Trip allocations

[sofakingcool]

Hi!

How does your child's secondary school allocate places on trips if they are over subscribed? Is it a luck of the draw or do the school have a different way of doing it?

If say there was 2 trips that year, not enough places on either for all children to attend, would the school allow it to happen that a child could end up with a place on both and another child not get a place on either? Is it just deemed luck of the draw?

Thanks!

Bump..

Our school did it first come first served. If there was a fee involved it was who got their deposit in. But it seems odd not to have enough spaces for an educational trip unless this is something like a skiing trip.

Different schools do things in different ways so it's something you'd need to ask your school about. Unless it's a huge school, with a member of staff overseeing all the trips, I can't imagine that anyone would be keeping track of the overlap between the orchestra tour, ski trip etc.

Ours seems to do luck of the draw. We’ve just had info about an upcoming water sports trip down to Cornwall this summer. There are 8 forms in the year and only 80 kids can go on the trip - that’s a quarter of the full year. They’re obviously v over subscribed and will be doing lucky dip. I can appreciate running a school trip for 200+ kids is rather a hard thing to manage, but it seems pretty miserable to have such a small percentage able to go. And they might end up without any of their friends on the trip too.

I think it’s probably better than “first come first served” though - that’s likely to discriminate against busy parents (working or otherwise) who don’t see the email the second it comes through, or parents who are having to think a bit harder whether or not they can afford it.

Normally it is names out of a hat after the closing date.

I think DDs school only prioritised people who missed out on a previous trip if they are within the same discipline, eg MFL.

While I can see the appeal of prioritising those who've missed out on other trips, I think the unintended consequence of that could be to reduce support for less popular trips (eg kids not bothering to go on the history trip to the battlefields because they want to boost their chances of a place on the ski trip). I think names out of a hat each time is fairer (though it wouldn't surprise me if there was a bit of engineering behind the scenes to make sure the same child didn't keep missing out). I agree with others that first come first served is awful - there should be a deadline and then names drawn after that.

First come, first served. And yes, it would be entirely possible for one child to go on everything and others to miss out. Although I don't think ours are generally oversubscribed. Lots of trips, not a particularly affluent area, so people aren't likely to try and do everything.

This has reminded me of dd1's first optional trip at secondary. First come, first served - by parents in person. When applications opened at 9.00 am apparently there were people who had been queuing since 5.00. Luckily the head resigned and normality returned with a lucky dip of all applications received either on-line or in person on a specified day.

First to pay the deposit seems very unfair and penalises the children with less well-off parents who may need to wait until the following pay day to have the money.

Ours do luck of the draw but you get a (virtual) "advantage card" which you can play once throughout your time at the school.
Those people get prioritised for that trip.
So if there's 50 places and 56 people play their advantage card then they will still be pulled out of a hat but only those 56.
If 40 play their advantage card, they automatically get to go and then the others are put into the hat and 10 will be drawn.
Hope that makes sense.
It works pretty well.
Dc1 was very lucky and got to go on quite a few trips.
Dc2 didn't get to go on any and kept their advantage card for the one they really cared about - and then covid happened so they never got to go.

We were lucky and only had one oversubscribed trip, a choir tour. The Director of Music informed all parents that he would draw names out of a hat BUT reserved the right to have a balanced number of voice parts. So of the 80 places, if the 1st 79 were all sopranos, he would have a problem. My DDs were both eligible and both fretted about whether or not they would be able to go. I was going anyway as a teacher/singer. One father commented that my DC were dead certs to get places, which was untrue, however, the DoM (my boss) said that he really hoped he would naturally draw DD1 out of the hat as he hoped she could take her cello. Anyway, there were 95 applicants for 80 places and both my DDs were able to go.

He was completely open about the process and when the complaining dad took it up with the Head, my boss was able to demonstrate how the draw had been made. Complaining dad's DS had had previous opportunities to go on tours and turned them down so we had little sympathy.