Can't afford Dd's very expensive school trip

[Wario54]

My DD is 15 and in year 10 at the moment. We live a deprived part of the North of England. She goes to a local, state comprehensive

My DH has had his hours reduced at work in recent months. I work part time in retail (can't get anymore hours unfortunately - I have asked). Like a lot of families, we're financially struggling to keep our heads above water. But we get by (somehow) and I never take the little things for granted (that we have each other, food on the table and a roof over our heads). We've not told our kids about our financial worries - they know there isn't much spare money but not about the extent of our problems.

Dd has come home tonight with a letter and great excitement about another school trip. They had a guest speaker today (external travel company) in assembly today enthusing them about a trip to Borneo of all places. It's 4 weeks long and the cost is £6,500. Currently planned for June/July 2027 (just after her GCSE'S). They are expected to fundraise some of the cost themselves (bake sales, sponsored walks etc) but we will have to pay the majority if she's to go.

She said today that she'll get a Saturday job to cover some of the cost herself. But even with that, taken into account we just can't afford it. It breaks my heart, because I'd love to give her that opportunity but I know we simply can't.

She's full of excitement about trekking through the jungle and cuddling Orangutans. But how do I tell her when she's already set her heart on it? 😢

I just think the school are being completely ridiculous by offering such an expensive trip in a cost of living crisis.

Absolutely -

We don’t particularly have money worries
but when our school had £3000 trips my kids were just told in no uncertain terms
they weren’t going.

4w and £6.5k and you say you live in a poor area v like south east

insane

Wow that is a huge sum of money. I would be horrified if my dd came home excited for this. My heart goes out to you xxx

Oh my god!! We live abroad OP and I’d say we aren’t struggling but there is NO WAY in fuck we could afford that or would want to! I wouldn’t want my child going to Borneo tbh. This is insane!! What absolute cruel fuckers they are to do this to the kids and the parents. That is way more than I’d want to spend on a full family holiday let alone a planned for school excursion where she will have to do what’s planned for and Borneo isn’t safe enough for me to want my child going without me, especially at her age. Sorry you have to be the bearer of bad news OP, it’s truly shitty. Surely no parents are going in for this madness??

Because it’s that easy? And if op had an extra £7k I’m sure there’s a lot they’d rather spend it on than this. This is full family holiday abroad for 2 weeks money.

If there is a will, there is a way.

Or you could just say that’s too difficult and I tried and it didn’t work 🤷‍♀️

Fuck me that's mental. I work in an independent school in the south east. Most expensive trip we have is just under 3k. I'm not saying that's cheap but in comparison...!!

OP, my DD is a few years out of school now (and is a teacher herself) but we had a similar situation with World Challenge coming in and giving the big talk and slideshow and trying to get kids to sign up for a trip to Morocco. It was nowhere near £6.5k and tbh we could comfortably afforded for her to go, but it was a hard No. Several parents got together and submitted a complaint to the school, that trip didn’t go ahead and they were never invited back to peddle their wares again. Your DD is more than old enough to understand that that’s an obscene amount of money to spend on a jolly for a teenager. Time for a chat and a dose of reality.

I am lucky that my DH and I earn well. I would not pay that.

Being fair to the DD she's probably latched onto the fund raising bit, thinking a few bake sales and a couple of sponsored events will do it.
But as a child probably no real idea of how hard that actually is.

Even some adults on here don't get it either. I remember a thread where a poster had spent £10 on stuff for cakes. Cakes were donated for an event, the event organisers proceeded to sell them for less than the tenner they'd cost to make.
Op felt it was a waste of time and effort she should just have donated the tenner.
So many posters couldn't see that, they could only see the event got them for nothing so anything they got back was pure profit.

were you born this tone deaf or did you buy special ear plugs?

Don’t think you would have to go into too much detail about your finances to explain to your DD that you can’t afford to help pay for that trip. Very few families could afford that for one person in the family to go on holiday. And if they have more than one child there would be the assumption that they would get something similar at some point

My son is going on one of those outsourced company school trips - supposedly educational and gets them college credits and counts towards Duke of edinborough (which is completely different over here in the states). He’s doing Greece for 10 days and it cost double what our honeymoon to Greece for two weeks cost! It’s crippling us making the payments as we only got a year to pay it off.

I'm sorry but I've put three children through college in the US from three different private prep schools and I can guarantee you that this trip will make no difference at all to his college acceptances - no way at all. If you can bail on this one and get your money back please please do.

Also there is no Duke of Edinburgh in the US or anything that could be regarded as remotely equivalent.

Surely not that many parents will be able to afford this ridiculously expensive trip? It is more than many would spend on their annual summer holiday for the family. I'm sure to some people it's affordable and lucky them but it's very wrong for the school to allow this sort of nonsense spiel. How are the kids supposed to raise money like that with a cake sale and a minimum wage part-time job, even supposing they could get one, which is doubtful these days.

I went on one of these trips around 10 years ago. It was for 3 months and it cost £2000. I was supposed to fundraise it all.

In reality I fundraised around £500, my mum paid £500, and I paid £1000 myself out of my savings. I was in university at the time so 19 and had been working weekends / holidays since I was 15 so had savings.

It was a fantastic experience, and I'm glad I went. But if it was £6500, there is NO WAY I would have ever entertained going.

Only a handful will likely go on this trip

You could have a family holiday for that. I would talk to other parents and if they agree speak to the Head and explain that it is unfair to get children excited about something not many can afford. Perhaps the Head is overpaid and thinks everyone else is too.!

According to others on this thread , the teachers who nominate themselves do not have to pay to go, it is a freebie holiday . Aside from being responsible for the kids who go.

Sounds like he’s been scammed then from what I’m reading on here about this racket !

My eldest DD did one last year with Camps International to Costa Rica, although slightly cheaper.
We were lucky in that she paid some with inheritance etc. It was an amazing experience for her.
However, the school did a presentation out of school hours and you only went along if you were interested. This seems a much more sensible way of doing it. I would definitely have a word with the school OP.

I think, the school needs to cancel this trip. There seems to be a lot of information about the fact these trips don't actually help the people in different countries very much. Reasonable places and reasonable costs are needed. I doubt many parents would be happy.

World challenge? They have just been in the DS school promoting a Morocco trip. It wasn’t £6.5k - more like £3k for 2 weeks. It isn’t going ahead due to numbers. They needed 12 to sign up and didn’t get them. This is a school where parents routinely pay £1800 for a week ski trip which runs at capacity every year.
People just didn’t fancy the Morocco thing. A week trekkkng in North Africa in July?! DS didn’t want to go…