Not impressed by cost or appropriatness of school trip.

[FuriousGeorge]

DD1,who is 4,came home with a letter,informing us about a school trip to a nearby agricultural college 'to see the lambs'.The college is about 3 miles away & we are being asked to pay £6 for her to go.

I and a lot of the other mothers,think it is exspensive for just over 2 hours and such a short distance.We also don't think it is a very appropriate trip for the type of school it is.We are in a very rural,still very agricultural area,where any child can look out of the school windows & see sheep & lambs.A high proportion of the children are from farming families and are currently involved in lambing themselves,so we are a bit annoyed at being charged £6 for something that most of the children can see every day,for nothing & probably won't be that excited by.

We have spoken to the teacher who has arranged it all & had a letter explaining why it costs so much (health & safety) & that if we don't want our children to go,to let her know. No one has said what the children who don't go will be doing instead though.

I feel in a quandry now.DD1 hasn't beeen on any type of school trip before & will probably want to go,so I'd feel horribly mean,not letting her go,but at the same time,I feel it is a bit of a pointless trip.If it was to a city,temple or a museum, something that she wasn't exposed to every day,I'd be perfectly happy for her to go.She spent yesterday afternoon down on our farm in the lambing pens with us,so it isn't going to be anything new for her,or most of her classmates,for that matter.

I don't expect any responses,but just wanted to get it out of my system.I've got to decide whether she goes or not,by tomorrow.

Coaches are ridiculously expensive in the country. We are lucky to live in such beautiful places but we lose out culturally and economically in so many ways (also on secondary transfer when distance from school is a deciding factor but that's between me and my MP for now... ).
Our kids never go on the bus. We drive them everywhere. That's a big treat for my youngest. I'd pay up knowing that dd would have fun on a big adventure.

Thanks everyone.I've written a letter putting my points across & suggesting that a trip to a different environment may be more educational than one they see every day.I will let her go though,as she will be disappointed if not.

DH is manager of a big educational tourist attraction & several months back,told dd's teacher that he could arrange for the whole class to visit free of charge if they'd like.When the time comes,it will be interesting to see how much we are charged for the bus trip there.

FG - we thought the same about our DD's trip to the famous gardens around our local cathedral - done with the nursery age children before going into reception. She can see them any day and they are free to visit.

However she loved going on the bus, having a picnic and playing on the slides, swings etc with her friends.

Yes she does it with us and yes it was very familiar but it was still exciting as an experience with mates.

Also if she is an expert on the subject she can get to lead the class with questions etc and she'll be ultra confident. Also if it is a college maybe she'll get enthused about wanting to do something like that when she is a "big girl".

School trips these days are often to very local places that all the kids have been to umpteen times before - BECAUSE the coach and insurance costs so much.

BUT - as other posters have said, school trips are about the day out. Of all my primary school trips, I can remember absolutely nothing educational, but I can remember who was sick, when one teacher had to get off to go to the loo behind a bush, when a coach broke down, all the singing...

Dd has just been on her first school trip and she came home raving about the coach trip. In fact ever since her toys have been lining up getting on shoebox coaches. To me that was £5 well spent.

Furious George, this may not apply at your dd's school but an ex-headmaster, local to me, told me a salutary tale.

He was the head of a primary school in an area of town with some degree of social deprivation.

They used to organise a trip to the seaside/beach once a year for each year group. Quite a few of the children had never been to the beach or seen the sea.

This is a coastal town

Just wait for the £1,500 10 days to California that will come in secondary school.

It's nice for those poor primary schoolers to have some fun once in a while and £6 isn't exactly a lot of money.

I don't think it is a particularly good attitude to be passing on to your dd, "oh I know all there is to know about xyz so there's no point in me going" She will have fun with friends.

It is more for the experience than anything. When you go on a school trip you feel like you are having a day off school & just going out with your friends.

I paid $12 for dd to go on a trip to a guinea pig sanctuary...she got to hold baby pigs, feed them, clean the cages..

We have 3 in the garden & she has grown up with them all her life & held babies too.....

Was more for her to have the experience of how to behave out of school in a large group & have a bit of fun with her friends.

last year dd had a vist that cost £12 for a visit to a free nature reserve, about 6 miles from us.

Goodness knows why it cost so much - um , i mean why the voluntary contribution cost so much

To the OP - I quite understand your point, lambing is part of your DD's every day life. You would like school to open her up to experiences beyond those afforded her in her daily life at home.

Why don't you get back to the teacher and point this out to her? Tell her that you would be much more supportive of a school trip that showed your DD something that you can't.

It is the cost of coaches. They are very, very expensive. And schools don't have the budget to cover this sort of thing.

I know that schools often have minibuses, but these are obviously not practical for larger numbers of students

My brother runs a weeks course to Anglesea for his sixth form students so they can do their coursework, for many of them it is the only time that they have been to the seaside. Many of them have told him that they will probably never go again .

Last year when one of our sheep had her first lamb dd was excited & told the teacher & all the class!

I got a note home asking if dh would bring the lamb in as they were doing about spring & stuff.

We got a big box & some straw & took the lamb in the next day! The teacher had a camera & took photographs of the children petting the lamb

They are still on display in the main hall!

My dd (4.5) went on a school trip to buy bread and jam at the local shops - she loved it

Didn't cost us anything. But even if they'd charged a £1 I'd pay because it's just a different way of learning from me dragging her to Tescos.

Mind you we are being charged £6 for an animal encounter (stroking a few manky guinea pigs) next week.

furiousgeorge - I don't think it's that inappropriate. I don't suppose they are just going to 'see the lambs' - I would guess there will be some educational element to it. More appropriate in a rural setting perhaps where some are involved in farming so still an important industry, but where many more are not and may well have no concept of farming.

But I think that £6 is quite a lot. DD#'s class went to the rural life museum a few years ago and it cost £7. Museum entrance was free. We are told that we are supposed to provide our own insurance for school trips. Does it really cost that to transport a child less than 10 miles? School trips if my memory serves, suddenly started to get much more pricey a few years ago - before that nothing cost more than a £5. Now nothing seems to be less than £10 - no matter how minor.

And FWIW I'd let her go. She will enjoy it. Regardless of the main purpose of the trip.

I suspect the £6, as everyone else has said, is for the coach. Coaches are sooo expensive...infact 99% of the trip money will be used to pay for the coach - crazy. SO just because a place is free doesn't mean the trip will be. The school does not make money on these trips.

Ormirian, do they still do the trip to the Bear factory shop? Ds1's reception class went to Cribbs, saw a bear ebing amde in the shop, received a leaflet advertising aprties there and then went to a park for a picnic and home. Complete bollocks idea for a trip BUT did go along, and they learned a lot about not getting over excited and behaving safely in a very public place etc- just as much value as the rest I would think!.

Stilla crap trip though- to a teddy bear shop!

Gawd no! 30 kids at Cribbs Causeway What a seriously awful idea! Ours are all painfully worthy - museums and the like. DS#2's class went to the sorting office to have a look and frank and post their Mother's Day cards. Not exactly thrilling but they enjoyed it and it cost nowt.

When dd was in second year of nursery school ie. 3.5 - 4.5 yo's they went on a class train ride. They loved it

Sounds like thats improved then LOL! And it was both clases, so 60 at cribbs

60! It makes me want to weep just thinking of it. I hate the place anyway and my DCs would hate it even more - teddy bears or no teddy bears.

Thankyou all.I handed the letter in today,as did several other mothers.All of us made the same point about rural children benefiting more by seeing urban things that they don't get to experience very often.50% of the class concerned live on farms or have a farming family.

wildwoman,I haven't mentioned the trip at all to dd,so she won't have any sort of 'attitude'regarding it.If she and the others do comment about what they see,it will be because they DO know about it,not because of what their parents have said.

for those who live by the coast & have never seen the sea.When I was a teenager,we had a talk about inner city children who had never seen a cow before.I just couldn't believe it at the time,but do now.

Sorry FG I didn't mean "attitude" as in she would strut around like a mini diva, I just meant that she may learn something from the trip regardless of her agricultural background.