To be fed up with the cost of school trips?

[0TiredMumOf4]

Hi all,
Just having a bit of a rant because I feel like I’m being totally swamped by the cost of all these school trips recently. DD1’s school trip to the Science Museum in London is coming up, and it’s a whopping £45. That’s for one trip! And to make matters worse, I’ve already shelled out for DS’s farm trip (another £35), and DD2’s little museum trip just up the road (which, okay, is £15, but still) 🙄.

I get that these trips are important, but seriously? £45 for a museum trip? That’s not even factoring in the cost of packed lunches and the inevitable begging for snacks to take on the coach. And they expect me to fork out this kind of money for all three of them every time there’s a school trip?? 🤦‍♀️

It’s not like I’m made of money, and it feels like they have a trip every other week. Am I being unreasonable to feel totally fed up with how much these things are costing? I don’t mind supporting the kids, but I can’t keep up with this!

Anyone else feel the same, or am I just being a tight arse? 😤

Those costs sound quite reasonable for individual trips. Why should all children miss out because a few parents can't afford a trip? Unless you mean it's a trip every term per child.

I get it's annoying but it goes hand in hand with having 3 children all in education. There will be lots of children who are only kids or have a single sibling.

My friend has 4 children and puts away money for school trips, clubs and uniform per child each year, having an annual trip or class holiday is the norm. How would they reduce costs if hiring a coach, paying entrance fees, staffing ratios etc?

I don’t think £45 is too much for a day in London? That’s kind of what I would expect to pay tbh. The travel is the big one.

secondary school trips are much more expensive but feel much more optional - mine have never done skiing etc but have done MFL & art trips to Spain and France which are usually around £600 for 4 days. I stopped at 2 children though as knew 3 would cost too much!

When dc were in year 6 their residential was £500 for 4 nights, then skiing to Canada in year 11 was £1800 and Greece in year 10 was £1000. These are state schools in deprived areas. Factor in new clothes, specialist clothing, spending money etc and it adds up to a fair chunk of money.

No, it was a different poster who mentioned the Yorkshire coast. If travelling to London from north/east Yorkshire, £45 wouldn't be too shocking. If it's much closer, then it is.

I am in a London school with a high number of pupils with SEN, some very complex. We have many children with little experience of tube and bus travel. But we take public transport from as young as year 1. We just have a really high ratio. It's a no brainer in London, as it's free for school groups.

Yup. Londoners use public transport as it’s free. Getting to the bit where it’s free can be expensive still on public transport.
At secondary, increased ratio would increase costs - due to cover requirements.
Schools are not ripping people off.

Cover requirements is interesting. At our primary, we don't cost for this. We mainly achieve it through parent support (the same lovely parents every time) but also TAs, which isn't as much of an option at secondary I'm sure. But then the standard ratio goes down at secondary level too.

Someone has to teach my other classes when I’m on the trip. That’s where the cost comes.

That's not for the parents to pay for.

So I'm guessing that you have paid for the DBS and trained the parents? That's a cost in itself.
At secondary we have to pay for supply teachers, which as you know are expensive.

It is a cost of the trip. Where do you think it should come from?

YANBU - I feel totally ripped off that our primary school held a 1 hour disco, that cost £10 per child.

Ours doesn't tend to do school trips that last a day. They do residentials and an annual afternoon Christmas Panto.

My children’s primary school disco is usually organised by the PTA rather than the school. That does seem a lot - are drinks and snacks included?

YANBU. £55 for a trip to a theme park. All our son's mates are going so we can't say no, but we also can't really afford it. We can't afford a holiday this year. I really begrudge it. I don't think schools should run these expensive trips. They are not necessary. That's money we can't use to go somewhere as a family.

Why did it cost £10, did they explain?.

It’s hard to please everyone.
Not school but girlguiding. We make clear trips are optional. We try and do a mix of price points.
Cheap trips are often less popular than the expensive ones.
The theme park ones I personally thought were expensive I’ve had parents pleased because the child can go and they are only buying 1 ticket plus coach whereas if went as a family it would be 4 tickets even if parents don’t want to ride.
Coaches have really gone up in price. We did same trip only a few years apart, I was cribbing old info and I think it was £20 dearer due to coach.
Some trips attract subsidies eg houses of parliament education visit you can claim back most of train fare/coach.

Lucky you.

my kids never get any trips. Their school doesn’t do them.

I can understand the cost of secondary trips when factoring in paying for staff.
We are volunteers in Girlguiding and do a Disney Paris trip - by coach/ferry - 2 days in park, 2 nights in hotel and one sleeping on coach. Leaders pay in full for themselves (parents are shocked when we tell them) and as volunteers no pay involved and it’s still £500 a child that’s everything cut to bare bones.

Teachers don’t get paid to accompany trips out of term time or out of normal teaching hours. They rely on volunteers too!

That's the way it's going. The Risk Assessments are getting ever more exacting, parents ever more prone to complaining. It's not worth it.

I believe these trips just like everything else has risen in cost. I don’t think everyone should miss out because there are some people who can’t go for one reason or the other. If you can’t afford it, there’ll be something else for them to do at school so it is what it is. DD has gone on all trips and residential with school and clubs as thankfully, we can afford them. The last netball residential she had was £300 for 2 nights. They gave parents 2 months to pay £50 to secure a space. The spaces were filled up within a day as people paid so I was surprised as it’s not like a rich area or anything like that.
On the other hand, DD2 will be going on any day trips but because of her SEN, she won’t be able to go on any overnight residential, which is also fine, when the time comes, she’ll be in school when others go so not the end of the world if you can’t go for whatever reason, be it cost.

Yes I know they don’t get paid extra but they don’t pay to go on trip out of their own pocket and if teacher is abroad there may be cost of paying for supply to cover classes they’d normally take factored in.
So girlguiding trip is £500 a child but school understandably factors in the above costs and costs £700. Parents don’t always appreciate the difference between set ups.

Yes, but we choose not to pass that on to parents in the form of trip costs. It comes from the core budget.

if it came from core budget, no trips would happen. It used to when I started teaching over 20 years ago. Before the Tory cuts. It’s factor in cover or no trip.

I don't know enough about how secondary schools are run to agree or disagree.

At primary, our school chooses not to pass on cover costs. Teachers generally don't need cover. TAs attend trips and are pulled from classes with high needs pupils who can manage a day without the support, and aren't covered. A small group of parents are DBS checked and attend trips, and the cost of DBS checks is not passed on to parents.

Yes, well as we said, it's completely different in secondary, so we do rely on paid supply staff.