To think closing schools for polling in this day and age is unacceptable

[sharonthewaspandthewineywall]

There are loads of polling stations by me, yet they close the school. Again. However if I wanted to take my kids to the seaside for the day i'd be lectured about their education being more important. Also people can do an online vote.

Arent, not are. Its been a long day .

Our LEA changed the in service day til today. Meanwhile last night I had to take my brownies on a trip because our halls at the church were being used.

Yanbu. They should be using churches. And anyone who can't walk for longer than, say, 10 minutes can use a postal vote.

Yanbu at all!

I agree. DS's school is a polling station. We live about half a mile away. However our polling station is the community centre across the road, which is between our house and the school. I can't see why they don't have both polling stations in the community centre.

It's not whinging to have a view different to yours Anna sorry to break it to you....

protegemoi usually, during the school day the only way a person can enter or leave the premises is via the school reception. If an adult (who is not a council employee or known volunteer) wishes to come onto the premises they need to be escorted by a member of staff. A child cannot leave the premises without a member of staff opening the reception door for them. This ensures that children cannot leave the premises without being handed over to a responsible adult.

However, to allow voters to enter the polling station, we would either need to arrange enough staff escorts to take them from reception to the polling station (not feasible due to numbers needed, and also we are not allowed to come in contact with voters as mentioned before). Or we need to leave another entrance (playground gate) open, allowing voters to directly enter the polling station. This means that a) we cannot be sure how many adults are on the premises and b) we don't know who those adults are. Leaving paedos and perverts to one side for the moment as they are statistically unlikely, an estranged parent could potentially use the opportunity to seize their child from the playground. Or one of our children could leave the premises- some of them have attempted to 'escape' before.

We have done risk assessments for keeping the school open on polling day- and come to the conclusion that it is much safer to have an INSET. As I mentioned, the children at this school at least will be offered their 190 days.

How can schools allow random members of the public onto the premises to vote and still remain open?

Yanbu. Don't you remember how fun it was to have a random day off for election/powercut/snow etc? Let the children enjoy it fgs.

I'm now racking my brains to think if there's another suitable premises nearby- and I can't think of one. The nearest church is about 20 minutes walk away in one direction, in the other direction it's much further. And I can't think of any community centres or brownie huts or similar in the area, except for those attached to the church.

YANBU.

Our DC's school is a polling station and the school was still open. They use part of the foyer off the entrance as the children can use an alternative corridor to by-pass that section.

I would have thought that if you want more people to vote it makes sense to use a school and keep it open for the children, as then it's really easy to pop in and vote before or after dropping the children off. Or maybe I'm just lazy (although I would vote wherever the polling station was).

Guess that only works if it's the local population who use that school though.

I'm not sure anyone is whinging, I think it's a perfectly good question observation especially as schools and LEAs are so hot on not allowing parents to take children out of school for even a day. Why does it have to be a school? The disruption is much bigger than using the empty church hall next door (in my area).

The setup for our polling station was brilliant, straight forward, lovely friendly people but it was just 3 desks and a voting booth.

Yabu

It isn't that big a deal.

God forbid that you take a day off of work to shock horror look after your children.

It is a sad reflection of society and the slaves to work we've become that we wring our hands over these sorts of things.

This country has the fewest bank holidays in Europe and work silly hours. For what?

They should make polling day a bank holiday.

Our school is used but stays open. The voters use one of the playground entrances and music room and the area is fenced off.

muddling that wouldn't work here, it's a linear design with only one corridor, classrooms/hall etc down both sides of the corridor and the reception located halfway down. There is no alternative corridor to bypass with. And you can't block the reception area off completely as that is the only way in/out of the school during school hours.

Who said I work?
And id also
'Shock horror' look after my kids if I took them out of school for a day but days off willy nily are discouraged.....

LEAs and the term-time holiday issue is totally separate to the polling day one though. Every time something comes up that means a school is shut like strikes etc we get these threads on 'we cant do it why can they' (and it sounds like whinging to me).

I've just spoken to DH who says switching to weekend voting would work but sundays are an issue since so many church halls couldn't be used. And churches dont have to let out their halls for voting at all, that could be a perfectly good reason why the school next door is being used.

Honestly how often do elections come round after all.

hot cross hunny it's not one day though, is it? It's half term next week so most people will already be using up holiday for those days.

I've never understood it, what's wrong with using a church or a local hall. Or a caravan in a field or a park. Likewise with having them on THursdays instead of a weekend.

You're not the only one complaining. If you don't work what is your problem?

All children will be out of school at the same time. You deciding to take your child out when others are learning is different.

As for people using holiday for half terms - my point was a wider one. We blithely accept the idea that we have to stretch our annual leave so thinly as employers are family unfriendly. We should get more holiday full stop.

be better as well if there was a way of voting online as I am sure more people would vote

It would be lovely if everyone got more holiday but it's not quite the point. .. out of 31 days in May, my ds has been in school for 14 of them. That's just not a lot to work around, is it? With my two working days savaged this week and next it takes out half a month. That's why I'm spending all evening working once the kids are in bed. Again!

how often do elections come round

Once a year on average. DC have been at school for 6 years. So far we've had 1 academic year with 2 elections, 4 with 1 election and 1 with no elections. The day the school is shut always comes out of the 190 days.

May always have a half term plus bank holidays. Just the month with a lot of breaks. If you had more holiday or more flexible employers then it might be easier. But noone fights for better working conditions! They just complain that their kids aren't in school instead.

Polling stations have to have certain features like access to toilets. If that isn't feasible in a school environment without compromising child safety, the school has to close. Other community buildings may already be in use for part of the day, so the school becomes the default choice in many wards.

YABtotallyU.

Days off school for elections are one of the perks of childhood.

And, if you're lucky, you get to accompany an adult to the polling station - proper grown-up business!