By Emma Clayton

FOR many schoolchildren, the half-term break is a chance to kick a ball around the park, hang out by the swings with their mates or, if they’re lucky, head to the coast for a day trip.

Meanwhile, other youngsters spent last week’s holiday on the slopes of a fancy ski resort and shopping in the Big Apple. On a school trip.

A friend told me the other day that practically everyone in her son’s year at school went on a half-term skiing trip to America. Not able to afford the cost, let alone the spending money, she had to tell her son he couldn’t go.

Most of his friends flew off across the Atlantic and have been posting endless pictures of their fabulous trip on social media - just to make the handful of kids who were left behind feel that bit worse.

When she first heard about it my friend thought it was too extravagant for a school trip, and assumed most parents would feel the same. But to her dismay, nearly all the pupils in the entire year went. Even a set of twins...

The trip included two days in New York. Apparently, some of the girls were “only going for the shopping”. These are 13 and 14-year-olds!

York Press:

Skiing holidays are favourites with the royals. But should ordinary parents be expected to send their children on such expensive trips?

Apart from the fact that such expensive school trips must stigmatise those children whose parents can’t afford them, what educational value is there in a ski trip to America? And what can a 13-year-old get out of a New York city break? It would have been totally lost on me at that age.

These ludicrously extravagant trips are par for the course in private schools, where presumably parents have that kind of money. But this is a state school. “If they must go skiing, why can’t they go to France or Italy?” said my friend. Quite.

I can’t help wondering if these fancy trips are more for the teachers than the pupils. It’s not a bad way to spend half-term, even if you call it work.

But, like the ridiculous school prom and all the expense that goes with it, such extravagance sends out an unhealthy message to young people. Where next? Mustique on a private jet?

l ACTRESS Julie Hesmondhalgh says the sexual assault storyline at the centre of the latest series of Broadchurch is carefully researched and handled sensitively. I hope so, because the last series got it terribly wrong in its laughably inaccurate depiction of a murder trial. As a one-off, Broadchurch would’ve been fine, but the follow-up wrung the life out of it. For this final series, closely-guarded scripts were password protected. I hope it’s worth it. The first series was so predictable, I guessed the killer two episodes in.

l NEXT time you’re feeling unlucky, spare a thought for these unfortunate souls.

A survey by 888poker.com has identified 13 of the world’s unluckiest people, including a man attacked by a shark, struck by lightning and bitten by a rattlesnake; a woman who was on the Olympic, Titanic and Britannic, all of which sank; and the only person in a village of 70 not to win a share of a €740 million lottery payout.

Reminds me of my favourite urban myth bad luck story, involving a man happily snorkling by a beach who was suddenly scooped up by a helicopter using seawater to fight a forest fire. A few days later a pair of flippers were found in the smouldering embers of the forest...