Does your Primary school still have camps whereby students stay over night?
Our school has abolished them all together. Is that the norm these days?
Does your Primary school still have camps whereby students stay over night?
Our school has abolished them all together. Is that the norm these days?
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12 Replies
Our school has grade 3/4 camp and grade 5/6 camp every year. Kids absolutely love it! They would be devastated if it was cancelled. It's only 2 nights and 3 days and kids relish them.
I’m the OP - I am Devastated. Growing up we went to school camp in year 3,4,5 & twice in year 6. Just at the local public school some of my best memories are from those camps. My kids Catholic school refuses to do an overnight camp.
Are you in Victoria? I remember they made changes a few years ago which made it extremely difficult for schools to do camps now. I think its the adult to child ratio.
No NSW
My kids' primary school cancelled my son's year 5 camp last year & replaced with a day trip. The year 6 camp has been cut from 4 nights to two this year, due to cost. I suspect it'll eventually get cut altogether (was a close thing this year).
It's sad as it's such a great experience for kids to have & be away from home.
My daughter had her grade 6 camp last year, cost me $200! We also had to donate a some food items and were heavily encouraged (ie, expected) to participate in fund-raisers throughout the year to go towards the camp and their leavers dinner.
I scraped it together but it was an expense I really didn't need. I'd hazard a guess that cost is one of the biggest factors here.
It almost didn't go ahead because there was a huge lack of parent volunteers as well, so that's probably another deciding factor.
Our primary school does Grade 6 only. The highschool does one every year and it's a whole week. I think they're awesome and kids should get them.
It could be be the cost that makes it prohibitive. It could be a lack of volunteer teachers. They don’t get paid extra to attend camp, yet are expected to be available to the students 24/7 from the moment they depart school until the moment they return. The teachers also have lives and families outside of school that they might not be able to be away from for 3 or 4 days.
Op here - our school year 6 group pre-covid only did one night.
Funnily enough in our region we are the only school out of 28 (a P and C mum has done the research) not offering a school camp. Something they do not advertise on enrolment and not something you think to ask.
Our school does a year 6 camp every year. You start paying for it in the beginning of the year. Yr5 can also attend to make up numbers
I grew up in Melbourne and our primary school had camps every year.
My kids grew up in Perth 25 years ago and primary schools here never did camps. It's never been a thing here but it was in Melbourne so I guess it depends what city you're from too.
Or maybe just the school rather than the city. We live in WA and my kids went on more camps than I ever did growing up in NSW. They have even been flown to camps several times. It would depend on the school and their ability to cover costs. Surprisingly public schools in poorer areas will probably have more camps because different demographics get more funding and grants etc, they would also have more support staff which makes it easier to give up a certain amount of staff for x days.