If I had sent ds1 on every overseas trip the school offered this year it would have to date added up to...

[Piffle]

DS1 is year 9 and at a grammar school

£850 ski trip Feb
£290 history trip June
£950 chinese intensive language course sumemr hols 21 days (best value but still...)
£350 art trip to Spain

Farking hell....
oh btw he is only going on the art trip as he did the ski trip in yr 8.

This seems incredible...

Talk about the good old school days...

This drives me mad too.
The last ski trip DS could have gone on was to Whistler - for the same price that all four of us went ski-ing in France for.

Dreading secondary school - seems like one long exotic holiday

and the little fecker got taken to NZ by his biodad at xmas, was back 2 weeks and on the ski trip
hard life my arse...

Make sure he chooses the right GCSE's

Geography field trips
History trips (Battlefields is good)
Language exchanges

BUT, DD's Comp does
DRAMA & MEdia trips to NEW YORK
Leisure & TOurism to Theme Parks & various other fun places!

and they do the 3 week CHina trip in the hols, but it was £850. DD has got herself a job so she can go (6th form) next summer,

not letting him do the history one as he says he is dropping it as soon as he is able
ditto geography

Crikey
Our students only get offered one trip per year, and even then we struggle to find enough to make the trips viable. Price usually no more than £300. (I think the ski trip is more though.)
France or Germany in yr7
Residential (Cumbria) in yr8
Ski Trip (Italy) in yr9-10

In yr10-11 some subjects have trips, but none of them abroad.

Wot no Geography field trip to Iceland? Seems like a cheap skate school to me. Just wait - there will soon be World Challenge (goodbye to £3k) "adventurous training" somewhere cheap to get to like Ecuador ...

My DS went on a trip to Iceland last year - I was very jealous of him.

My school has fairly exotic trips - Australia, Sri Lanka, Himalayas etc.

Also the usual language trips to France and Spain, and skiing.

£950 for a school trip?

Are you at a private school?

My dd has just come back from a trip to France which cost £220 and it was well worth it. Only 11 children chose to go and they stayed with 2 teachers in a gite. They had to cook for themselves having bought the food and they went into school for two days.
She has now been offered a music trip as part of the local authority wind band but at £370 for 5 days she won't be going.

Sounds fab, Larry

nope twinset, just a very good boys grammar in a very semi rural averagely incomed area...

Blimey

I went to Barry Island in Wales in 4th year of secondary (whatever year that is equivalent to now) and it we stayed at Butlins and had a fantastic time. We were 15 when everything was so drastic and over-dramatic but we had the best time!

Farking nora, NY? Whistler? I am obv living in another world.

Think this is commonplace now, unfortunately. Although having said that, the trips aren't compulsory or even that 'necessary' and many have limited places so it's not as if 'everyone else' is going.

At our school Yr8s doing German are offered an exchange trip, Yr9s doing French are offered 5 days in France (cost about £300). There is an annual skiing trip, I think it costs about £800 but most parents just laugh at that one (my children don't even bother getting the letters). Once you're into GCSE courses you can choose from loads - in Yr10 history students are offered a long weekend to Belgium for the battlefields trip (£245), while the R.E. students can pay £450-ish to go to Poland. I assume the geography lot get offered something too. There is also an outward bounds, team-bonding and leadership skills week in Wales, but that is by application and interview only - the school selects those it feels would benefit most.

If it's any consolation, it definitely isn't the 'norm' to go on loads of trips, some of these trips only have 45 places on them. Some children do none, a few do as many as possible and most cherry-pick one or two they want to do most, or can afford most, or their friends are going on.

Then of course there are the G&T courses, two of mine came back with letters last week, one for a weekend course costing £116, another for a 4-day course costing £175. I think not...

Yep we got a letter home for G+T course as well
For bloody orienteering weekend £125

DS1 begged
pls don't make me go
LOL

yes its like that at ours
trip after trip and they all seem to go

i said no to the ski trip and ds1 was

he works now - and if he wants some uber school trip he can pay (15)

Anyone fancy going back to school?
Seriously I'm surprised more parents don't object to this.
Piffle isn't this the school that insisted the NZ trip was cut short only for him to miss school by going skiing?
Should have said he was skiing in NZ

Find this a bit confusing!

I teach in a school in a very wealthy area (very-one of the wealthiest outside London)We run only a few trips abroad as parents and head objects if pupils lose too much time out of school.

One ski trip per year for 9,10,11
One languages trip to Paris/Spain
Year 12 art trip to Paris, and not much else I think.
Drama trip to London for A level

Parents would object if too many trips out

the trips here are always in holidays
Some are only offered to certain students as well.

Yes £800ish seems to be quite normal for a school ski trip - by coach . I must say I think £950 for an intensive 21 day language trip to China seems like a great offer - can I go?

At my school for GCSE I went to New York and Washington DC for history and english language! Had naff all to do with the subjects but was an amazing trip

I often wonder if the teachers just felt like a holiday and loosly tied to to a subject so they could go!

Bloody hell!

Good job you've only got one dc there Piff

My little sister is currently on her school hockey trip to...
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Barbados! I went to the wrong school!