19 January 2024
Dear Parent/Guardian
The end of the summer term may seem far away but we are once again busy planning a range of different trips for pupils to enjoy for our end of year educational visits/trips on 17th & 18th July.
Yet again there will be three different styles of trips, we will have some trips that will leave on Wednesday 17th July, stay overnight in a hotel and return on Thursday 18th July. Other trips will require an early start and late finish on the Thursday 20th July, the remaining trips will leave and return in time for the school buses. Please note this year there will be two London trips, one aimed at year 7 & 8 and another one aimed at year 9 & 10. The Alton Towers trip will only be available to those pupils in year 9 & 10.
This time we have listened to parents concerns from last year with the booking process and the difficulties of getting your child a place on the trip whilst battling against everyone else as the trips go live.
At the bottom of this letter is a link to our website for you to fill out a pupil choice form, this will give you an opportunity to tell us your child’s first and second choice trip that they would like to go on. You will have until the end of February half term to fill in the form. Please note filling in the pupil choice doesn’t guarantee your child has a place on that trip.
After that we will inform parents via Talaxy which trip your child has been accepted on. The trip will then appear on your child’s ipay account for you to be able to pay for it.
Talaxy data will be used to determine if your child will be allowed to go on selected trips. Again you will be notified of this after you have selected your child onto a trip.
If a particular trip becomes over subscribed with more pupils opting for it than we have spaces. In the first instance we will look at talaxy behavioural data, for the year group specific trips i.e. Alton Towers, preference will then be given to year 10s as it will be the last year they will be able to go on a summer trip.
For the overnight trips there is no scope for putting on additional capacity due to available staff.
At the bottom of this letter is also a link to the school website that has the brochure highlighting all 13 trips that we are offering pupils. Some of the trips have limits on the amount of pupils we can take, this is due to the amount of hotel accommodation and transport we have been able to secure for them and staffing levels. The timings and activities mentioned in the brochure are subject to slight changes due to availability & road conditions but the prices are fixed.
As previously mentioned the pupil choice form will be available to fill in until the end of February half term. After that we will inform parents through Talaxy which trip their child has been accepted on and it will appear on ipay to be able to pay. If your child then doesn’t want to take up a place on the trip they have selected it will be offered to someone else.
Once your child has paid for a trip we will not be able to offer any refunds as we will already have used the funds to pay for the different elements of the trip. The only instance where we will offer a refund is if we cancel the trip as a school.
The Summer trips are a reward for nearly all of our pupils who demonstrate excellent attendance and behaviour. If over the period before the trip your child has a number of unauthorised absences, persistent poor behaviour or a singular serious incident of poor behaviour we have the right to withdraw your child’s place on the trip.
I am sure you agree the trips will offer pupils a fantastic end to what is shaping up to be a busy academic year. I fully appreciate it is very early to be asking parents to select summer trips but we have to book early to secure activities and transportation.
If you have any queries regarding anything to do with the trips please don’t hesitate to contact me on email evansm701@hwbcymru.net
Link to the school website for the brochure of trips and pupil choice form:
https://pontcomp.co.uk/end-of-term-summer-activities-2024/
Yours sincerely
Matthew Evans
DEPUTY RESOURCES MANAGER
