Expensive school trip - why do schools do it?!

[Beach1983]

Cut a long story short, letter has come home with school trip for 8 days that is approx £2500 that doesn’t include food/spending money so guessing £500 extra for that, so all in roughly 3k.

Am I wildly out of touch for thinking that £3000 for a school trip for one child is ridiculous? (This is regular state school not private btw).

I feel annoyed with the school for putting parents in this position as obviously the kids want to go and (they say) all their friends are going so parents feel hugely guilt tripped into these things even if financially it’s a struggle!

Just needed to vent really and see if people share my views!

As a child from a very poor family, I never even bothered telling my parents about the expensive trips (skiing and the like). I couldn't do the French exchange either, as we were a family of 5 in a 2 bed house with no bathroom.

It's the way it's always been (this trip does sound even more ludicrously expensive than usual, mind) for many kids, I'm afraid. Parents shouldn't feel "guilty" that they can't shell out for expensive school trips.

No they won't. They'll have been quoted a package.

The ski trip to Austria at my daughters school was £3000. She didn't tell us about it as she didn't want to go skiing. I was shocked as that was the cost for 4 of us to go to Disney florida for 2 weeks. I doubt many in the school could've afforded it.

I've never had a full breakdown of costs. A list of what's included, yes. But not 'flights - £n; accommodation - £n; trip day 1 - £n...' etc.

My DC are at private and a trip this expensive has never been suggested. In fact the French trip has been shortened to make it more affordable / in line with previous years. The ski trips are not this expensive either. Unless there's a very good educational reason to go to NY I'd be saying no to that.

My DC are also at private. There are expensive trips offered, and some less expensive ones.

I choose which ones suit us and are affordable. My DC don't get to go on all the trips, but that's fine, I wouldn't want to stop anyone else having the opportunity.

It's life! We can't all do everything all of the time.

My school used to do a skiing trip. For normal/poor kids in Edmonton. Fuck knows why. It wasn't popular. Maybe a couple of kids went, I don't really know, no-one in my circles went. And no-one was bothered by not going either.

I don't remember holidays being a big topic. Some kids visited family in the holidays, in Greece and Cyprus, and some went to Butlins/Haven, but big long haul holidays weren't really a thing. I suppose some kids over the years had them and some must have been to spain but generally we all hung out in the park.

Re the breakdown, obviously it depends if you do a package or price it up yourself?

Holy cow! Thats A LOT of money.
I'd hate to say no but I'd have to.
You know what this is though don't you - teachers aren't paying for their travel, flights, rooms etc so the price per child is hiked up to cover these 'over worked teachers' free holidays. 😡

Supervising a bunch of teenagers overnight for several days in a foreign country is not a holiday.

So no, we don't pay to go.

I work in finance at a private school and work with teachers on budgets for the school trips and they definitely enjoy the trips and are not doing this for purely altruistic reasons. There are a couple in particular that I think should probably be doing a bit more teaching and a bit less of the endless trip planning.

That said, of course their own costs need to be covered and it is ridiculous for anybody to suggest otherwise.

I'm arranging two trips at the moment, both in my own time, requiring no cover. I'm working hard to keep costs as low as possible, but I will actually expect the parents to contribute to my place. Without me going, there is no trip.

As a school we run very few trips because we know parents can't afford them. Regardless, though, there is always someone complaining about not enough or too many trips.

So why do schools keep putting forward these trips to OTHER CONTINENTS?! My heart bleeds. And FWIW I've never been skiing in my life; it really isn't the end of the world.

I think some of this is on the parents.

Why anyone would think they should take out a loan for their kid to go on a trip like this - they need to learn to tell their children "no, sorry, that's outside out budget."

No wonder so many kids have FOMO, they learn it from their parents!

I doubt the ones "putting forward" the trips are the ones supervisoring them.

Teaching is so wonderful - an endless stream of free trips to great places, paid for by silly parents! Do you know the best thing? There’s a massive shortage of teachers in this country - have you considered training yourself? Think of the free holidays!

….no? Why not?

We all have to make choices about what we put our money towards.

My daughter financed one school trip working. She also paid for some cosmetic dental work. She decided to wait on the driving lessons, and it meant she only had one summer's wages towards university rather than two. (On the other hand, it made her decide that what she really wanted to do at university was study classical civilizations.)

Going to Edmonton really is shocking, why anyone would choose that as a destination, at any price!

I question the appropriateness of an educational experience that some of the kids will miss out on by design because there aren't enough spaces. The school have created two tiers of History students: those who got to learn in Bruges and those who didn't, when they all study the same syllabus and take the same exam.

that is outrageous!! I have a 1 year old and will just laugh if these trips come my
way. Sounds like money laundering 😂😂

@CockSpadget @TempestTost I cannot see how a trip to a place where homosexuality is illegal is something any school should do.

There was one or two of these at my son's system school - skiing I think. Letter came home and very few boys went (only one that my son knew). Just ignore it - there will always be things that some children do/get that others don't. Don't make a big deal of it.

@LlynTegid I don’t think it should be a school trip destination either, but it is, and quite a few schools go there.

@crochetmonkey74 This is a nice idea, although do teachers end up having to give up their weekends etc. to supervise these fundraising events also? Or would parents etc. step in?

I meant we were normal/poor kids from Edmonton. Or are you taking the mick 🤪

The trips weren't to Canada. I think they went to Austria or France. I di t really know, they weren't on our radar.