School remaining open during polling

Every school I ever attended (1970s) was a polling station.

None of them ever closed on election day. The hall and part of the playground were ruled out-of-bounds and school continued as normal.

For some reason in the 1990s this stopped and schools started closing.

YABU.

But the year 6's are going to be out.

I have worked in a primary school on polling day. The school hall was out of bounds to pupils, the corridor (and classrooms beyond) were blocked off for voters / polling staff. In that school it was fine.

However, if you don't trust that the school can keep your child safe that day, then of course you WNBU to keep them at home.

Sadly, it's s a total unknown. However, considering the usual strict security about people visiting school premises, the lack of reassurance from the head as to how safeguarding can be safely maintained under these circumstances is of concern.

What do you think might happen?

I would keep my children off in these conditions - know an ex head and they would close the school under these circumstances!

This! You’re massively overreacting. Please don’t pass this irrational fear to your child.

Impossible to say without knowing the precise arrangements but doesn’t sound like something that would bother me. What do you think will happen?

Having had two DC having to have days off for every polling days for xx years ( god knows how many) for every election going I applaud your HT.
As l was working full time I had to take leave every single time when it was just not necessary. There is no need to use schools anyway in my opinion ( use the village or church hall !) but if they have to then your HT has taken the best approach.

Oh ours will close and add an inset day on to that. Really disruptive

Well, the inset day will be part of the normal 5 schools have. They can't add an extra one on.
They may have moved it I guess.

...be a reacher.

Schools can't win, had they shut for polling day people would be complaining.

Christ, who'd a teacher..

Interested to see what our school do. Local elections they just move the nursery class for the day (nursery has it's own separate, gated entrance and exit) but GE will have a higher turnout so I am not sure if they will need to use one of the main school halls and close the whole school?

Lots of sensible replies here but if you’re truly worried and no one on here or the head can reassure you then why not just keep your child off school that day? What other solution is there?

There's another post running about the immense pressure on teaching/schools and how droves are leaving the sector thanks to changing culture and and stuff like this all contributes to it. I wonder how such posters dare get out of bed on a morning given the millions of what if scenarios that might happen.

Realistically though, why would a school share their internal RA with parents? You can assume its safe else the LA wouldnt have sanctioned the use of it. Is Mr Bloggs here expecting to go through it with a red pen and a load of revisions on how he would have done it better? Perhaps contact the LA instead as they'll have more time, resource and experience to deal with nonsensical queries like this one.

Obviously I don't know the specific circumstances of your school but - also as someone with HS responsibility - closing the school is disproportionate.

So, you're happy for children to be taken out of an environment where they are under constant supervision, to a location where they are not, and - statistically speaking - are far more likely to be abused and/or witnesses to DV?

Because that's the impact of closing the school for a day.

Extreme events aside, the risks of which cannot be mitigated easily, they are in the best place. Also, witnessing and 'being involved' (kind of) in the election is a brilliant opportunity for them.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound hard, but this kind of over-reaction needs to stop.

My DS is 16 just left school and throughout his entire time at school I think I emailed in once during Covid times. That's it.

If I was a teacher/head I'd get seriously fed up of highly strung parents!

@MrBuckler you have only had to email the head a few times? During the 19 years I had school aged children (at 4 different schools) I never once emailed (or called or wrote to)a headteacher. Surely it’s not common to need to email at all? It’s not that my children went to amazing schools but that I managed to deal with queries in other ways. I don’t think you can have concept of how many things headteachers have to deal with from day to day. There is a far greater danger of your kids becoming anxious and mistrustful than anything else.

What sort of manic hysteria is this? It's no wonder the head isnt replying.

In ordinary safeguarding, a lone adults without a staff badge must be challenged.

In so-called suspended safeguarding, a lone student is challenged. "But I just need to get my violin" tough, you can't go there without an accompanying teacher.

The areas for voting and the passage to it will be cordoned off and in suspended safeguarding mode.

Op I think you misunderstood my point about parents' evenings.

I will try to explain it again.

When schools are in session, usually all parts of the school, within the gates, are in "ordinary safeguarding". This means, say, a child can leave a lesson to go to the toilet unaccompanied. All adults must either wear a staff badge, or wear a visitor's badge AND be accompanied.

Sometimes, all or part of the school (clearly delineated/cordoned off) will be in so-called "suspended safeguarding". This means adults can go there without signing in. Children cannot go there unaccompanied. As you say, either by their own parents, or by a teacher. This could be when the PTA is doing a cake sale, or the gym is being rented externally etc etc.

If you try to complain to the Head without understanding these basics, you will only receive an eye roll.

The parents at this school sound like a bloody nightmare. But yeah, keep emailing about nonsense.

And it's things like this which mean we have a national shortage of people wanting to become Heads

RA is about identifying risk and managing it, not looking for a reason to cancel. He'll do what the RA needs to make it safe and he will have thought about the risk, even if it hasn't been written down.