How do you feel about expensive foreign school trips?

peachyprice

Our Guides/Brownies don't have their own transport, if they want to go anywhere they either pay the going rate for a coach or get the train, and they don't always use their own centres, and Brownies don't camp in tents. They can do an exact same PGL trip for £200 that schools charge £400 for.

aliasojo

I've been away for the weekend so I'm coming to the thread late but my personal opinion is that school trips are something that kids should do if they can.

I don't subscribe to the train of thought regarding school trips for one child v's a family holiday etc etc. (Although I can quite understand why parents have to consider this aspect.)

I feel school trips are about so much more than 'sight seeing'. It's an opportunity to develop confidence, to learn how to interact with other cultures independently without Mum or Dad, broaden horizons etc etc. I will always do all I can to send my girl on as many trips as I can as I feel it does her no end of good to see more than the limited experiences she gets in life generally. I also think it can be a benefit for teachers/kids to see other sides of each other. My daughter was amazed to see her normally staid science teacher 'acting normal' and mucking about with the kids playing water games and she now has a much higher opinion of him. (Oh the scales kids use as a measure of greatness. )

I grew up with a very lovely but very quiet 'dormouse' type Mum, she wasn't particularly confident herself and she rubbed off on me. I had the option to go on several school trips but refused them all as I was so quiet and pathetic as a kid, I was just too scared to go. I missed out on a lot because of this and I'm determined my daughter wont be 'me' and will be able to happily enjoy all the new opportunities that come her way.

I also don't subscribe to the 'other kids can't get so it's unfair' argument. Sorry but I don't really care. It's my job as a parent to do all I can to raise my child in as broad a manner as possible, I'm damned sure I'm not about to curtail her experiences just because joey next door can't go. Sure, I'll have sympathy for joey, but his situation isn't going to impact on my girl's. (And no, I'm not even going to duck to avoid the inevitable flak for saying that, my responsibility is to my kid.)

As it happens, one girl in my daughter's class has been told her parents can't afford it and she can't go on next year's trip that we've been told about already, so she's come over all determined and is doing what she can to raise the money herself. She's apparently been round the doors asking to wash cars, walk dogs etc etc. She's one I would wager will go far in life. All because her folks were skint.

valk_scot

peachyprice wrote: »

Our Guides/Brownies don't have their own transport, if they want to go anywhere they either pay the going rate for a coach or get the train, and they don't always use their own centres, and Brownies don't camp in tents. They can do an exact same PGL trip for £200 that schools charge £400 for.

They'll still get subsidised by District though, and as they'll be a registered charity there are all sorts of perks involved.

Our Brownies do camp in tents btw, there were some strenuous complaints by the girls about not doing this and after several left to go to the local Cubs instead, our group policy changed.

Dunroamin

zagfles wrote: »

I know teachers/TA's who say looking after a class of 30 is easier than looking after their own 2 children

Group travel is hardly "niche", and as mentioned Scouts/Guides seem to be able to do them for reasonable prices.

I think organising a group trip would make an excellent class project - let the kids research where to go, what to do there, trips, hotels, restuarants, etc, using online resources such as tripadvisor etc. Get them into the habit of researching holidays themselves rather than lazily paying a rip-off amount to a tour operator for a holiday! They'll get so much more out of a holiday they've put effort into researching, plus it will be much cheaper. Organising it (or helping to) is probably as educational if not more than the holiday itself

Although with older students, this is what I used to do when I taught Travel and Tourism in an FE college. The city packages were extortionate so we booked independently and travelled overland, either renting a coach or going by train or Eurolines and staying in Youth Hostels.

As the overseas visit was a compulsory element of the course I felt I had a responsibility to all students to do it as cheaply as possible, even if that meant sleeping in a dormitory with the female students.

heartbreak_star

I went on the Norway skiing trip when I was 13 - I had to "earn" half the money myself (chores, car washing, birthday money etc) and mum and dad paid the other half Had a fab time even though I wasn't very good haha!

Can't believe there have been parental complaints about Brownies camping. Unless it's negative temperatures, pack some good thermals like we did and get on with it

HBS x

andygb

peachyprice wrote: »

Really? Did you go to a particularly small school?

The majority of the overseas trips at my children secondary school are restricted to 30-40 places, out of 1250 children only a small minority will go on the trip, certainly nowhere near enough for anyone to even notice they've been.

I guess there were around 400 pupils in my school.

The bit I have highlighted merely confirms that this is an EXCLUSIVE holiday/trip/vacation, and I assure you that the ones who have been fortunate to belong to this SMALL, EXCLUSIVE club will indeed be very loud and proud about their trip.

Dunroamin

andygb wrote: »

I guess there were around 400 pupils in my school.

The bit I have highlighted merely confirms that this is an EXCLUSIVE holiday/trip/vacation, and I assure you that the ones who have been fortunate to belong to this SMALL, EXCLUSIVE club will indeed be very loud and proud about their trip.

But, as I explained from my own experience, it's not necessarily the most wealthy who'll go on these trips. Perhaps children will boast these days (I'm pretty sure that we didn't) but won't this also be true of privately taken holidays?

peachyprice

andygb wrote: »

The bit I have highlighted merely confirms that this is an EXCLUSIVE holiday/trip/vacation, and I assure you that the ones who have been fortunate to belong to this SMALL, EXCLUSIVE club will indeed be very loud and proud about their trip.

Perhaps in your school days, but I think you experience is the exception not the norm. It certainly didn't happen when I was at school and it didn't happen when my sons were at the same school and it hasn't happened now that my daughter is at the same school.

peachyprice

aliasojo wrote: »

I don't subscribe to the train of thought regarding school trips for one child v's a family holiday etc etc. (Although I can quite understand why parents have to consider this aspect.)

I bet you'd rethink that if you had twins who would cost you £2.4k to send skiing

zagfles

andygb wrote: »

I guess there were around 400 pupils in my school.

The bit I have highlighted merely confirms that this is an EXCLUSIVE holiday/trip/vacation, and I assure you that the ones who have been fortunate to belong to this SMALL, EXCLUSIVE club will indeed be very loud and proud about their trip.

So what? So might the kids with the latest iPhone, the kid who scores a hatrick for the school football team, the kids who gets the best grades in the exams, the kids who have more friends, who are more popular with the opposite sex, etc etc.

When I was in 6th form a kid who'd been to private school up to O-levels joined us - we called him Lord Snooty because of the way he spoke and he was really quite seriously bullied...just because he was posh and went on expensive holidays etc. So it works both ways.