expensive school trips - worth it?

[gramercy]

Ds has just bought home a school trip form. It's a history trip and the cost is ... £980 for 5 days!!!!!

On this occasion the answer is no. But some of his friends are going and ds looked a bit crestfallen. (Although it says if you are on a low income you may qualify to go.. grrrrr... but that's another thread.)

Anyway, I have said that if any more expensive (but less expensive than £980!) GCSE trips come up, I will not dismiss them out of hand.

So, what trips have you considered worthwhile and are they that beneficial?

He goes on 18th June Piste. Watch out for my stressy thread regarding what to pack the week before.

Poor Boppard, your son goes home and mine arrives, DS goes on June 29th

You can be so smug then when I post my stressy thread regarding what to pack the week after!!!

Not sure if this will help or hinder, but DH went on a trip to Washington when he was in secondary school. It inspired a life-long interest in politics particularly US politics and his career now is related to this. He still talks about the trip to Washington and that he can't wait to take our kids when they are older.

School Lake District trip this year is £650.

To the Lake District

That's a bit steep Laurie are they doing something out of the ordinary?

Not that I know of - they're staying in dorms, going up on a coach - no proper itinery yet though.

Laurie

DD is doing yet another PGL-type thing - about £300 for 5 days, so they must be doing something ultra-exciting for £650! That is a week in a cottage for a family!

So how many children will go in the Lake District trip at £650? If 30 kids go that just short of 20K to pay for a coach and YMCA like lodgings?! There is NO WAY the school aren't making a very large cut on that.

The insurance is probably 90% of the cost.

It makes me snort when I see on the Primary School threads parents complaining about trips costing £6. They have no idea what is about to hit them come year 7...

Piste I should be able to tell you what to not bother packing.

Well, my dc's secondary does an annual trip to Lake District, I think around £500. That's 4 nights accommodation, all meals, coach, insurance, outdoor activities (rock climbing, kayaking, sailing), hire of mountain guide for trip up Helvellyn/skiddaw/some big mountain on one day, evening activities (swimming, bowling etc). Worth every penny and it was FAB

DS is going to South Africa next summer at the cost of £2000

However it is for two weeks, will be an amazing experience and will teach him a lot of skills as part of the trip is the fundraising aspect. So we are giving him £750 towards it and he has to get the rest together himself. This will be a combination of getting a job and fundraising. He will be 17 when he goes though. Would raising some of the funds himself be an option for you DS?

Pass the smelling salts! £2000 !!!!!

Hollow laugh at ds raising funds for himself. He is about to go on a French exchange trip and I have informed him that his spending money is coming out of his birthday money he's saved up. [Mean mother emoticon]

When I think that in my whole secondary school career we had one school trip... to the Bodleian Library. And that was the Fourth Year end of year treat .

Well the idea is that he gets £1250 together but in reality we'll probably go half and half and the extra £250 will be a loan. He's definitely not going on any trips in the sixth form!

LOL at £2k
DD has option of similarly-priced trip to Nepal in 6th form, fortunately for our finances she dismissed it as "too hippyish"

Oohermrs,Ds went to Craotia for 14 days last year and had only just turned 11! It obviously depends on the child too.We let him go as we thought it was a good way for him to gain some independence before hitting secondary school. The trip was with Scouting and cost £550 ALL IN!! Lots of activities and visiting of sites/places (incl.Venice). Had an absolute blast! (seemed veeeeerrryyy long for Mum though ) He has been on a few foreign school trips since and so has DD. Even though they enjoyed them non of them gave pleasure/value for money like the scouting one. Currently saving up for the Scouts Switzerland one in 2013........

Bloody hell!

I am quailing at the thought of all these secondary school trips - how often are they expected to go on them? How much notice do you get? SURELY the majority of families cannot afford them? The secondary DS will go to has 30% of students on free school meals (and that is a low FSM average for London), how on earth do people manage? I'm not saying they are bad value - it is very expensive doing outdoor pursuits because of the equipment and safety precautions - but how can it all be afforded?

:faints:

You do get to pay in instalments.

New york £1100 staying in a grotty hostel. Not many have applied for it apparently.

My DD is going to Shropshire for 5 days, it was initially £350 but actually came down in price by about £50 (someone was very good at negotiating with the coach company), the whole year pretty much is either going there or France (slightly cheaper). Its an outdoors activity place, and involves 200+ miles travel.
So I'm not sure what is making that Lake district trip so expensive.

There are also trips to Madagascar, India and Skiing, which cost more.

The GCSE ones don't tend to be too expensive. They range from day trips, a long weekend in Dorset (cost about £90), and then weekends over seas Italy to New York.

Most expensive by far is World Challenge - over £2000 - benefits are going to India (seeing Taj Mahal), which we probably couldn't afford to do as a family. You get around 2 years to pay and they are supposed to raise the money themselves...The school also runs expensive skiing trips to the USA, Art trip to NY and Geography to Iceland at well over £1000 but luckily DC didn't want to go on those.

Two classics trips, Greece and Rome/Pompeii - both fantastically organised by the teacher and costing around £7-800. Watersports trip to Barcelona around £600 - gave DC a chance to try out sports not normally available. On the cheaper end, two whole year group trips to France for 3 days each. One was to the Opal coast and the other a battlefields trip. Both cost around £280 and they had a lot of fun.

In contrast DC2's school has only held one trip to France for 2 days and over 100 applied with only 20 places - DC didn't get picked.

DS2 is going to Shropshire mummy, Condover Hall. But only for two nights. In 2 weeks time-hope the weather improves.

Sparkling, thats where DD is going but not until July, so we have hope of better weather.

I'm still struggling whether to let the little one go on the school camping trip, very cheap but I'm not totally sure she can cope, although the big ones went.

DS starts secondary this year - better start saving!