Am I being unreasonable about price of school trip ?

[poppy1973]

I had a letter home recently about the cost of trip for the Summer.

2 nights away to London combined with another school for £250.

I honestly thought that the school was having a laugh at this price. Is this the normal price. My dh mentioned that he knows of a school that take children away for a whole week to Cornwall for £300.

I must add that this 2 night trip away isn't for educational purposes. Nothing to do with a topic. Is this the norm ???

Any advice ?

Very normal, sorry!! It is primary or secondary and have the offered payment by instalments? At least they've given you plenty of warning. If it's secondary make sure you know now many places there are as trips round here often only have 40ish spaces for a year group of 180 so you have to reply quickly if you want your child to go.

Not sure what advice you are looking for. Yes it sounds expensive but London is. If you can't afford it I guess you'll have to say No. Sorry that sounds harsh but I don't know what you're expecting.

That sounds expensive, I think our 5 night trips were £300 ish, and included a coach for the week. London is expensive, and seems too much at that price.

Does that include travel, food and all activities? If so then I think it's a reasonable price.

Hi Sirzy, yes I think so. I don't think there are any other costs.

My son is doing two days away this term, one night away. Visiting exhibits relevant to their topic, sleeping somewhere 'topical' (without wishing to give too much away), seeing a musical and being fed and watered for two days. Adds up to £170. So it's the same kind of ball park.

Thanks for the information about that Contraryish. I think I will find out what the trip includes before I decide to let my children go.

Where are they travelling from? Seems reasonable though - London is expensive anyway, and the reason a 'week' in Cornwall is not much more is because it'll only be a 4 night week, not 7 and because they wiill be going to a dedicated adventure-type place who pretty exclusively deal with schools/school children and so charges accordingly. As far as I'm aware there isn't somewhere like that in London, so they will have to pay 'public' rates for places.

Not unusual. Not cheap, but cheaper per night than a trip we were asked to pay for last year. Said trip is constantly under review due to the high cost and yet every year only a handful of pupils don't go. The school will have priced the trip based on expected numbers given uptake on previous years, so in our case over 90%. This year, between the school and other groups (guides etc) we're already looking at a total of 5 residential trips between the 2 oldest dcs, 15 nights in total and almost certainly upwards of £1000. While many of these trips are amazing experiences for the dc, they are seldom cheap. It will probably be the same if not more every year from here on in.

We've had to stop our London trip because of increased prices. The cheapest accommodation we can find is around £40 a night. This is because the accommodation has to be suitable for school children-we can't just shove them in a Travelodge for a few nights! Coach travel is horrendous, we pay anywhere between £400 and £600 for a day trip and a residential obviously involves two-although train travel can be cheaper if less convenient! It all adds up!

Sounds about right especially if it includes say show tickets and entry to attractions, meals etc.

I have a £400 bill for London (not sure how long) London eye, theatre, some choir stuff. Seems an awful lot, but it coasts money to breath in London.

Yes that sounds about right. School trips can be very ££££, and it doesn't always make sense regarding where and how long they are going for.

We've just paid that for a Tuesday morn until Wed eve trip for DD in October Half term. It includes a theatre trip and something at Pineapple dance studio.
Somewhat irksome that up to last year we lived in London about 20 minutes from these things!

Next year's German exchange is £300, and the Ski Trip is £785 so yes, London is very expensive compared. Luckily, dd doesn't want to go on these.

That sounds about right, we did a night in London recently and it cost that for the train and hotel alone. Activities were easily more than double.

poppy how on earth can you decide if it's too expensive if you don't know what it includes?

London is one of the most expensive cities in the world.

You need to find out what's included, travel, food, accommodation, Oyster cards, attractions - tot this all up and I'm sure it won't be a million miles off £250

We paid £90 recently for school trip one night in London, included tea and breakfast.

Look at this guidance. It tells you what schools can & can't charge you for. If you really want your child to go but can't afford it, work out what the cost would be using the guide & offer them that amount

Our school is charging £100 for a two night residential in London - I pay vastly more than that when ds and I go to London in the hols. However, I think the cost has been subsidised by the PTA, to try and make it affordable to all. We can pay in weekly instalments and have known about the cost for at least 6 months.

£250 for 2 nights does sound like a lot, even for London, but I guess it depends on what they'll be doing. A West End show will obviously bump the price up for example.

DS is going for a 3 night PGL "PE" trip in the summer....for £100. I was surprised it was so cheap...but then DS1 had just asked if he could go to Costa Rica for £3,400 (plus extra if they wanted to do leisure activities such as white water rafting). Having researched, I decided it actually wasn't good value for money, so he won't be going. The PE trip does sound very good value for money, however...especially when you look at the price of going somewhere like Go Ape.

We're going to London in Feb with school and it's costing £450 for 3 nights! That's because we're a LONG way from London, we're seeing 3 west end shows, London eye, river cruise, stage combat workshop, Harry potter studios, etc. Basically, if tourists might want to do it in London we're going to try and fit it into the 4 days we're there. And we provide food except lunch on the coach down. When I tried to do a similar trip with dd1 we couldn't get anywhere near as much on the same budget.

We got a bill for not much less than £300 for a three nighter in the next county.
Bloody ridiculous.