School trip costing £640 & only 50 places for 420 eligible. Reasonable?

[iloverhubarb]

My DD's school plans a week's trip to Spain next year, focus is watersports, abseiling etc. For year 7 and 8, so potentially 420 pupils, only 50 places.

I have two concerns, and really want to know if I am being over the top or reasonable in planning to write to the school about them:

1. Cost, will exclude many, becomes exclusive experience for small number of girls whose parents are able to afford a top of the range hol for them. Surely focus should be on selecting children who unlikely to get this opportunity otherwise - or at least making sure they can take part somehow. Why are they not using a UK activity based youth hostel?

1. Allocation of places on first come first served is clearly mad. Letters went out yesterday, almost all places gone this morning? Huh? (clearly money not an issue for some!) Luckily DD accepts we can't afford, so this process not an issue for us. Just weird. The olympics application process looks sensible in comparison. Hysteria on the roads outside school this am!

My main issue is that I think school trips should have an educational or social purpose, and should be accessible to the majority. Any teachers out there who know whether there is a national requirement for a state school in terms of strategy/purpose of school trips, or would this be up to individual school? Is this just a freebie/perk for a few PE teachers!!

thanks for any thoughts

Great wall of China???!! for a school trip?

madness

I know transferbalance! Where are they going to go when on their gap years?

the school my children attend run a number of very expensive trips like this and I don't really understand why. I have given my children the choice of going but they don't wish to go as their friends often cannot afford to go. I'm sure it is a bonding experience for a few of the children who have only rich friends. Perhaps an occasional child goes alone and learns that they can have fun without their usual friends. However there are plenty of places offering activity holidays if I wish to send my children off on their own.

It seems to me just a way of reinforcing class differences. I am glad my children don't opt to go, I haven't cared enough about it to complain to the school.

I think there is a trend in schools to offer more exotic and expensive trips, almost as a marketing aid for the school. DS's school offered a madly expensive trip to the US, purely social. It was sold as a trip of a lifetime which it wasn't. The children (and it's aimed at 11 & 12 year olds) believed it was essential due to the marketing hype at the school. I suspect some travel companies are doing well out of schools, it's a healthy revenue stream for them and isn't as cost sensitive as the wider holiday market as parents often prioritise these school trips to the detriment of family holidays. I feel family holidays offer greater benefits (& memories) to families rather than a giant sleepover opportunity for teens.

I'm disappointed when schools give in to the pressure for expensive social school trips - hey, why not allow IT companies to offer 'good' deals to students on high end technology

I've really enjoyed reading the variety of opinion here. I am going to write to the school, but not to complain specifically, more to ask for info on school policy with regard to trips and how trips fit into school's wider remit.

Meant to add, I agree with you houseproject, I think travel companies are now involved in these more expensive school trips. Generally a holiday rather than something educational or socially beneficial to the wider school community.

We are definitely prioritising a family holiday over this trip, but that's a personal choice. I do object though to all the hype and hysteria generated in girls of 12 and 13! My letter to school includes suggestion for lottery not first come first served.

Education is about opening minds and new horizons, what better way to do that than to travel.

As a teacher I could not afford to pay for all of us to go to Africa or China. I would happily pay for my daughter to go with school, I hope it inspires a love of travel that will stay with her for the rest of her life.

While I agree that travel can (though doesnt guarantee) broadening the mind it doesnt mean that the school has to lay this on.

Too many schools are seduced by these trips. I dont know what they get in return (probably very little) but they shouldnt sell their souls quite so cheaply.

if schools wished to open minds they would invite different people to talk to the students about their culture. You can learn far more about another culture by talking to people from it then you will learn on a school trip skiing or scuba diving. To live in another culture broadens the mind but to visit it for a week or two on a holiday where you spend most of your time with people from your own culture does very little. On these trips the reinforcement of class divisions closes minds rather than opens them.

I'm still with twinkly pearls.

Some people are sounding really closed minded about travel in general. Having someone come to talk at school is generally boring (from what I remember). Experiencing the sights and sounds of another culture isn't.

The world is a massive place, so even if they go to the great wall of china with school, there are still a zillion places to travel to during a gap year.

Us grubby sarflondon kids managed to experience another culture just with a week of outdoor activities in the Mull ofkintyre. It cost £100, some of this subsidised kids on free meals so everyone could go, and it inspired a love of Scotland and hillwalking.

It's the ££££, that much for a school trip for one child?

I would love to go to the great wall of China, but it ain't going to happen

It's not about being "closd minded", it's about affordability. You don't need to go to an exotic place to experience another culture. Go to London.

actually thinkingt about it, I couldn't afford the sixth form skiing trip so opted for the coast to coast walk instead and I loved it. I think my school offered trips at different levels of cost (although that was never spelled out to the children)

I'm never sure about these kinds of trips because I feel they are inherently unfair. I was one of those kids who could never go on them as I was 1 of 4 and no way parents could afford it. Yes it gives kids an opportunity to socialise, travel & learn a new skill but only those who can afford it! There are cheaper ways to organise these kinds of trips and I finally did learn outdoor skills, camping etc at summer camp organised at a fraction of the cost of the fancy school trips. Schools should offer a range of activities if they are doing them so that the opportunities are spread wider. I also agree that 1st come 1st served is the wrong way to do it.... My poor son , would be the victim of his parents disorganisation and my disability - bad days I don't function well

I suspect most schools do offer a range of trips. I think people have made a good point about a lottery system.

No matter how cheap the trip is, the school is still limited as to who they can take by practicalities.......there are only so many children you can take away.

Stop press: the school has written to all parents to say that a lottery system will be used to REallocate all places at end of next week. I think they have been inundated with complaints after 47 of 52 places were taken on the day the letter went out! Mostly due to children ringing home that day to alert parents (mobile phone use forbidden during school day). Good letter and good decision.

That is good to hear.

some people have very closed minds about the so-called advantages of travel - although travel and this sort of tourist holiday are rather different concepts. Agree with the comments about culture differences in the UK, if you live in London you can experience many different cultures.

I think the problem with the sort of trip described by the OP is that it isnt a cutural trip, it is an activity trip. I think it is very similar to one run by PGL. In which case the cultural element of it will be strictly limited.

To be honest I have my doubts that school students get a lot out of fabulous trips to the back end of beyond or wherever. On the whole, they arent mature enough, they arent experienced enough. I think there is a danger of school students becoming very jaded by such travel experiences. Seen everywhere but appreciated very little!

Iloverhubarb...is it Cgs?

deaddei - I don't want to identify the specific school as these high cost trips are offered by many schools and I'm most interested in getting a debate going. The range of views here has changed my views to an extent, and I've been able to write a good, considered letter - not a complaint letter - to this particular school as a result.

Gnomedeplume interesting post. My son is a lover of ancient Greece, Romans and Egyptians. I heard him once say to someone - who had visited Pompeii - that it was somewhere he wants to visit one day. I later suggested it as a part of a summer holiday and he surprised me by saying no. He does want to go there one day but he is also scared of losing all the images he has built for himself. He wants to go when he is older.

We have visited a lot of places but you rarely see the real culture, so it's easy to leave an exotic country with a remarkable history thinking it's now all beaches and Hilton hotels.

Kez100 - that is a very interesting response by your son. I think there is an awful lot of sense in what your son has said.

The problem with school trips is that they are school trips. The trip is timetabled and is a series of sanitised and prescribed 'experiences'. How much atmosphere is absorbed if your class has essentially been transferred to another location?

If your son would like to see Roman ruins but keep Pompei for later have you taken him to the miriad of sites in southern France? Arles, Orange, Glanum, Nimes, Pont du Gard all have great examples of Roman buildings which could whet your son's appetite.