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!

I bet your parents remember the cost though. Those that actually pay the price tend to remember.

Genuine curiosity, why doesn't your school do term time residentials anymore? (Ours does, I'll be off on one in May!) It's so hard to schedule them.

We don't do term time residentials because we can't afford of find supply

Inability to cover the lessons. Other staff are maxing out PPA cover, can't get qualified and experienced teachers for love nor money, cover supervisors paid a crappy NMW-£12 an hour aren't paid enough to want to do the harder shifts and can get work anywhere, so can walk out at 3.15pm and get somewhere else in the morning. And the cost when you can get one is phenomenal.

Schools also aren’t allowed to charge parents for the cost of covering lessons. This is why so many trips are at least partly over a weekend or half term. It’s also why we’re encouraged to take support staff as the extra adults rather than taking all teachers.
I used to get asked to volunteer for residentials in term time when I had a lot of gained time. I did a couple of residentials in that time when I didn't have children. I always lost some weekend time and/or part of a holiday. My lesson cover was done by someone else who had gained time.

It was an effective use of staffing but still relied on a lot of good will.

For those saying school's aren't allowed to charge for the cost of covering the accompanying teachers, would you have a source for that? We always add the cost of the cover onto the school trip. If we're expecting other teachers to cover lessons for free, then that's going to make it even more difficult to find enough volunteers to run trips...

Dfe Guidance. They can charge a component for

'teaching staff engaged under contracts for services purely to provide an optional extra, this includes supply teachers engaged specifically to provide the optional extra'

Like a qualified teacher engaged specifically because they've worked for the school before and will be happy to come back to be another qualified PE teacher/first aider/experienced skiier, a qualified teacher running activities at a historic place, female/male to supervise and keep appropriate sex based ratios, that sort of thing.

'It must not therefore include an element of subsidy for any other pupils wishing to participate in the activity whose parents are unwilling or unable to pay the full charge. Furthermore in cases where a small proportion of the activity takes place during school hours the charge cannot include the cost of alternative provision for those pupils who do 6 not wish to participate. Therefore no charge can be made for supply teachers to cover for those teachers who are absent from school accompanying pupils on a residential visit. '

If your school is charging for cover, they're directly in breach of the Law.

ETA: DfE Guidance

Of course, because the teachers on the trip are working on duty 24/7 and having a huge responsibility for the welfare and safety of the students while on the trip, surely you don’t expect them to pay for the “privilege” and schools don’t have the money for that either. The school travel company makes a profit too in addition to paying its staff for the work involved, insurance, ABTA/ATOL membership, airport transfers, a contingency for emergencies, etc.

Surely there is a range of trips for different budgets?

Since when does going to school to get an education segue into £3000 a week holidays? To New York? This is worthy of The Twilight Zone.

I once had a teacher friend admit to me she and her teacher colleague chose places they wanted to go for school trips because that meant they got a free trip out of it. They chose very expensive options (NYC, LA, Disney (!) etc.). Honestly I struggled to see the links to the curriculum etc. I asked her once what about the kids who couldn't go, she said their school was predominantly upper middle class families but of course the 'kids in care' and 'kids raised by grandparents' couldn't go. She didn't seem at all upset that these trips precluded them...

I did end up voicing my concerns and honestly had to hide my shock at how little she seemed to care. She had said how much those children struggle to fit in b/c they don't have birthday parties like the other kids, aren't in sport etc. I basically as nicely as I could suggested she was now giving them yet another thing that sets them apart. She did say later that she'd never thought of it that way...

So honestly, while I'd have never believed it before, I really think some people just don't get it and don't much care to. Personally, I think there should be a cap on what a school trip can cost and there should be support for fundraising etc., like some other countries do - bake sales, car washes etc., to reduce the cost per student.

Hmm I kind of see that but you are advocating lowest common denominator because some can’t afford it it can’t happen?

I think trips should only be allowed if they meet a threshold re contributing to the education and curriculum of the majority.

Trips are exhausting and those left behind are left with cover staff and shattered staff on return. It will has a big impact on delivery of education.

If a couple of days latched onto a weekend is deemed a travesty to education an extortionate holiday for a tiny minority that has a big impact on education delivery to the entire school for longer sure as hell will.

When it comes to secondary, these kind of trips are selective anyway. No one will take 200+ kids abroad, even more if it's across year groups. It tends to be 30/40 spaces (at most) so the vast majority of kids are not going anyway.

@Beach1983
I know I’m late to comment on your thread, but back when I was in high school in California in the 70s, a teacher announced a trip to Italy. It was voluntary, but who wouldn’t want to go?
I didn’t even ask my parents. I wanted to save them the embarrassment of having to tell me “no.” But my cousin went. It was two weeks and close to $3000+ back then.
I think three or four kids went.
I don’t know why they thought waving a trip like that in front of the rest of us was a good look, but they did it anyway.
People just don’t have good sense.

The cost sounds insane to me, but a school trip to NYC from the UK for 8 days is going to be expensive. Insurance costs for a school trip would be quite expensive. Plus transport to and from airport. If they are staying in NJ they would have cheaper hotels but would likely need to arrange transport back and forth to the city. If they are staying in Manhattan, that’s going to be extremely pricy. And these are often arranged through a private company that specializes in school trips, so they would have overhead and a markup obviously. It adds up.

Our school offers multiple trips with varying price ranges from a couple of hundred to £1500 for a ski trip, plus other alternatives that cost nothing-
the reality is - lots of parents can afford it, lots can't so a range should be offered

Please. I would rather find the money for the ski trip for DCs as it's not something we'll ever do as a family and a great experience for them

Others might think it's waste of money - but banning trips is just bloody miserable, and I speak as someone who COULD not afford them as a child.

Not located in the UK but the schools in our state do now include the cost of hiring staff to cover camp staff, thus camps and excursions are now hugely expensive!

I'm torn on these types of trips.

On one hand, it might be cheaper to send one child away skiing (for example) than the whole family, so that child gets the opportunity to ski which they might never have had otherwise.

On the other, it puts ridiculous pressure on parents to shell out a ridiculous amount of money for an experience which isn't directly linked to their child's education.

I used to work for an American educational travel company, as a tour director.

DS1 's school recently released the details of next year's geography school trip. Over £1000 for 3 nights in southern Italy, including an overnight coach to Heathrow to catch a flight to Naples (we're in the deep SW. It's a 5 hour drive to Heathrow).

Ten minutes online with Easyjet and Booking.com found him a similar break in southern Italy for under £600- as an individual- within the next two days. And flying from Bristol, which is considerably closer.

I mean, group rates should be cheaper, not more expensive, even allowing for the free teacher places! (I'm not knocking teachers at all here- by god do they earn their free places, it's no holiday. If one of the kids breaks an ankle, guess who's going to be sitting with them in a foreign hospital until 4.00am?).

Someone's making a killing, even in this difficult travel climate. It was the same when I did that job- the cheapest possible hotels, the cheapest and most unreliable transport companies, with a laughably underpaid tour director on call 24/7 to smooth over all the ensuing chaos, with the company posting healthy annual profits 🙄.

That’s really expensive.

Our school does a ski trip for years 4-6. It’s £1.2k for 7 days all inclusive. It’s much cheaper than we’d find if we tried to do similar ourselves.