In the news today is a story that a group of teachers from the UK have had a four-day working trip to Marbella cancelled due to pressure from the media and the local mayor (whose quote makes him sound exactly like the fat old chain-wearing luncheoning stereotype of yesteryear).
It's only when you look at the numbers that the sanctimonious babbling of parents starts to look a little more suspect. The four-day trip for 80 teachers is estimated to cost £18,000 - a pretty budget-conscious £225 each. They're still having the meeting, just in the UK - and it doesn't take long to burn through that in the UK.
We take our graduates overseas for their first three days every year - butter on the cat's paws, a little investment in their future, and more than anything, so that we can take them out in the evenings, buy them dinner, and get them to create a peer group. We go abroad simply because a flight to Europe and a hotel for two nights is offset by the increased cost of catering, meeting room hire and drinks in the UK! It's cheaper to take people away, quite simply, and that has the desirable side-effect of creating motivation and engagement as well. Our sister company part-funds a skiing trip for 70+ staff each year - it sounds like a dot-com-boom style extravagance, but when the cost of replacing disengaged staff who have left runs into the millions each year, it's actually money well-spent. I don't think it's a cop-out to say that a four-day meeting in Marbella might create more engagement and re-energise the teachers than four days in the staff room!
There's an unpleasant element of parents spoiling the game by walking off with the ball here.
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