Cost of school trip.

[tallcypowder]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/weird-news/mum-slams-utterly-ridiculous-school-30403085.amp

I am in two minds about this. While I think a lot of people are struggling with the increase in bills. ( me included) to complain over something that is a choice and not comparing like with like is silly.

In 2018 a school trip to Barcelona cost £600 for my daughter with all food including and entertainment even a theme park.

While £800 is a lot for one person it would be a different experience to a week in a caravan as the woman describes. She maybe pushing it for a weekend in centre parks.
It is her choice what she does with any spare money. She didn't have to send her son on the trip and I would probably make the same choice but realise it's cheaper for a reason. However not complaining to the school that's bizarre.
However it also highlights another cost of living division and everything costing more and more.
I am in two minds.

this is how I see it. I’m sure it won’t be a popular view though

How do you mean "fundraise"? Who should fundraise? And how many children in the entire school do you think they should fundraise to send on an expensive trip?

Seriously, I'm interested in how you think this would work.

I don't understand the moaning. It costs what it costs. Either pay or don't. There are plenty of things I can't afford but I don't demand that other people don't buy them just because I can't. It's the school's job to offer and make these things available, not to wave a magic wand and equalise society. People seem to think it's schools' job to fix the world but life isn't fair and at the end of the day it's the parents' job to subsidise their own children.

Yes, I've never understood this view. I couldn't go on any of the foreign trips when I was at school in the 70s - I was the only student in the A level French class who'd never been on the French exchange, for example (we had nowhere to put the return visit student in our tiny house which had no bathroom or inside toilet, for example) - and some of my classmates had been 3 times. Ditto ski trips, which were simply unaffordable. I had always understood that it wasn't possible for me to go.

But when you’re planning a trip, the travel company will only honour your quote for a certain period of time, just like every other company providing a service. So it’s hardly the fault of the school.

Some of you need to actually think about the logistics of taking 45 people abroad.

I do agree that school trips are expensive but I can also understand why and wouldnt want schools to stop offering them.
Our school offered a Berlin trip this year for around £700 per child, it didn't go ahead though as out of 30 places,only 6 kids signed up due to the cost.
I agree with her that if I could get all 7 of us away for the same cost as just 1 of my kids on a school trip then I'd be choosing the family holiday.
We paid £550 for us all to go to centerparcs for 4 nights, we're doing a weekend next year for £529.

As I grew up with an agoraphobic mother I'd never have gone away without school trips, we didn't go abroad but we did stay at a farm based site and a week the other side of England and I'll treasure those times.

The same way people fundraise for anything else, raffles etc but if no one has the time or inclination for that then just don’t offer it. I certainly don’t expect my DC teachers to be organising or fund raising for these kind of things, they work hard enough and this is way beyond what I expect. My DC don’t need expensive foreign trips to have a good childhood but they will feel deprived if dangled under their nose like this

We had similar at school and didn’t cost an arm and a leg in the first place. Plus was cheap enough for those for whom even that would be a struggle to be subsidised

Honestly, everything else aside I think anyone who would let the school take their 12/13 year old abroad is mad. With all the stuff that's been going on lately with schools keeping secrets from parents and indoctrinating them in classrooms, I frankly wouldn't trust them to take any child of mine to the cinema. Never mind a foreign country.

This. It puts far too much pressure on parents

That trip was a voluntary contribution

I’m a Governor, and our trips are more expensive as our young people are now flying instead of taking a coach. The last coach trip to Europe ended up stuck in Dover for 36 hours, so we decided that coach trips to Europe will not be happening anymore … flights only

I think she is unreasonable. It is entirely conceivable that if you have lots of children, unless you are wealthy, normal everyday experiences will become unaffordable. Maybe she should have thought harder about birth control.

Yup - absolutely. No one should ever do anything, and nothing should ever be organised because it’s just not fair if it is😒

Life isn’t fair. She probably makes financial decisions that others don’t make to provide her family of 6 with opportunities others may not get. Then she runs to the papers with a sad, put out face that she can’t do this and therefore says it’s all so perpetually unfair.

it’s nauseating

I’d complain about that Deputy Head. If the mosque trip is linked to the curriculum, in school hours etc then they cannot legally exclude your children from it just because you don’t/won’t/can’t pay - they can ask for voluntary contributions, they cannot charge. They obviously can charge for ski trips, residentials etc, but not what I assume is a day trip to a mosque as part of the RE curriculum. If enough parents don’t pay then they can cancel the trip but they can’t just leave your children behind.