27 November 2007

The school ski trip

Just at the end of the coming Christmas holidays, Middle is going with 28 other children in his class (a joint class the equivalent of UK years 4 and 5) on a one week skiing trip to La Toussuire. He is at the equivalent of a state primary school, and it is who are going. Equipment, lessons, accommodation and transport are all included in the price; we, the parents, just have to provide clothes and a sandwich for the journey there, 16 hours by coach (it's not the only food they're eating on the journey, though).

The total cost of the trip, for the whole of the 2 classes, is 13 900€ (about £10 000), which works out at 480€ per child (just under £345). Where do families of kids in state schools find that sort of money, to send their kids of 10 and 11 on a school trip, I hear you ask? Well, it's a fair question, but here, in this particular case, and it may be similar in lots of other schools across France, we don't have to find it. Not all of it, that is. We have to make some contribution, but after the local mairie have contributed 85€ (£61-ish) per child, and the equivalent of the PTA have put in their share of 235€ (£168-ish), the rest, which falls to us, is, as you'll have worked out already, only 160€ (less than £115) - not a bad price to pay for a week's skiing trip for your child. And we don't have to pay it all in one go. The final payment of 40€ is not due until February, after they've been back almost a month.

As impressive as this is of a supportive and supporting community spirit, at another time in the year years 2 & 3 go for a week's trip studying the countryside and year 1 goes to the coast for a week; although these other trips, too, require a parental contribution, they are also largely financed by the PTA and the mairie.

Over here, at least in our village (and perhaps the word 'village' underlies the main reason behind the support; we are not a town), the PTA organises 3 or 4 fund-raising evenings a year ( a soirée crêpes and a soirée cous-cous/karaoke, for example), charging entrance fees, as well as the annual play (3 performances), again for which an entrance fee is charged. These are all supported by parents and other villagers, which I guess is how the money mounts up. And we, parents and children, benefit.

It's yet another positive side to re-locating to France; it balances out the difficulty of finding well-paid and enjoyable work when you know that your children are going to at least have the chances to do those things that they might not have done had we stayed put, and for a not overly onerous amount of money.

5 comments:

  1. Good God! That's amazingly cheap. School ski trips here (and not until at least year 7 anyway) are around £700-800 which is far more than we spend per person for a family skiing holiday travelling by plane. Even the Y6 adventure holiday (our school, about the last in the country to agree to adopt this - has always buckled under that old fave Health and Safety ... nuff said, you can imagine my opinion of all that) is over £300 for four nights and a coach journey of 2 hours. Hope middle enjoys. We're Alpe d'Huez-ing in Jan a quatre. Can't wait.

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  2. Sounds like you have a good mairie then ? with presumably a decent mayor ? well we had better not travel down that road then had we ? hope middle enjoys his trip.

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  3. Wow I can't believe that. R and I were totting up how much we've spent on our state-educated children this year - it's a lot of money, and they haven't been away yet (year 4 and Reception). Obviously a lot of that money is spent through our choice, for the odd after school activity and music lessons, but our kids don't do much that is 'extra' as we don't want to over-schedule them, and we only do it because vital things like sport and music have been squeezed out of the curriculum. We have a good PTA (of course, I'm on it!) but we're a small village school and are fighting tooth and nail to keep the school in the heart of the community. I could go on, but won't!

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  4. The last state school ski trip youngest was offered was £650 - I booked flights with easyjet and found an apartment on the internet and the grand total, for four of us, was £825.

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  5. Last term cost me over £3oo in charity donations, violin lessons, clubs need I go on and no 4 hasn't even started yet. Thomas's weekend activity trip will cost £140, fortunately, in installments but all to be paid long before they go. Last year both him and Alec went so that landed us with a bill for £300 a week after they had started in their new school.

    I am gobsmacked!

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