How do you pay for School Trips

Plumpud_3

My eldest daughter went on a skiing trip to Canada aprox. 4 years ago. It was £825 for the 8 days. I thought it was extortionate. They collected the money over 9 months. My Husband and I paid half and her Father and his wife paid half. It was a real struggle. Only saved by the then sell off of the AA, the money went on the trip. My parents paid for all the ski gear and spending money. My sister-in-law lent us a lot of ski clothing.

We didn't want to deprive her of the opportunity. She knew that I had been on two ski trips when I was at school (both much cheaper and to Europe) and had really enjoyed them. Her Father had never been able to go on any school trips as his Mum had never been able to afford them, so swore his children would have every opportunity.

What really annoyed me though was my cousin sent his daughter (from a school on the other side of the country) on the exact same trip - they even spoke to each other on the plane home - but only paid £550!!

I was then convinced that we had seriously subsidised the teachers' cost. On advice from my friend, who was a teacher, I asked to see the accounts for the trip. I wrote to the school 3 times with no reply. I let it drop in the end as they seemed to be having sly digs at my daughter, but I was really angry.

Not long afterwards, she brought a letter home from school about 'an educational day trip to Boulogne' just before Christmas. Booze cruise for the teachers? I should say so as her school only taught German and Spanish!! We weren't the only parents to see through this, the trip was cancelled due to lack of interest.

I personally think the finance side of school trips need to be tightened up and made more transparent to the parents. As it is teachers seem to be able to charge what they like with no means of regulation or control.

I also dislike the way these trips are arranged. You get a letter home with a brief outline of the trip. You are then then usually invited to an evening talk about the trip which is all verbal. There is very little written down. I wouldn't buy a holiday that way for myself, why should I have to do it like that for my kids?

Lillibet_2

I think it might be worth clarifiying thet the Tanzania trip posted ealrier appears to have been part payment required by the pupil/parents and the rest fund-raised as a charitable or similar activity. There is no suggestion that the family were expected to put up £3k but it doesn't detail how much they were asked to pay.
If this was a case of the family pay, say £500 per child & the child was expected to raise the rest in sponsorship with part of the funds going towards a charity or the school then I would suggest that this is one of the most benefical skills a child could learn & well worth the money?

Spendless

My sons school is a seperate infant/juniors and don't do residential trips.

School trips would only start at Secondary school. Neice has recently been on a football trip to Barcelona. I think the cost was around £400 and they have already been asked about going again next year. Neice is an only child and her mum is quite happy to pay for her to go.

A friend of mine though, whose eldest is in same year has neice has got 3 children. Within the next couple of years she is going to have all 3 at the same school and then what to do? Say they can't go due to the cost of sending 3? Or say to 2 of them they can't go this time?

hunny33

my sons school has a trip every year, the first one is 'The Holland Trip' it was £225 plus up to £50 spending money. they went on monday morning and back friday night. we were given 8 months to pay, £50 every couple of months, so was not to bad, i also was told about it from a friend whos child had done it the year berore so i was ready for it!
He thought it was wonderful, they did educational things and of course theme parks and the likes. bless him he even brought me a pair of clogs home!! proper ones i have yet to wear them out in the street!
so all in all it was well organised and well worth the money, but i was glad i was expecting it as i had saved some cash early!!

robnye

If this was a case of the family pay, say £500 per child & the child was expected to raise the rest in sponsorship with part of the funds going towards a charity or the school then I would suggest that this is one of the most benefical skills a child could learn & well worth the money?

i agree.... i have a similar trip to pay, my eldest daughter has been selected to go to denmark next july, cost £850, whilst the guide association grant a third off, we still have to find £600, £100 due the first of each month for the next 5 months (already paid £100 from savings we have for the kids)
My daughter has to fund raise, of course we help, find addressess, write draft letter etc.
but it is still an experience, that i would move hell and high water for my daughter to go on........

She even has not given us letters re school trips, mainly because she knows we can only afford so much and also some of them havent interested her.

She also does a paper round and has agreed to pay 10% towards the cost

geeing her up to ask all sorts of friends/teachers/family to sponsor her is a bit of a chore, but she is getting into it and enjoying explaingin what it is for.


but i also agree, that some schools are a little lacking in the financial declarations...........

mini

My daughters school asks or donations for school trips but it is worded in such a way that you are told topay otherwisethe trip will not go ahead (no pressure there then!)

In Year 6 they have a 3 day activity holiday which costs about £150 if my daughter wants to go I'd pay it.

Day trips are usualy quite good value for money around £6- 8 pound each including coach travel, they are also told to take no more than £2 spending money which I like.

How do I pay for trips? By cheque from what I call 'their' money, I keep child benefit separate to fund such trips, presents for classmates parties, their birthdays etc. I have always kept 'their' money separately as I didn't want them to miss out as I did.

Spendless

Does anyone mind me asking - have any of you had the circumstances where more than one of your children has asked about going on a school trip in same year.

As per my earlier post not a problem that will affect me for some years - but just wondered what others did

nearlyrich

It isn't really an issue for me now as one has left school and the other is in upper sixth. In the past they have been on school trips which have always been reasonably priced. My son's school do some trips to China and other far flung locatons which are expensive but fortunately he didn't want to go, I even tried to persuade him thinking it would be a great experience.

Going back to my schooldays, second oldest of six in a family with one wage, I never mentioned the big trips as I knew we couldn't afford it. I remember when my youngest brother and sister started secondary school they got a chance to go to France for a few days and my Mum asked the older 4 if we minded if they went. No-one minded and they went.

I am sure that some school PTAs have funds for children of low income families, if the whole class is going on a residential say at the end of primary school it seems a bit sad to make a child miss it because of money.

jellyhead

our primary school has some very hardworking PTA members so they do tend to fund the children who can't afford things. they only have 2 residential trips (years 4 and 6) but there's a theatre trip each year costing £5-8 and shakespeare is around £4. the costs are already subsidised by PTA funds but they are trips that everyone is expected to go on so if somebody doesn't pay anything then they can still go usually as long as the consent form's been filled in. when spud was smaller sometimes i'd put a £10 note into the envelope for his trip if it was all i had and just let the school keep the change towards the cost of the trip. quite a few parents did that recently when a trip cost £4.50, put a fiver in and donated the extra 50p. i only have one child and when the new one comes there will be 9 years difference between the two, i doubt i'll be paying for two trips in the same year. i remember last year one parent whose hubby had just left her and whose youngest had started reception saying she couldn't afford £30 for her 4 children to all go to the theatre, it was the first time she'd had all 4 of them going on a school trip and it was just too expensive for her. she ended up paying weekly but i know she paid less than half of the cost, the PTA paid the rest.

i don't have time to be active in PTA admin but i always do a stall etc. at the xmas and summer fetes. we also sell lollies in the playground after school. packs of ten usually cost less than a pound and they can be sold at 25p each. it's amazing how many are sold each day when it's hot, the parents are happy to pay 25p for a lolly as some of them would be paying more than that in the local shop. we also hire a cinema screen with a new-ish film and have cinema nights, there are quite a lot of activities that raise money for this kind of thing.

i don't know what it's like in high school though, do they have PTA's? the thing with trips abroad is that it's not usually the whole class that goes so although a kid will be upset at missing out they won't be the only one to not go. when spud's older he can have school trips instead of christmas i think lol!

MarkyMarkD

I think it might be worth clarifiying thet the Tanzania trip posted ealrier appears to have been part payment required by the pupil/parents and the rest fund-raised as a charitable or similar activity.  There is no suggestion that the family were expected to put up £3k but it doesn't detail how much they were asked to pay.
If this was a case of the family pay, say £500 per child & the child was expected to raise the rest in sponsorship with part of the funds going towards a charity or the school then I would suggest that this is one of the most benefical skills a child could learn & well worth the money?

Well, I don't agree.

"Sponsorship" of this sort is just sponging off other people for things which shouldn't be paid for in this way.

And coupling it with some sort of charitable donation is just an even worse means of extorting money from others by pretending it's for charity, when in fact it's so someone can have a nice holiday/trip.