open with parents from year 3 about the trip in year 6 and rough costs so people could budget over several years if they needed to.

Fsm for those on UC is only if you earn around 7kish or less! There are a lot of people eaening over 7k and struggling...