[Closed] School trip to cost £1650 quids per child

I had a 3 week school trip to the States back in '79. Do you think that you went to the wrong school?

I didn't go on school trips. Not because we couldn't afford it but just because my stepdad didn't want to spend out on a child that wasn't his. Life can be hard, it's not a bad lesson to learn early on in life.

Some would even say it didn't do me any harm.

We can all remember our school trips to some industrial factory or the seaside,

Speak for yourself! 🙂

how things have changed for the worse, children and parents will feel left out if they dont go /cant afford to pay.

This is nothing new. Trips such as ski trips have been running for years; those that can afford it go , those that can't don't. I'm not saying its fair, but its not a sudden development.

No they wont.

In school or at home and at scouts we did bag packing, cutting grass, car washes, cake sales, ran discos delivered newspapers, worked at marinas and in boots or a supermarket and did sponsored things to subsidise our Trips abroad. it's a perfect learning opportunity in itself never mind the holiday.

Parents that just shell out the cash on demand are the dafties and end up with spoiled weans.

If we were lucky we had a day at a castle. Son goes to CERN next month. It's not fair.

and this one is obviously an exceptionally expensive one beyond what most think reasonable, hence it made the news.

...children and parents will feel left out if they dont go /cant afford to pay.

It's only open to the sports teams anyway, so plenty of kids are already feeling left out regardless of the cost of destination of the trip.

There won't be that many parents in Horsforth that can't afford it anyway 🙂

I wouldn't worry about children feeling left out. The trip won't happen because there won't be enough pupils going to make up the teams. Unless it's now 2-a-side football.

It's only open to the sports teams anyway, so plenty of kids are already feeling left out regardless of the cost of destination of the trip.

Ban competitive sports now! BAN THEM!

Medals for everyone.

We had school ski trips back in the 80s costing a few hundred, equivalent to probably £1000 in today's money.

Not any more expensive than an international Scout Jamboree has been for the past 20 years depending on where you are travelling. World challenge expeditions cost this much.

The poor kids in easterhouse raise this kind of cash easy without jepordising their parents bank account. If they even have one.

Lots of parents seem to need their hands held these days.

Speak for yourself!

we know about Flash's school days - summers in Rangoon, luge lessons, in the spring they'd make meat helmets...

True story. A friend went on a school ski trip, he fell out of bed on the first night, broke his arm or something and had to go home early. The school offered to pay for his trip the following year, as he got off the coach on arrival to the resort, he slipped on the ice and broke something else. The school didnt offer again. He now lives in Sweden.

The only school trips I can remember we're georaphy field trips involving staring at Limestone pavements, while getting quizzed about their formation by a man with leather patches in the elbows of his jacket, in the rain, on some bleak yorkshire moorland

Anyway.... The parents are so annoyed they've taken to Facebook. I note no-ones risked the nuclear Mumsnet button yet, so they can't be that angry.

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Done a bit if youth work with underprivaledged kids and its amazing the positive effect trips away can have on some.

Of course the kids that might benefit the most are invariably the ones that can't afford to go, its a shame that the teachers can't see beyond a free trip to the barbados to appreciate that.

Project's School trip.

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I went to France for a week my parents scrimped and saved for me to get.

kimbers - Member
Done a bit if youth work with underprivaledged kids and its amazing the positive effect trips away can have on some.

Kimbers, I used to work in the French system that's loosely called "Classes vertes" (Green school). It's a wonderful system that gets kids out of some pretty shitty places (And yes, there are some even in cities as lovely as Toulouse!) and puts them out in the countryside, sailing, climbing, canoeing, archery, abseiling from a dam, whatever. Of all the jobs I've ever done, seeing the kids eyes light up with every new achievement remains one of the highlights of my life.

its a shame that the teachers can't see beyond a free trip to the barbados to appreciate that.

I can confidentially say that I have not been on a school trip (as a teacher) which was truly enjoyable, irrespective of the location. Flipping hard work. Rewarding yes, enjoyably no.

Even so, It feels like a poor choice.

Storm in a teacup IMO.

I can confidentially say that I have not been on a school trip (as a teacher) which was truly enjoyable, irrespective of the location. Flipping hard work. Rewarding yes, enjoyably no.

And again, having worked as a teacher (Again in France!) I can attest to that. Only did one school trip, though, but it was very hard work indeed.

Cfh, know exactly what you mean done similar in the states, hardest work, some very troubled kids but best most rewarding job ever.
Coming back to the uk as a scout leader in haringay, real contrast between the backgrounds of the children there and those from the poorer backgrounds benefit so much more than those from muswell hill

I went on a school trip with world challenge about 15 years ago cost around £1000 so not that shocking..

Heading to Zambia for an exchanging classrooms trip. Spent a year fund raising £20k for the exchange including bringing 5 zambians here. As a teacher no matter the trip you don't relax until you've been home for at least a pint.

Ban competitive sports now! BAN THEM!
Medals for everyone.

That's certainly wasn't my point (just in case you thought it was)

My point was that it's not an inclusive trip that open to all anyway, and the school is in a pretty wealthy area, making cost much less of an issue, so the price isn't the thing that will make anyone feel left out.

With three kids in school there's absolutely no way I could afford to send them all on a trip like that ... that makes me feel like a bad father 🙁
You really do have to question the choice of destination - is there nowhere else they could have gone?

Neal, I know well that it wasn't your point! Was anticipating (and taking the piss out of) the way that some sections of the world like to try and remove competition from anything!

Kimbers, it's a stunning thing isn't it? I remember getting one kid to the top of a pitch. She was terrified all the way up. Got to the top, crested the rise, and saw.....mountains, a waterfall, a river, a massive bird of prey up on high and a cartoon sky. Her eyes lit up as if every little bit of bad had been taken away from her. Wonderful.

When I come to power, I'm going to make sure the state funds something like Classes Vertes.

My point was that it's not an inclusive trip that open to all anyway, and the school is in a pretty wealthy area, making cost much less of an issue, so the price isn't the thing that will make anyone feel left out.

I live in a wealthy area.
I cannot afford to send my kids on the high school trips.

My kids see the others wearing their 'trip hoodies' all the time, and are constantly asked why they are not going on the London weekend(£550), the battlefields trip (£580), the Milan football trip (£750), the band week in Italy (£850+sponsorship of another £120 by parent council) or the expedition. (£3200). They feel awkward - we had middle_oab in tears as we could not afford the London trip, and he is getting stick about it.

So, tell me again about how the cost thing isn't an issue, with everyone in a school clearly being as wealthy as each other?

So, tell me again about how the cost thing isn't an issue,

Because the trip is only open to the sports teams.

That means loads of kids can't go. So the cost isn't the thing that makes it an exclusive trip.

If the trip cost 45p lots of kids who are crap at sport are already feeling left out, but nobody would GAS about them would they, that wouldn't make the news. ?

(Did you really want me to tell you again, or was it just your way of trying to make a point?)

with everyone in a school clearly being as wealthy as each other?

No they aren't. Pretty sure I didn't say they were either.

[i]This is nothing new. Trips such as ski trips have been running for years; those that can afford it go , those that can't don't. I'm not saying its fair, but its not a sudden development. [/i]

+1

No different +30 y/o when I was in school.

And the last ski-trip my youngest went on cost £1000 (paid for over the year).

But my son was invited on the band trip to Italy, and will be invited again this year. It is selective on those who play in band, by musical skill.

I can't afford it.

So he sits in practice, in a sea of Italy 2014 hoodies every week. As far as we can tell, three families of 40-50 in the band and choir, did not send thier child. We know them, and it was on cost grounds.

I find it difficult, when they could run a band trip to cheaper, but no less interesting or educational locations. They could stay in a hostel, not a three star hotel. They could trim a few extras like the hoodies and nice restaurants for a couple of the nights. This may bring the price down enough that the few excluded because of cost.

I get your point, but it is still discriminatory if you dont make the effort, on the grounds "it's a wealthy area".

I will never forget a primary school educational trip to a nearby sewage works.

Never.

I will never forget a primary school educational trip to a nearby sewage works.

Me too (mine was at secondary age). The word 'cake' has always been a bit tainted for me since.

Meh. Prepares them for the real world where their boss at work takes a private jet to watch the Monaco GP from a yacht, while they scrape for a weekend in Blackpool.

Life isn't fair, deal with it.

I get your point, but it is still discriminatory if you dont make the effort, on the grounds "it's a wealthy area".

It's discriminatory either way.

Your son is in the small group of kids who can could because they are allowed to.

Most of the kids in the school aren't even invited.

So they get to feel left out too, but they get to be left out for being rubbish at music.

No different at all, yet it seems it's totally acceptable oddly.

Got to say, at my school it was the 'posh' kids that got to go on the expensive trips that got tormented.

school trips to some industrial factory

My standard grade chemistry class got a trip to Dounreay 🙂 Overnighted in Carbisdale castle YH, ghetto blasrter in the minibus up the road - happy days.

As a piper, I was lucky enough to be in school at just the right time for two heavily subsidised exchange trips to Hungary at 15 and Estonia two years later. Utter carnage both times, really happy memories of them both.

Out town, belper, is a smallish not posh place in hood old Derbyshire. Son brought home a letter from primary school last week a letter about a trip.
£1300 quid ish, however it's to Russia, to see the space programme in full action (hopefully) to actually speak to cosmonauts on the iss, and various other stuff. 3 days sightseeing etc. Translator to go with them etc. How come we didn't make the news?

school trips to some industrial factory

The landrover factory trip we went on was utterly brilliant.
As was Sellafield.

I never got to go on school ski trips because my mum and dad couldn't afford it, but they did get me on a ferry trip to Holland where I found a rare Iron Maiden picture disk then got to feel Angie's tits on the coach on the way back to the UK - money well spent.

Two great challenges should be part of this:

1. Go and raise some money - initiative
2. Get in a team - drive and determination

Good solid lessons in life. More of the same please. First things I look for as a recruiter. So start them early IMO....

I will never forget a primary school educational trip to a nearby sewage works. Never.

Me too, minworth sewage farm with all the johnnies 😉 sir, what's that?

S.S.Uganda educational trips. - now they were an education. Convent girls, ouzo and stomach pumps. Fond memories along with all the imports of flickknives!!

I've been convinced for years that it's more about where the teachers want to go and what they want to do with each other than anything else...

Slightly less glamorous, but we were dumped in Porthmadog high street for about 3 hours whilst the teachers went to a pub for dinner once, got hounded by the local youth so spent about 2 hours hanging around a burger joint next to the cop shop.

Exactly THM.

I had a pal in scouts who came from a poor background. But he had more drive than the rest of us put together. We helped him with some fundraising to get to a jamboree in Japan. But he did most of it himself. He now teaches sport and science in international schools all over the world. Technically he never really came back.

Got to go to netherlands in my 2nd year school trip, think there was probably 30/40 out of us out of 300 in the year that got to go. (If I remember right it cost 300 quid(including 100 spending money), and that would have been in 92ish and we went on the bus/ferry).

I was talking to someone about this recently and it seemed some of the trips getting touted these days do seem to be silly expensive, especially when they mount up to multiple trips over a few years. but I don't really disagree with offering them. We don't live in a socialist country, so not everyone is going to afford them. But I do reckon they are worth while.

Personally, that netherlands trip was only the second time out of the country for me, and i never got to leave the country again till I was about 21, so for me it was a very memorable trip that I still look on fondly.

For some children I reckon the school trips will be that valuable opertunity to experience a different country, but obviously the schools need to handle it well so that it doesn't put pressure on parents that can't afford it to send their children off on a trip every year.

We never really went abroad as a family, just the once, some my ma made sure we all go to go on the school trip, my older brother went skiing in switzerland, and my younger brother went sailing up the west coast of scotland (which although not foriegn, I was well jealous off!)

I was lucky re school trips and sports tours....but best one was rugby tour to S Wales. U12 and quite unusual at the tine and a real experience including sharing a bed with my opposite number in the shadows of port talbot steel works. Brilliant hospitality despite obvious hardship and a great week. Learned some real lessons that week.

You don't need to spend £££s to learn lessons in life.

I've been convinced for years that it's more about where the teachers want to go and what they want to do with each other than anything else...

Do you actually know any teachers that organise school trips abroad ?

I do, and trust me, they don't look forward to them as a holiday.

Johndoh is definitely winning on the school trips here. Iron Maiden picture discs AND norks? Surely adolescent male life can't get any better? 😀

I refused to let my youngest go on a couple of overpriced school trips .My local school also thought that a trip to the Globe theatre and involved shopping ,again no was the answer .£1600? I have never spent that on a holiday for me never mind a jolly for a kid

List of places teachers want to go on holiday:

1) somewhere far away from the kids they teach
2) and their bloody parents

Teachers don't do it for a free holiday, because it's not a holiday. whathaveisaidnow should volunteer as a chaperone for a school/team/youth club trip - you know, if it's such a laugh...

Neal, I know well that it wasn't your point! Was anticipating (and taking the piss out of) the way that some sections of the world like to try and remove competition from anything!

My local school also thought that a trip to the Globe theatre and involved shopping ,again no was the answer

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I was at a conference a few weeks back with schools from around South East Asia.

UWCA were there - United World College, Asia. Seen as one of the best schools in the world.

Their Outdoor Ed guy told me the following facts about them.

400+ Overseas trips per year
Only 5% going to Malaysia, their neighbour
$3million on flights for overseas trips
Trips are capped at $5k max
Cheapest is less than $500

Impressive figures

Was that the FOBISIA at BISP, Quirrel?

The figures are impressive. But if you're teachers who get free education for their children but look at the other costs with trepidation, you sympathise with others in the thread.

My boys go to school with children whose parents don't think twice about a few thousand pounds on a trip. We on the other hand, certainly won't be able to afford it.

The comment on teachers is very true. The kids fit in until a big expense comes up and then they don't.

Kids that get flown off to HK or Singapore for every holiday to go shopping, while the teachers kids have to stay in whatever country the school is in.

One of the conversations was just on that - one of the outdoor ed people had just paid 4000USD for his daughter to do an adventure trip to the US with school. He had organised it so knew it was a decent trip and one off so sucked it up and paid.

I never went on any school trips, mainly due to my poor behaviour.

Christ! I may have been on holiday...sorry; "an educational excursion" with THM. SS Uganda; introducing teenagers to rum,girls with exotic accents,and err..stilletos since the early 70's.
I organise a trip to Germany,Poland and Belgium every 30 months in a fairly hard school. The last one was a year ago on Friday and cost £760. That covered all admissions,food and £20 back to each pupil to spend on food once we got back to Dover. I organise it so their are no payments due in December or January and have a monthly bag pack that attendees can chip away at the cost. I take 48 pupils and have two sponsored places on that which are covered by a local employer and the parent council.I the spend 10 days stone cold sober and stressed as hell,in no way is it a holiday for me or the staff which accompany me. Each time I swear never again,but was pricing buses yesterday...I don't do those bloody hoodies and our selection process has involved pupils with fairly significant issues affecting their schooling. The point I am making is that it isn't a jolly for staff and pupils,and it isn't in most cases exclusive.

My last school was fee paying some of the trips impressive. I used to do the red sea dive trip. 10 days in Egypt diving. If you think a school trip is a jolly try that. You're responsible for the well being of every pupil with you and the potential for new divers to do something silly is huge.
Off to Zambia in a couple of weeks. We'll spend 4 days in a school then 2days sightseeing. All money from fund raising and we're hosting the Zambian party this week, all their costs paid from our fund raising. Roll on 7th July when its all over.

Go and raise some money - initiative

Easier for better off kids. Like all things in life if you come from an impoverished background you ate much less likely to have people around you who have the skills to help you. Shit I've known parents take the money to spend on drugs.

I dont think expensive trips are appropriate at state schools but the massive number of planning hours,stress and aggrivation from the kids whilst away mean I would never do one.

Go and raise some money - initiative

Raising £1600 is a tough call though, without resorting to "sponsor me to do something pointless and effectively pay for my [s]holiday[/s] football trip". There are only so many supermarket bag packing and car washes you can do. I've know a few trips manage to approach local firms to sponsor trips and get their logo on the trip hoodies etc and a few other ideas but it's still a big ask to raise it all.

The school has a HR Director.

Its an 'Academy'

Its to Barbados (if you took your child term time to Barbados and tried to argue that it was educational...)

We went to Calais and northern France, Scotland.

GF's school coached to Italy.

The school has a HR Director...wtf.

I've only just realised how much pressure these kind of trips must have put on my parents. Both of them earning about the UK average salary or less, yet in one year of school managed to send my on an £800 geography trip to Iceland and a £2500 school rugby tour to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.

Iceland is somewhere my dads always wanted to go so wanted me to see it. And the rugby tour they viewed as a once in a lifetime trip so they scrimped and saved to get me on it.

All at a state school btw. And it wasn't just the sporty kids who got the best trips. The cricket teams went to Barbados, the bands went on trips all over Europe and there was a regular trip to India as an experience trip. There was even a trip to Everest base camp one year, and hiking in the Atlas Mountains another.

There was always money put aside to help those that genuinely couldn't afford these trips so that they didn't miss out.

The school has a HR Director...wtf

As you say, it's an academy - welcome to the brave new world of 'cost effective' school organisation. If the school is LEA run it would have access to the LEA's HR facilities. As it is standalone, just like any other organisation with 150-200+ staff it will need some sort of HR facility.

(if you took your child term time to Barbados and tried to argue that it was educational...)

Could be wrong, but I doubt very much this trip is happening in school time. Only educational visits normally get that permission.

My dad was a teacher he went on several trips. Furthest I got was torness power station. A day trip.

No overseas trip I've done has been in term time.

My daughter's at a Guide camp in the summer.

There's kids from all over the world going.

It's not just schools that give kids the opportunity for life experiences and then have to charge the parents the cost of the trip.

"It's making a divide between parents that can afford it and parents that can't afford it."

It's optional, it's potentially divisive, and no one has to go on this trip. It might be good for those that get to go and that seems a fair reason to have it.

Eldest currently in France on a school trip, both are at the Peak jamboree in the summer, little one has two nights at Edale with school next year, eldest will have a week at White Hall for a week next year with school and then a week in Belgium with the band he plays in.

We've not had a proper foreign holiday since the kids started school and Beavers/Rainbows!

I went on all the school and Scout trips as a kid, including skiing but we had no holidays either. I appreciate what it took by my parents going through it now with my kids.

But I am so glad my eldest has stated he has no desire to do the £1500 Japanese exchange trip in year 11!

Two great challenges should be part of this:

1. Go and raise some money - initiative
2. Get in a team - drive and determination

Good solid lessons in life. More of the same please. First things I look for as a recruiter. So start them early IMO....

And as the reality is both goals will be impossible for 90% of kids, the lesson is hard work fails.

My school ran an American exchange (1995 or 96 maybe?). Mates went, I didn't. Can't recall whether I asked. My parents happily forked out for taking the bus to Northern France, but weren't going to pay for a stonking great air-fare for me to go and learn American.

I was not scarred by this deprivation. I think my parents either said "no" quite a lot or didn't make like they had plenty of money (they didn't), so I didn't assume I could do stuff.

we re asked to find shy of 1600 for a netball tour of dubai.. got a year to find it so as we cant afford to just write a cheque, we ve set up a biscuit tin in the kitchen and are putting the change in from our pockets every evening, averaging just under 20 quid a week between the four of us..

Sounds(ed) like our situation ^

I did go away with the Cubs and Air Cadets though

I didn't think the £1600 or what ever that trip costs was that bad..
The secondary school my kids will probably end up going to does a dance/drama trip to New York which is well over a grand, the Explorer Scouts I help out with took some kids to Australia over Christmas - that was around £3k each.

Nobody says you have to do these things, however compared to what we've paid out in Childcare over the years, these trips will feel reasonable!

I think it's nuts. My school trips where to Brecon Beacons, Cheddar George plus a visit to the National History Museum.

My daughter did two World Challenger trips (Bolivia and Mongolia), these where £3,500 each for 5 weeks and she raised most of the money herself. £1,650 for a week is bonkers.

By the age mine reach that age, I reckon I will be quite happy to pay £3k to get rid of them both for a week whilst I go somewhere else for my 'holiday'. Gotta be cheaper than takng them with you.

Only school trips I remember going on were a day trip to Ribchester (part of History, we were studying the Ancient Romans) and a weekend in London (Accounts, visited Lloyds and suchlike). The London trip was interesting in that for many of us aged 14-15 it was the first night being "responsible" away from parents. There was illicit drinking and claims of shagging which were probably fiction; sadly, as a proto-geek I sat in my room like a well-behaved billy no-mates at night. Ho hum.

iainc jnr heads to Paris on Monday with his 1st yr (secondary) school trip. Most of the kids are going, so a bit of peer pressure. £650 for a 5 night trip, and we are advised to supply £20 a day spending money (which is held by the teachers and dished out daily). He's excited and we can afford it with a few variations to our own holiday plans, but a bit surprised that the school didn't encourage any fundraising activities..

No school trips when I were a lad. Oh wait, there was that time we got to go down Bolsover Colliery.

got to feel Angie's tits on the coach on the way back to the UK

Oh I was a bit startled like hora to discover that schools now appear to need an HR Manager.

but a bit surprised that the school didn't encourage any fundraising activities..

This always seems bit odd to me. Surely the money raised by "fundraising" will only be coming from the parents of the kids travelling so what difference does it really make if fundraising is done or not? Is it to try and get the kids to "earn" the trip rather than it just being a "handout"?

Fund raising can come from neighbours and friends, scout type "bob a job".

EDIT I realised I had forgotten my school ski trip. We went by bus to a small Italian resort with no snow 😐

Fund raising can come from neighbours and friends, scout type "bob a job".

Again orders og magnitude easier for those with well off parents.
This thread only serves to highlight the massive importance of social capital.

but a bit surprised that the school didn't encourage any fundraising activities..

This always seems bit odd to me. Surely the money raised by "fundraising" will only be coming from the parents of the kids travelling so what difference does it really make if fundraising is done or not? Is it to try and get the kids to "earn" the trip rather than it just being a "handout"?

He also plays in a local footie team and they do fund raising for away trips by bag packing and the like at local Morrisons - quite effective and certainly can raise a decent amount