School Parking

[ChatTime]

At my childs school some staff park cars in the school playground this has been given the go ahead by the current head. I have voiced my concern with regard to health & saftey also to the fact that due to major building working going on at school the closure of one entire playground means lack of play space. I had no responce however today i happened to see the Head at school gates and mentioned my concern and that other parents were in agreement with me. Heads responce was she had made the decision that cars can be parked no change will happen and if i didn't like it to take my child to another school. Where do we as parents stand, after all we as Tax Payers pay for the children to play in the playground and not for staff to have their private car park.

Actually, Panzee raises a valid point. When our school expanded from a junior school to a primary (with nursery) they had to take half of one playground in order to extend the carpark. We still had 3 and a bit left. We also had to expand the staffroom, office and toilet areas in order to cope with the extra numbers of staff. Not to mention the additional numbers of peripatetic adults. A school site that was origianlly suitable for 8 classes, must be adapted when it then has 16.
Maybe this is why the OP's HT has said the playground will still be needed for parking after the building work has finished.

Why is everyone talking about how hard teachers have it, that is not what the op is talking about,

it's about whether cars should be parked in a kids playground, regardless of who the cars belong to.

we have this at our school and IMHO you are being entirely reasonable.
(I'm sure some teachers carry a lot of stuff but those without cars manage to cycle so I'm sure it's doable.
Head sounds like power has gone to her head TBH and had I been spoken to like that I would be having a word with the parent gov.
Our head is a nut too the kids wanted some play equipment in the playground but head has vetoed she reportedly wont have anything fixed in the playground, which IMHO is out of order
(inner city school 1 playground for over 400 kids used in rotation and huge numbers of the kids don't have any outdoor space of their own)

Well, actually, the OP brought it up, when she said that a carpark in close proximity to the school building was not necessary because teachers never take books home to mark. That's how this bit all kicked off. red rag to a bull in the current climate.

The HT will have a hell of a job getting planning permission for a carpark at the expense of a playground.

It won't get through. She should be encouraging her staff to use sustainable transport and she should be setting up systems to make that realistic and attractive to them. IE she should be following a bloody travel plan, like all schools are supposed to.

I can't believe people think this is reasonable (except teachers ) are you all in favour of selling school playing fields then?
DO you think GP's surgery should run for the beneit of the nurses?
OK for staff to take the disabled space then because they have stuff to carry?

If they're expanding the school, they also need to expand the staff facilities.

Sustainable transport? Is that why the highly expensive apartment building near us only has enough parking for half the apartments to park one car, when so many households nowadays run two? Strangely, they're not selling!

"DO you think GP's surgery should run for the beneit of the nurses?"
Eh?

Yes clam it is.

Because if we don't cut car use

a) we will not reach our Kyoto targets
b) the roads will reach gridlock
and
c) this all costs the nation absolutely millions of pounds in

• lost productivity due to people being stuck in traffic
• NHS bills because of accidents, stress and emission-related illness
• NHS bills because of obesity and depression connected to being lazy arsed bastards

The car culture is unsustainable. This thread is appalling. The assumption that everyone is entitled to use a car and park it on children's fucking play space FGS - what kind of fat-arsed philistinism is this? I feel as if I've wandered into netmums by mistake.

Around my school there is virtually no on-street parking, not for a long way. We have always had parking spaces marked around the edge of the playground.

I know this is different to the OP because in that case there is other parking available. I also imagine that our playground is larger- the parking spaces don't really impact that much on the space.

However, I really fail to understand the concerns about safety. The cars are in place well before the children arrive and stay until well after they leave. I'm fairly certain that no child has been injured by a car. In contrast, several cars have had minor damage sustained by children playing. Staff wouldn't choose to park on the playground if there was another option. And while the idea of cycling/car share/ bus sounds lovely it just isn't possible for everyone. And I'm speaking as someone who doesn't drive.

Most public sector workers do not have free parking and there is no requirement to provide it. If you have parking at school, it is a luxury but it should not be at the expense of children's play area.

pozzled - it's true, car sharing etc. isn't always possible.

But the HT's attitude indicates that she's not even considering her school travel plan and seeing as how she has a duty to do so, that's a bit off.

'It isn't the same as being a teacher but it's a very good window into life as a teacher.'

You know, it's little nuggets of gold like this that make my evenings worthwhile. I love this sort of delusional nonsense.
OP, write to the governors setting out your concerns. They have the power to change things very quickly, I'm surprised that you aren't one already.

Getting into trouble because a football hit a car?

FFS, FFS, FFS.

There are no words.

clam my intention was not to inply that teachers workload is minimal, just on observation that at the school where my dd does they get 2 pieces of paper one numeracy one lit on a weekly basis plus reading books that stay at school

the school was initally a 3 class intake with 3 playgrounds one of which has been used as an unoffical car park as well as a playground for some time. We are now a 4 class intake with only 2 playgrounds one of which is still used as both carpark and playground. The HD said in no uncertain terms that this will be the case even after bulding work stops. To this i replied that i would write to the LEA her reply was that i need to write to governor i said ok and that i would cc her in. I left it at that and started to walk away

at no point was i rude although she had ruffled me with her 'if u don't like my responce put your child in another school'.
Many parents have had very sharp responces from this Head over the years whenever she is questioned over policies

I've heard of door to door, but this really does take the mick.

In response to onceamai:

At my children's primary school there were computers in every classroom so I am at a loss to understand why some of the teachers on here have to lug laptops around. I work for a very large HE establishment, not as a teacher, but I do a lot of work at home. I take it home on a memory stick. Bully for you. Not all primaries have a computer in their classroom, often they are totally unreliable.

As for lugging two or three lots of 30 books, if there's that much marking banked up I would suggest that there may be difficulties with time management. No, you are expected to mark work to the objective, you are expected to teach these lessons every day...hence the workload.

If 90 pieces of work need marking in one night - can't some of the work be completed on paper and then stuck into the book to ease the burden. Well done, excellent use of paper and glue, which schools clearly have unlimited supplies of. Not to mention all the time spent gluing the sheets in, having identified the usual nameless pieces.

The head at my dc's primary was obsessed with walking to school for children and families. 60% of her staff lived locally yet drove to work! Er, yes, because of all the crap that needs to be carried.

I also think the head's response was inappropriate. Agree.