School trips

Never seen voluntary on the leaflets. Latest weekend trip is over £100 and parents pay over the term weekly. Maybe there is help if you can't afford it but it is certainly kept quiet. This is for a 9yr old.

It is definitely the same here in NW London thatbags.

The arrangement does not cover extra-curricula trips such as ski-ing holidays. The cost of those must be covered by the parents.

tiggypiro is right. Schools cannot actually "charge" for trips but they can set a "voluntary" contribution which, if enough parents pay, means the trip can go ahead. This arrangement was to cover the eventuality of some parents not being able to afford the contribution but their kids not being disadvantaged and losing out on the trip. The system seems to work well.

The only free school trip I have ever heard of was when DGD1 and her year 1 and reception class walked to the village shop and priced some of the goods and did some calculations. They also all got a bag of goodies each.

Mind you, grand-kids live in Surrey

Thanks all- I'd love to have more responses. I am having a 'discussion' in a local Forum here in Switzerland, and many expats fromm the UK assure me that all school trips in the UK are funded by the school. Now I've lived in the UK for 39 years, been a teacher, mum, governor and now granny for all that time- and I've never known a school trip to be free, unless kids could walk there and there was no entrance fee. So I'd love to know if my experience is unusual and just in Leicestershire. Thanks again.

Not free here either, and not at any schools I know, sadly. Some local schools have a fund for children living in poverty, but not many. So sad that children miss out on these jolly outings.

If I remember rightly schools could only ask for a voluntary contribution for a school trip. Of course the trips did not go ahead without a great many 'voluntary contributions'.

I was not aware that they were free anywhere.

Not normally free here granjura