Since when did a pricey trip to Disneyland improve a child’s maths?
Mehdi’s mum was told it would so she borrowed money to pay for it – one of countless state school parents forced to fork out huge sums for exotic trips that seem more like holidays
THE itinerary for the £1,200 three-night trip to New York certainly looks jam-packed. There’s a Broadway show to take in, a visit to a diner owned by talk-show host ellen DeGeneres, a tour of the NBC TV studies — and an afternoon’s shopping.
But even with a flying visit to an art gallery thrown in, it’s not immediately obvious how the trip in February half-term, aimed at Year 11 Art, Music and Drama GCSe pupils at Izzy Aiston’s state secondary, will boost exam grades.
What is in no doubt, however, is the financial pressure it is putting on Izzy’s mother Lucie, and her dad edward, who works round-theclock as a shift manager at a delivery firm.
Mum-of-three Lucie, 39, who lives in Crawley, West Sussex, says: ‘After the meeting at school telling the art, drama and music GCSe pupils about the New York trip, Izzy came home bouncing off the walls. She’s been working so hard at school we didn’t want to say no.’
However, such an opportunity involves huge sacrifices for the whole family.
‘We scrape by as it is,’ says Lucie. ‘So it’s been really difficult to find the £120 monthly instalments since Christmas and that doesn’t include meals, apart from breakfast.
‘So it’s meant I’ve been selling old baby clothes on eBay to get some extra cash. It also means this year, we can’t afford the big family holiday we’ve been planning since last year so my two younger children are losing out.’
Ten years ago, a school trip to the Isle of Wight was considered adventurous. These days school field trips, costing thousands, seem to routinely involve flying to far-flung exotic spots, such as the Seychelles, Barbados, Vietnam and Morocco.
It also seems there is no corner of the curriculum which now cannot be ‘enhanced’. even a three-day jaunt to Disneyland Paris is now being billed as good for pupils’ maths.
Such elite excursions may sound as if they only happen in the private sector. Yet increasingly parents at state schools, and not just those in affluent areas, are being asked to dig deep.
But while PowerPoint presentations about the latest ‘trip of a lifetime’ may send youngsters into a state of high excitement, it is beleaguered parents who have to foot the bill.
Of course, all high-end trips are optional. However, the fact that pupils get the hard sell at school first — before parents are informed — is leaving a trail of disappointed children, embarrassed parents and classrooms divided into haves and have-nots.
This week, research by teacher’s union NASUWT revealed at least one in six parents has not been able to afford to send a child on a school trip. Indeed, the Mail found middle-class families cutting back on food, borrowing from relatives and selling clothes to find the cash.
And the financial strain means a growing number are forgoing their own family holidays because they can’t afford both.
The pressure is now so intense that some are also taking to fundraising pages like GoFundMe to appeal for donations. This week the site told the Mail there are currently more than 100 requests for help.
ONE mother who felt ‘ambushed’ is Joanne Jeffries. In the last academic year she has been hit with requests for money for trips for her two daughters, who both attend state academies. They total nearly £4,000.
They include a £1,500 GCSe Media Studies trip to New York, £1,095 for a GCSe Geography trip to Iceland, a £300 trip to London to Harry Potter World, and £1,000 for skiing in Italy.
Joanne, 39, a business copywriter from Congleton, Cheshire, who is married to Colin, an import manager, says: ‘The worst thing is, the schools “sell” these trips to the kids first, who come home full of how wonderful they sound.
‘They get shown pictures of all the fabulous places they will visit. They then get into a huddle at break-time to plan how much fun they are going to have.
‘Then it’s left to good old mum and dad to be the killjoys and be the ones to say: “Sorry, we can’t afford it.” ’
Indeed, when her older daughter Kaitlyn came home last October with news that she had been offered a trip to New York for her Media Studies GCSe, Joanne had to say no.
‘When Kaitlyn told me about her trip, I had just agreed for her younger sister Rebecca to do a ski trip in Italy so we were already committed to that. We had already paid for Harry Potter World and turned down the Geography one.
‘So when Kaitlyn came home all hyped up about the trip, it wasn’t an easy moment. To start with, she tried to convince me to let her sign up, by saying which of her friends were going and promising she wouldn’t spend too much money while she was out there.
‘When I had made it clear it wasn’t a goer, she went up to her bedroom and I didn’t see her for an hour. She has taken it well, but I imagine in a lot of homes there have been a few tears.’
Other parents who have forked out for their children are dismayed to find the tours seem to be one-size-fits-all. Jane, 41, a mother-of-three from Cambridge, was told that a fiveday visit — costing £1,500 — to Iceland would be ‘beneficial’ to her 16-year-old son Jonathan’s GCSe Geography.
She was so concerned he would miss out academically if he didn’t go, that she set aside her pride to ask her father for a loan, which she has only just paid off.
Jane, who was recently made redundant from her HR job, says: ‘I can’t afford to spoil my children, but how could I say no, when it was implied it was an important trip for Jonathan?
‘We don’t have any spare money, so now this means we can’t afford to go on holiday as a family this year, which is not fair on my other two children.’
even more frustratingly, she says her son felt it didn’t help his GCSe studies.
‘He came back saying he had a good time, but that it wasn’t anything to do with exams or learning. He said it was basically just a nice break. They saw a few famous sights, like the geysers and the Blue Lagoon Spa. But he says he didn’t do any work and nothing they saw was related to his course.’
Now Jane says she is wondering if the trip, laid on by a highachieving state school, was just
a way to tick the box for ‘enrichment’ activities with schools inspectorate Ofsted.
Ultimately, Jane believes such trips will have the opposite effect. ‘What the schools don’t realise is that I’ve heard parents saying they’ll discourage their children from taking certain subjects, like Geography, because they can’t afford the trips and don’t want their children to feel embarrassed.’
Like many parents, Jane is also wondering why the cost of these package tours is so high.
‘The four of us could have gone on holiday to Spain for the same amount. We’ve never spent that much even on a family holiday for all of us.’ One reason the price has rocketed is that schools no longer organise their own. Since the jailing of a Geography teacher for manslaughter after a pupil drowned on a trip in 2002, insurance premiums have soared.
The sheer volume of paperwork and risk assessments mean that rather than organise trips schools now buy them via a growing number of education companies.
These firms clearly want to make a profit, but changes to airline booking systems means it’s no longer as cheap to block-book seats for tour parties.
The high ratio of staff to pupils — which may be as high as one in ten on trips abroad — means more teachers have to go and the costs of their flights and accommodation are passed on to parents.
As one teacher told the Mail, private tour companies exploit a perfect storm. They know such tours are a good way for newly formed state academies to show ambition.
He added: ‘The trips also adeptly tap into the guilt of middle-class parents, who are often busy and want to make up for the fact they haven’t taken their kids away to these places themselves.
‘The companies will also charge what they think parents will pay. Like any kind of business, they are looking after their profit margins.’ When the Mail approached ABTA, which represents school tour companies, they said pricing is a matter for schools.
ANOTHER mother baffled by the school trip trend is Yasmin Ward, 31, from Ongar, essex. In May, her son Mehdi, 13, came home with a letter from his state secondary saying he had been selected in a ballot to go on a Maths trip to Disneyland Paris.
A letter said the £380 trip next February half-term is ‘to discover how this subject is put into practice at this world famous leisure destination’.
Disneyland is also touted by educational tour companies as a destination for helping pupils study everything from ‘music and performing arts, language, business and economics’ to ‘art and design, ICT and science’. The letter went on to tell parents when to pay their instalments.
Since then Yasmin has been paying £75 a month. This, despite the fact her husband, Mathew, a selfemployed floor-layer, is off work with an injury — and she has five younger children.
Yasmin said: ‘I decided to give Mehdi the chance to go because his friends were more than likely going and most of the children at his school come from wealthy backgrounds so I didn’t want him to be left out.
‘I’ve had to borrow money from family to pay for it and it certainly does mean tightening our belts, even more so without my husband’s wages. From the parents’ point of view, the least the schools could do is send the letters home in a sealed envelope so you don’t feel so pressured by kids waving them in your face.’
nor does it seem grandparents are immune from the pressure.
Liz Hodginkson, 73, a grandmother of five, bailed out her granddaughter rose, 16, when she faced a £3,000 state school trip to nepal. Having been told by her parents that they could not afford it, rose set about raising the funds herself, doing a sponsored climb on Snowdonia, saving her Christmas and birthday money, and babysitting.
‘eventually she had £1,500, a magnificent sum for a girl of her age to raise by herself,’ says Liz. ‘But still only half of what was required.’
With the deadline for the full amount drawing near, and rose in the midst of GCSe revision, there was, says Liz, only one option.
‘Obviously, the bank of Granny Liz had to be approached. My son rang one day and said: “You know you said you might be able to help rose with her trip to nepal . . . ?”
‘After huffing and puffing that I was in my 40s before I could afford a trip to nepal, I said that I would be able to lob in £1,000, which would leave her only £500 short. Her parents reckoned they could afford to contribute this amount. As it happened, her other grandparents made up the shortfall.
‘But I am a comparatively rich old lady, not a 16-year-old schoolgirl at a state comprehensive.
‘For my granddaughter is not at some posh private school but a London comprehensive where many of the pupils in the catchment area are on free school meals, and whose parents need help with affording the uniform.
‘Presumably, most of these pupils have not got a handy granny or two prepared to put their hand in their pocket to grant their granddaughter’s dearest wish.’
FURTHERMORE, as the NASUWT has pointed out, is there really any need for pupils to travel so far? This week, the union’s Ben Padley told the Mail: ‘We have said there are perfectly good locations in the UK that provide educational and learning opportunities for more reasonable prices.’
Parent educator and former teacher noel Janis-norton says that without careful planning, expensive educational trips are often wasted on young people, who are more focused on having fun out of the classroom with their friends than on learning.
noel, author of the Calmer, easier, Happier series of books, says: ‘Many school trips are not prepared for in a thorough way, so pupils are often not getting the most out of them. So truthfully I am not sure how much actual learning takes place.’
He says the growing number of expensive school trips may be due to the rise in competition between schools, including state ones.
‘There’s a lot of talk about Learning Outside The Classroom, but you don’t have to see the Statue of Liberty in person, for example, to understand the history,’ he adds.
‘While they may be billed as trips of a lifetime, I think the money would be better spent on holidays with their families. Any learning available on a family holiday — and there is more than people realise — is likely to sink in better without the distraction of classmates.’
And what of those classmates whose parents cannot afford it?
‘What child wouldn’t want to go to new York with their friends?’ asks mum Lucie.
‘It’s time schools realised the pressure they are putting families under. And how heart-breaking it is for children left behind.’