school trips grr.

[devon0000]

Just received a letter about a trip school has organised for next week. As I have 2 dc I will be required to pay £20 for this trip in less than a week.
Sometimes I think school thinks we are made of money.

Our school operates a payment scheme through the office. Could you enquire about this? Also they haven't given you much notice.

Hiring a coach costs us £600.

We are not made of money either...

TBH, it's a nightmare for the teachers. We come up with fantastic ideas for trips, but if they charge an admittance fee then it's basically a 'no' before we've even finished thinking it through.

Coach companies are spoiling our trips. Bah.

£600???

We are really lucky that our school takes the children on the tube or walking for as many trips as possible. My poor SIL pays a fortune for trips.

But juniper less than a weeks notice is unfair, I couldn't find a spare £20 this week and I doubt I'm alone. Our school had similar issues and after a lot of complaints seems to have the notice period for trips etc down, we aim for at least 3 weeks notice and it's working much better.

Granted, a week's notice is unfair. Especially if it's doubled.

Our coaches are nothing fancy. And we're in London, so technically the tube is our oyster. Unfortunately our school had a bad experience (ahem) with the tube, so it's not allowed any more.

Most coach companies say you have to hire them for the day. It's a total pain.

I'm the lady in the office who sends out the letters and we have tried sending out letters anything from three months to one week in advance of a trip. The funny thing is the results are always the same; approx 1/3 parents pay the next day, 1/3 pay by the deadline and the remainder don't pay until they have received numerous texts, letters phone calls etc.

I hired a coach a couple of years ago to take some children and their parents to perform at the theatre. Most quotes came in at around £600-£800. a granparent of one of the kids managed to persuade a local comapny to take us for £500.

It is so expensive.

We just had to hire a coach for a summer grip. It took a lot of haggling and pleadingto get the cost down to £550. Huge rise in cost from last year because diesel prices are so high.

No, the school doesn't think you're made of money. Theydon't make a profit on the trips.

Euphemia-coach hire is extremely cheap where you are. £500-600 is the norm here.

I work for a coach hire company and the normal rate is around £400 - £500 for a day, it may come in slightly cheaper, but the problem is, that if it is used for a school trip, it really is a day hire, because it can't be used for anything else during that time.

The running costs i.e. maintenance, fuel, drivers salary (he is paid when he is waiting around at the venue), all mount up. 30 kids on a coach costing £400 is £13 a head, before you even start to pay for the venue, so £20 is probably about right.

We don't really take on many school trips, because unfortunately we can get a lot of damage and mess (think chewing gum on seats and seatback trays broken!). On one school trip the coach was set fire to - a kid in the toilets, smoking and putting the end in the waste bin! Where are the teachers? All sat at the front and not throughout the coach!

There are companies providing cheap coaches but I would be seriously concerned about any company that charges £100, they must be cost cutting somewhere to do it at that price and it is probably on maintenance. Some old vehicles don't have three point seatbelts, just lap belts, they also are not maintained very well, despite being 'checked', by the Local Authority and on their supplier list.

The coach company isn't spoiling your trips, they are trying to make a living too, just like everyone else!

Hell- are you really suggesting a teacher should be IN THE TOULER CUBICLE with the child? Can just see the thread now!

I don't really see the point of school trips any more. When I was a child, we, like many others, didn't have a car. A school trip was an amazing opportunity to visit someplace we wouldn't have gone to otherwise. I can remember everyone so excited about going to a REAL farm in primary school! Nowadays children have access to all this without school trips so it should be up to their parents to take them.

I get sick of paying £12-25 for the school to take the dkids to places they've already been to, or on activities they've already done for half the cost.

And wait til you get the residential ones! Dd came home with a letter about a trip to Paris,. Two or three months to find £235 for 3 nights in Paris. For that princely sum they are going HALFWAY up the eiffel tower and to the Asterix parc. She isn't going. It's supposed to be part of the French curriculum, but she spent 3 weeks in France last year, including Paris. And we spent that much on accommodation for a week for 6 of us in Paris! It's just cost prohibitive, and fairly pointless!

Considering some of the things that have happened on dd's school bus, a teacher sitting where they can supervise the children rather than at the front of the bus would be more sensible! Recently one girl got smashed in the face with the metal litter bin.

Kt is hardly suggesting the teacher be IN the toilet.

Fairyliz it isn't about when the parents pay the school, there will always be issues with some parents not paying. It's about the extra stress and hardship being placed on families when payments are expected with little notice. We are on a limited income and it takes effort to find the money for trips, photos etc, with a few weeks notice I can cut back in some places to afford them with less than a week thats not possible.

devon0000

I hear you! We also seem to have a stream of requests for donations for trips and they always seem to arrive at the wrong time (end of month being a classic).

Fairyliz suggests something quite similar to what seems to occur at our school. I think it's the logistics of organising getting the monies off parents that actually is the nightmare, not the trips. We are also aware here that several parents just never pay - not the free meal parents, they know something is arranged and I think that's handled well. It's definitely parents that don't qualify for free meals - some seem to do it out of anger re: free meal kids going for free and some seem to do it because they're just completely unwilling to contribute, even though they've got all the channels on sky, the i-phone, the i-pad and the big car.

As a parent who pays promptly 2 things bother me:

1. we're told the price and sometimes find out later it was cheaper (told ticket prices for a play were £11.50 and the ticket stub brought home by my DDs was clearly £9.50 - so kind of wondering where that profit went? We quite clearly also paid for insurance and travel - so this wasn't just a one-off price for everything: total paid was £15. I work out the profit on that trip to be roughly at £400 - I suppose that halves the price of a 2 bus trips somewhere down the road (presuming the school is ethical about this profit). That is unless we who were paying were subsidising those who could't afford to (FSM - but I think that's covered by LEA) or those who won't pay.

2. schools don't seem to be taking advantage of going to places that are free, but might require a bit of homework on the part of the teacher. So for example there are a number of great walking areas around us, absolutely free of charge to go to. Archaeological sites, great views, wildlife (birds, plants, animals, etc...) all sorts to do - good opportunity at orienteering/ good opportunity at putting some forest skills or teamwork skills to practice - but our school endlessly goes for trips where the venue has a guide pre-arranged. I understand that 'teachers don't have the time' - but I do begin to wonder why they don't consider these cheaper options and put the homework in (once done, the trip can be dusted down and rolled out again, year after year (maybe just revised/ freshened up).

Although I moan about the expense, I know my kids love these trips and enjoy non-school based learning. So, as long as we can afford it, we continue to support this - but I think it is important to keep the pressure up about the educational value of these trips. It's important that this isn't the school ticking that box 'x many trips for year 2', etc.... without considering the quality of the experience for the students and the cost for the parents/ carers.

I think you make some huge generalizations in your post Past and I am not entirely sure how you know it is the parents with all the channels on sky, the i-phone, the i-pad and the big car who don't pay.

Certainly the school my children attend makes good use of free learning experiences and having been on trips with my dcs I can see how much effort is put in by the staff. They have also used public transport as well as coaches for outings.

Trips at my dcs school have never been more than £5 (usually between £3 and £4) and approx 2 weeks notice. I think there will always be some parents who can't or won't pay but the school covers it anyway and I don't feel that those who pay are subsidizing those who don't pay.

Guess its just bad timing. Finances are really tight this month and an extra £20 just before payday pretty much wipes us out.

Too late for this trip but maybe you could speak to the school about payment generally.

My friend pays a direct debit of £x a month to the school and all trips are paid from that. Seems sensible.

I know some schools use parentpay.

AFAIK schools cannot legally charge for school trips they can only ask for a 'voluntary contribution'.

As another 'person who works in the school office' we usually average about 90% of parents paying the voluntary contribution, about 5% who will pay some of it and another 5% who pay nothing.

When costing a trip we take into account travel (e.g. I booked a coach this week - 57 seater for a 15 mile return trip which was £150, so quite reasonable compared to some of the prices quoted above!) and admission fees (if any). If this works out expensive per child we subsidise from school fund so we can keep costs down for parents - we NEVER make a profit!

OP - I would go into the office and offer to pay so much this week, so much next, so much the week after. I'd be very suprised if school HAD to have payment upfront before the actual trip - we often don't get invoiced by coach companies until weeks after the event. I know our Head is delighted when parents offer to pay a bit at a time if they can't pull out the full amount at once rather than just not pay at all. Even those children whose parents don't pay still go on the trip - we would never leave anyone out. I know that can be a bone of contention with some parents but it is priced for the whole class and school picks up the bill for the non payers, not the 'paying' parents.

I should add that if everyone did that (offering to pay bit by bit) it might not be too well recieved but for people who are genuinely finding it difficult (especially for families with more than one child going) it should be perfectly acceptable (or it would be at our school).

I thought the school were not allowed to add a little to the bill to make up the deficit from non paying parents.

I would have thought so missnevermind I'd be very suprised at a school that did.

Our voluntary contributions tend to be an amount towards the cost of the trip - rather than paying outright per child - if the trip came to £10 per head we would probably ask for £8 and pay the rest from school fund.