Year 6 residential costs

[KingoftheNorth1]

Would anyone be willing to share how much their schools charged last year / are charging this year for school residential trips. Particularly keen to hear what people had to pay for Year 6 activity type weeks.

Totally get that costs have sky rocketed, plus insurance is likely very steep so, so please don't get me wrong, I'm not unrealistic, but just trying to work out if the almost £850 we have been asked to fork out is fair/representative! Haven't been through the process before so don't have any particular frame of reference.
TIA to anyone happy to divulge!

£400 for four nights including transport (approx 200 miles away).

When did these sort of trips become the norm in UK primary schools as they weren’t a thing when I was a kid?

I attended a 1 week residential in Derbyshire when I was at FE college in my late teens and left after 3 days as I hated it, so I can’t imagine enjoying it when I was about 11. 😱

£550, 4 nights, in Norfolk from London borders.

Ours was last year but it was just under 400 for 3 nights.
I send my child to PGL in the summer, nothing to do with school, we book it direct for summer holidays and its about 800 full price for a week but you can get it for about 450 when they have the sale on. Thats a full week PGL in th3 middle of summer holidays.
My child said the school PGL was rubbish in comparison, they didnt do half the good activities on the school one.

I'm shocked at some of these prices.
We just had one to London, 3 days, travel on a train from the North East, musical, hard rock cafe meal, river cruise, houses of Parliament tour, London Eye, it was £250.

We paid £144 this year for 3 days/2 nights. Inner London primary school going to an activity centre a couple of hours away. A lot of these quoted prices seem incredibly high - if our school charged £850 the trip simply wouldn’t run, as 99% of parents wouldn’t be able to afford it.

£300 for three days / two nights at an activity centre in Yorkshire, including all travel (it’s about an hour away). I think there is help available if you’re eligible for free school meals.

The cost has been subsidised by the PTA, so the actual cost would be higher, but surely not £850!

I think it’s £290 for a place up the road. Two nights.

I organise our Yr 6 residential, the cost for some places is extortiant and cost of coach hire is eye watering. We're in a fairly deprived area with over 40% free school meals families so we try and keep the costs down as much as possible, last year we went camping at a cost of £125 for 2 nights with coach hire £850 within the same county.

£629 - leaving Sunday night, returning Friday. Sunday is an overnight journey to France with children sleeping on the coach. £100 subsidy per child from school, £529 cost to parents.

Wow, that seems very steep. It was 3 years ago for DS but cost £330 I think. 4 nights in a big house in wales (inc all food and activities like canyoning and 2.5 or so hours coach journey).

West mids - ours was £375 for 3 nights at the pioneer centre , cleobury Mortimer

Yes that seems very expensive. Ours is £400 for Mon-Fri for sole use of a youth hostel in Wales (we are in SE England), fully catered, 5 days worth of activities, travel there and back and around Wales. The teacher did say they hired a welsh coach company to come to us and take them there as that is cheaper than the local ones.

I went in the 90s!

£160 3 days, 2 nights.

My daughter is in college and off to Disneyland in Jan, and that's only £650 and she's there for 4 nights!

£90 for Y4 trip which was 1 night and two full days of activities. £850 for a UK trip seems extremely high

Last week, just shy of £300 for Mon-Fri outdoor adventure trip in Snowdonia (from London). Kids on free school meals paid half that. At least 5 families paid nothing at all.

£260 a year ago. Although costs are high this year for my younger child's 2 nights away is almost this.

£850 is crazy

It absolutely IS a rite of passage, please talk to the school and ask whether there's any way this can be done in instalments. There's not many things I would suggest going into debt for when it comes to buying things for kids, but this is one thing that will honestly set them so far apart from their classmates if they were the only one not to go. I would beg, borrow and steal to be able to find the money for this.

We have this as an agenda item at our GB tomorrow... we have two trips that involve overnight stays for Yrs 5 & 6, so I will check out the costs and report back. However, I know our costs are well below other local schools as we did a recent benchmarking exercise, but I also know that we often pay for families who cannot afford it... we are an inner city school, so money for parents is often stretched.

@KingoftheNorth1that is outrageous for four nights in Norfolk. Please ask the school for a breakdown so you are able to see why it’s so expensive. Personally I would be putting in a complaint about a residential trip that is that expensive with no justification. The year 6 trip is a right of passage, I agree. Charging nearly £900 for a UK-based trip means that is likely to be inaccessible to many. Not on, at all.

I remember when my DC were in Year 6 back in 2007 and a trip to the Isle of Wight cost £280 for 4 nights!

I’m in secondary education and we do run residentials for the KS3 cohorts - costs for the ones in 2026 are ranging from £450 - £700 - it helps that we go to the centres quite often and have a discount.

We do have a SKI trip that is open to the whole school in the winter and that costs £1200 per child - 10 day trip - includes coach travel to airport, flights, accommodation, insurance, food and activities for the trip.

We provisionally book these trips 18 months in advance so parents have plenty of time to save for it.

Some parents think that schools make a profit from the trips but they really don’t.

Monday to Wednesday at a waterspouts activity place with dorm like rooms. Adults also go there for team building. It was £175 2 years ago, then £200 the following year.

£350 for two nights. I have twins so I'm a bit annoyed it's so much . We would never spend £700 on a two night break for the 4 of us

Wow that’s a lot!

we paid about £400 for year 6 which was pgl type thing 4 nights.

we recently paid £900 but that was a secondary school trip abroad including 4hour flight!

I don’t think you’ll be the only one questioning it OP