Paying for school trips.

Breast_Cancer_Survivor

I have been on benefits for the last 4 years & have always managed to pay for all 3 of my kids school trips, my ex paid for 1/2 of the expensive yearly ones & I paid the other 1/2.
In January I paid the £20 deposit for my daughter to go on a £150 weekly residential trip next week,
Unfortunately soon after my ex lost his job & moved in with his new GF & her 2 kids so has not been able to contribute anything this time leaving me with the full amount.
Ive recently had to move house due to living in privately rented accomadation & was really struggling financially & the school have been chasing me for the remaining £130.
I finally swallowed my pride & admitted that I couldnt afford to pay the £130, I was told that the school have a financial aid scheme for children that receive free school dinners & that I could apply for 50% of the price.
I applied last week & was granted the £75 leaving me with only £55 to pay which was such a relief, I didn't want my daughter to miss out as her 2 older brothers had been on all their school trips.
Im sure most school must run a similar scheme even though they don't advertise it, id speak to the headteacher & explain your situation, im sure the schools don't like to see kids missing out & will help out if its possible.

Oldernotwiser

Vicky123 wrote: »

The other thing that is relevent to the OP is cost which is far more today than it was in my parents generation, children are allowed to come into school with variations on uniform, mobile phones, brand name P.E. Kits and many more things, this is a burden on all parents not just those on benefits

Just because schools allow these things doesn't mean that parents have to go along with it! Many parents give in too easily to their children on issues like these and, particularly when resources are limited, should concentrate on those that benefit their children. Spending money on expensive trainers and fancy mobiles is unnecessary, even if these are what the kids are pestering for.

Golden_Anemone

GinnyT wrote: »

"If you're on benefits you'll get quite a substantial amount of child tax credit which is intended to cover things like this."

Who says this is what Child Tax credit is for? The Child Tax credit replaced the married mans tax allowance.....THAT was not intended for use on school trips, you didn't even have to have kids to get it....

CTC actually replaced Family Credit which in turn replaced Family Income Supplement. The ending of the married person's allowance for those under pension age occurred a year earlier than the introduction of the CTC.

viktory

Kids don't have to go on these trips. My children missed out on a number of trips (the end of school ski-ing trip springs to mind as an example). They were so expensive I could have paid for all of us to go on holiday (2 adults and 2 children) for the same price. Make no mistake, I could have paid but the amount being asked was extortionate. Neither of my children have been scarred for life or need therapy because they missed out. In fact, I would say that they learnt an important lesson in life.

Vicky123

Everyone knows children don't have to go on the trips or have fashion variations of uniforms and obviously they wont be scarred for life, but there would be nothing wrong with schools going back to concentrating on educating the children in a more traditional manner.
No one wants to be constantly saying no to their children, these are schools after all not leisure centres.
My oldest has an entire week this week given over to activities suitably called activities week, very nice, great fun but he is very dyslexic and cannot afford the huge amount of time that is lost.
Vicky

pipkin71

Vicky123 wrote: »

Everyone knows children don't have to go on the trips or have fashion variations of uniforms and obviously they wont be scarred for life, but there would be nothing wrong with schools going back to concentrating on educating the children in a more traditional manner.
No one wants to be constantly saying no to their children, these are schools after all not leisure centres.
My oldest has an entire week this week given over to activities suitably called activities week, very nice, great fun but he is very dyslexic and cannot afford the huge amount of time that is lost.
Vicky

What activities are they doing Vicky?

Learning isn't just about sitting at a desk and being able to reel off bits of information. Learning can also happen during activities and for some children, they learn more by actively taking part in something rather than just the traditional methods that used to be used in the classroom.

Oldernotwiser

viktory wrote: »

Kids don't have to go on these trips. My children missed out on a number of trips (the end of school ski-ing trip springs to mind as an example). They were so expensive I could have paid for all of us to go on holiday (2 adults and 2 children) for the same price. Make no mistake, I could have paid but the amount being asked was extortionate. Neither of my children have been scarred for life or need therapy because they missed out. In fact, I would say that they learnt an important lesson in life.

I don't think that we've been discussing the luxury end of school trips such as skiing and I can't see much justification for these anyway. I've thought that we've been discussing more educational visits and residentials. If things like skiing have been part of the discussion , then I agree with you completely.

Oldernotwiser

Vicky123 wrote: »

Everyone knows children don't have to go on the trips or have fashion variations of uniforms and obviously they wont be scarred for life, but there would be nothing wrong with schools going back to concentrating on educating the children in a more traditional manner.
No one wants to be constantly saying no to their children, these are schools after all not leisure centres.
My oldest has an entire week this week given over to activities suitably called activities week, very nice, great fun but he is very dyslexic and cannot afford the huge amount of time that is lost.
Vicky

I think that if you've lost such faith in your school that you think that they're putting on "fun" activities for no good reason, then that's the time to be considering moving your children to somewhere else.

Vicky123

I did visit a private school which was a real eye opener, couldn't fault it within the confines of one visit sadly they felt my son was too dyslexic for them to be able to meet his needs, the thing is the LEA schools aren't exactly meeting needs either.
With the school trips, I don't have a problem with a few educationals which are related to the work the children are doing in school, thing is an awful lot of them have no educational value whatsoever beyond which we all teach ourselves when we take our children on days out. Just as no one feels they were somehow disadvantaged by not going on school trips I don't feel I was disadvantaged by being 99% deskbound when I was at school, actually have to say, much the opposite.
Vicky
Vicky

viktory

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

I don't think that we've been discussing the luxury end of school trips such as skiing and I can't see much justification for these anyway. I've thought that we've been discussing more educational visits and residentials. If things like skiing have been part of the discussion , then I agree with you completely.

The ski-ing was merely an example. The point I was making is that if a parent cannot afford a trip - for whatever reason - there is no harm in telling the child that they cannot go and why.