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!

My eldests school does this. Multiple
expensive foreign trips in June (from £900 few days in France to a £3.5k trip to somewhere on the African continent) and a (£1700) skiing trip in winter. Even the day trips for those who can’t afford the overnights cost over £100.
We live in a wealthy area but not everyone is wealthy and the schools response to that was that they allow paying in instalments.

I feel really bad that we can’t pay for the trips of a lifetime ones and she gets a day in Blackpool at most but we’re privileged that she can get that.

The teachers are taking the Mickey. They’ll never admit it, but they’re looking for an all expenses paid trip. Don’t subsidise them.

Goady post by someone who plainly knows nothing about the conditions attached to doing such work.

It's ridiculous and certainly makes it harder for a family to have a vacation together (if that's even an option) with this travel cost on top of everything.

Here we go again.

Seriously, would you give up a week of your leave to work 24/7, unpaid? With the responsibility of keeping a bunch of kids safe (the most important thing) and happy, throughout?

It's not a jolly. It's not a holiday. Even at the most enjoyable moments you're busy counting heads and ensuring that the kids are behaving and acting safely.

I think that is pretty standard for the high school trips at my kids school, which were to an overseas location. Mostly these kinds of trips are administered through companies that specialize in them and the fees you describe are what I've seen.

No students are obligated to go, and in my experience, there is no expectation that most will be able to go. Usually it's some interested teachers who arrange these, and sometimes there are some fundraising opportunities.

I don't really think it's an unreasonable thing, tbh. I wasn't able to go on these kinds of trips as a kid, but I was aware that there were families with more funds than mine. My parents just said they didn't have the money. It's ok for kids to be disappointed at times. It was a nice opportunity for some others who could raise the funds, but whose parents would not have taken them on that kind of trip.

YANBU

My ds is at independent and they don't organise anything that expensive, because it would be divisive.

They do have a ski trip, but last time it was £1,100. They go every other year. The budget is set two years in advance to allow parents more time to budget, and to make it easier for those families with more than one child.

Oh I know exactly the conditions. The teachers still consider it a perk and an escape from the drudgery of the classroom.

I’m a former teacher.

As I said, don’t subsidise them.

I don't know when you were teaching, but these big trips for a minority of pupils happen in holidays, not term time. The teachers are not escaping the classroom to run them.

YANBU!

Ours this year is to Morocco, where free time includes perusing the markets...

Like I'm going to allow my 16 year old long blonde haired daughter to do that without me.

I wouldn't even do it with me.

FWIW, my eldest did a trip like this, at a similar cost. I paid for very little - she worked all summer at an overnight camp and paid for almost all of it. Most of the kids she knew on the trip did the same.

Part of the costs has to do with the support the companies that run these trips give. They typically have tour guides who stay with the group the whole time, and they have 24 hour support in case there are any problems. At eight days I imagine they are doing some day trips out of the city as well. I also think they are probably covering most food, often kids get their own lunches out and about but other meals are covered as a group.

Such trips are not in term time.

The school isn't budgeting. The tour company is. I imagine that you found your own transport around the city. The schoolkids will have transport provided. Very expensive transport.

I'm going to guess that this trip isn't just NYC. Probably DC as well, with coach transfers each way. And of course the tour company staff and their cut.

It's entirely impractical and unsafe for teachers to take 30 kids on the same kind of independent holiday that you had. The planning has to be absolutely perfect, and that costs.

My DD went to New York last year.
She didn't know hardly anyone who went as they weren't in her year and certainly not in her friendship group .
Most kids don't go to these trips coz they are too expensive and I wouldn't believe that most of the friends ARE going.

What "things" can you do in two days in New York? Two weeks would cover more, but by no means all, of the thngs to do, see and experience in New York.

School trips aren't for pleasure, but for an opportunity to learn. Skiing can be learned at the dry slope without excluding children on the basis of their parents' ability or willingness to pay hundreds of pounds.

If these trips are so dangerous, why are you running them at all, given the marginal at most educational value of them?

These trips are ridiculous and put so much pressure on parents, when my daughter was at school a couple of her friends parents took loans out for them to go (trip was £1800 to Dubai) There was no way I was doing that and she completely understood. Now my youngest is in secondary, and we are in a different place financially, and could afford it, but there is still no way I’d pay it.

Likewise.

African countries have plenty of people that are out of work. Send a local charity some money and they can put the local people to good use and paint the school/bridge/church themselves.

Then, the British pupils can put their time to good use doing something in the UK that needs doing!

It saves money and is a win for everyone.

A school trip to Dubai?!

That's just ridiculous!

What was the educational theme?

How to build an urban hell in a remote desert setting?

The life of slave labourers in the Arab world?

Capital Punishment for petty crimes in the UAE?

What would be a useful trip would be somewhere where they could practice whatever foreign language they are learning at school.

Yep, they’ve ran the trip there several times. It’s baffling to me as well.

I would express my disappointment at the cost.
Put forward in writing the idea of running a camp at the same time that most of the students can afford in this difficult ecomomic climate. All kids deserve a school trip.

Look into camping - training to coastal France, ferry to Ireland, an UK national park or an island off UK.
An affordable school trip that costs a third of the planned one could still be historically and environmentally educational and physically challenging.

Ok read your updates and that is crazy money for 8 days in New York with no food included. I can do that return on BA with accommodation in April for half of that.

Given how expensive the US is, I wouldn’t bet on $1000 extra covering food/drinks/spends either.

I remember it was the Business Studies and History students offered the New York trip while at school. Showing the photos when they got back it seems they visited the Statue of Liberty then spent the rest of the week shopping. Go figure.

The trips are usually in school holidays so the teachers are giving up their leave. It can hardly be fun for them being responsible teenagers 24:7 especially in a city like New York. Definitely not something I would want to do and they deserve to be able to go for free.