School trip - what is a reasonable cost?

[oblada]

Y6 school trip. Our school is asking for close to £300 for the end of year school trip (2 nights away). It doesn't include transport which is covered with fundraising.
Now I can't complain too much, I can probably afford it. I don't have £300 to burn but I can manage.
But it feels wrong. Especially at the moment.
We're in the North West. Not an affluent part of the country.
I think I have made up my mind about what to do but I would be interested to see what everyone thinks generally on the cost. School is adamant it is a reasonable cost. Most people I discuss it directly with tend to agree with me (but maybe they don't really won't knows).
My own view is that up to £150 per kid is relatively affordable for most, in installments, and should be the max budget for a school trip. Whatever the kids do together will be unforgettable to them. They don't need millions of activities crammed in.
But is that unreasonable? Are other school able to do trips for cheaper than £300 per kid? Our weekends away are far cheaper than £300 per person. Now we don't have to worry about the safety aspects etc but then I'd think they'd be savings in the number of kids involved.

That seems really expensive to me. My daughter’s school are going on an activity week next june and it is five nights away for approximately £340

Make sure that you find out if others are going, it would be awful if your child doesn’t go as an act of solidarity with others who can’t afford it to then find out that they are the only one not going.

So i don't think it's particularly awful as an expectation.

It's an unrealistic expectation. We had a particular cohort that even 10/20/30£ trips weren't largely paid for. We'd get 5/6 parents paying, even though more could afford it. The one's that couldn't was expected and the school was happy to absorb the cost. With so many non payments though, the kids ended up with no school trips bar any free ones as the school couldn't afford to pay for 25 kids to go. No parent ever offered to pay for an extra kid either.

Too much. The school should have shopped around to make the trip more inclusive. Plenty of school travel companies are desperate for business after the last couple of years and there's a fair bit of bartering to be done. Very unfair on lower-income families - and for 2 nights?! That's ridiculous.

Plenty of school travel companies are desperate for business after the last couple of years and there's a fair bit of bartering to be done.

The OP has said that the price is not including travel. However, even if it was, all of the coach companies in our area have increased their prices by at least 60%. They aren't begging for business. We're having to book months and months in advance just to make sure we can have the days and times we want.

In most schools its pretty well known that there is a "big trip" in Y6. That's a lot of years to save up if you think you might want to send your kid.

I don't know. I'd like to think others would do the same as me. Maybe I am ridiculously naive.

They wouldn’t. And you are.

Costs have done up a lot post Covid as centres have shut, staffing issues etc.
My dc has been away with a disability charity and it was majorly subsidised by the charity. Not comparable to a school trip.
Staff costs. It’s not just mrs x taking yr 6 alone. Several staff will go for ratios. So if 3 extra staff go then the school potentially pays for cover for those 3 staff as you can’t leave classes with no staff because teacher/ta helping on trip.
Specialist activities need specialist instructor from a risk assessment point if view.
If teachers are going to run everything it’s very limiting what can do, will probably need more staff plus exhausting and not realistic for a few days.

This is so true, they can't get drivers too