To expect high schools to provide lockers?

[houseinthecorner]

My daughter starts year 7 on Thursday in her high school but they don't have lockers so my child had to carry her cost, PE bag, books and folders ect around with her all day. Am I being unreasonable to expect a Locket to be provided so she can at least store her coat? And other things ?

Lockers did exist at my secondary school, but pointlessly. You couldn't enter the buildings before registration in the morning to put stuff in or take it out, you couldn't leave registration early to go to them, you didn't have time to go to them on your way to classes because you would be both late for the next class and told off by any member of staff who spotted you doing anything other than moving to the next class, you couldn't enter the buildings at dinner time to use them... The school was closed down eventually for just being awful. I hear that the academy which replaced it, far from not letting the kids in during breaks, makes a point of stating in their information that there is no reason for kids to go outside at any point during the day other than for PE. Which must make smoking hard

Very few of the schools that I've worked in over the years have had lockers. One sticks in my head because students would regularly turn up minus equipment that was apparently in their locker and would be at least 10 minutes away to retrieve.

Schools have mostly either been massively extended over time in a fairly uncoordinated way, or new PFIs over the last 15 years have penny pinched over considerations such as practical storage.

Our coat pegs were not outside classrooms. They were all together in the bit between the toilets. They didn't take up space in corridors where classrooms were.

I remember carrying massive school bag, PE kit, coat and clarinet all day in the 80s. Had to walk two miles to the bus station and then climb very steep Cotswold hill from bus stop to my house.

Lockers would have got broken or vandalised anyway.

Does the school have room for possibly 1000 + lockers or the budget to pay for them ?

Our local has them. £5 deposit for the key. My daughter chooses not to have one

There were limited lockers at our school, £10 deposit if you wanted one but I don't think I ever used mine the entire time I was there. It really isn't that much to carry, unless you do cookery or music but it's still doable and there's usually instrument/food store rooms etc. Our form teachers let us leave PE kits in her classroom anyway.

I was at high school in the 80s. We had lockers but hardly anyone used them because they were vandalised and broken into.

apart from the time in first year of high school the smallest shortest boy in class managed to fit his entire self into the tiniest locker to prove he could

Wow. Lots of replies. Thank your, it's been an interesting thread.

I think I was supposed because I had lockers at school for coats etc. Regards to the hood thing, I have idea why they have this rule. I only found out about it when I received a booklet 'what we expect from pupils' through the post over the summer holiday

Never had lockers in my school and neither did dp. I walked 2 miles carrying whatever was needed. Some days I'd have pe kit, text books, art folder, cello, home ec stuff, other days I'd have three jotters. It's just the way it was. Each night I emptied my bag andnputnin what was required for the next day. I also put in my lunchaoart from the sandwich which I'd make in the morning. DP had to get a bus with a similar load although he says he never emptied bag properly. He went to a daily posh school so would have to carry rugby kit etc.

Lockers are no good

For your setup, maybe. For others they are neccesity.

My ds1 just finished 6 years at high school with no lockers. For the past two years he's had a problem with one of his shoulder blades. The physio put it down to carrying his bag which I can't lift every school day. DD has done a deal where she dumps some stuff in her registration class instead of carting it all around.

There were lockers in my school but allocated on a first come first served basis. I think there was a small cost too. I had one but hardly ever used it as it was in the furthest block and too difficult to get to in time.

DD has a locker. All the girls in her school (720) have a locker.

When ds was at secondary he had a locker too.
Everyone seems to manage to use the lockers without too much difficulty...

They have lockers art DD's school - infact she has two. One for PE where her PE stuff lives all year. The other is either in a corridor or her form room (varies) - she keeps folders, and her lunch in that. Not sure she would manage taking everything in, esp now in Y11. They are expected to have a lot of stuff with them in school.

Our high school has lockers. I paid £5 for a key each dc when they started at the school. Neither of them use the lockers. Apparently it's easier to carry your stuff than it is to go back and forth several times a day to the lockers which are in the entrance and not close by any classes

Seems that we were unusual then in having lockers at my school back in the 80's. We didn't go back to the lockers between each lesson - you still carried around your bag to take whatever books you needed home for homework, and for whatever lessons until the next break or lunchtime. Best use was somewhere to put our games/pe kits and coats. Made a real difference in not having to lug everything around all day.

I was really surprised when my son started secondary school and we found out they had no lockers, nowhere to store coats, etc. His rucksack is really heavy and it can't be good for his back (and that's only carrying the books etc for the day as he empties it each evening). More annoying is that the teachers don't tell them what's needed so they end up carrying several reading books for English for example, even though they're only working on one in a lesson - they don't know which until they get there, so they have to take them all. Same with games - no advance notice as to whether it's boots they need or trainers, so have to take both. Not helpful!

Inadequate personal storage facilities is a perennial feature of all UK buildings, pretty much. We are a cold country where outer wear is required for much of the year, yet bars, restaurants, clubs, workplaces etc rarely have cloakrooms. Schools are just part of the unsatisfactory trend. They do take it to another level by having kids wandering round like extras from Crackerjack piled up with all kinds of shit and nowhere to put it, but the blatant lack of such facilities is feature of UK life in general.

Oh, and their lockers cause no fights or arguments, and no delays to learning etc either.

They get a locker at the start of the year - not sure how, thing they may be allocated. But once they have that locker its their locker for the year. Never had any hassles with arguing over them, etc. No fee to use them. They have to provide their own lock. If it gets damaged or breaks it is up to them to sort them - apparently the caretaker is fab according to DD and will get a broken lock open quickly.

Their locker is either in form room or in a corridor. They can access them before and after school, in form time (but only right at the start) and at break/lunch. If they forget anything between those times - tough, they manage without.

*secondary school

Unless you're American.
*
You're welcome.

Hahaha - I do love it when snide comments make their writer look like a twat.

My child attends name high school. It's a high school. It's called a high school.

We are in fucking Scotland. HTH.

Oh, and I had lockers at my very average comp in the 80s.
The two secondaries I taught at in the late 90s, early 00s both had pupil lockers too.
I can have a locker at my current school, as staff - but we are primary, so children don't have them. They just have a peg and a drawer.

I never realised so many schools didn't have them.

I'm 28 so I was at school in the 90s/00s and we had lockers to stop the chaos of everyone carting all of their books and materials round with them all day, every day. Anything bulky (musical instruments, large art folders) could either be taken to the student storeroom for the relevant department or you were expected to leave it in the cloakroom.

We had cloakrooms for our coats, school bags (once emptied into our locker we were expected to leave our bags on our peg so they weren't cluttering up the classroom) and PE kit just like in juniors. We also had a shelving unit in one corner for things like instruments/tennis rackets/art folders. By the time I got to seniors lockers were deemed more secure than lift top desks because there were so many students in and out of every classroom every day that things were either going missing from desks or getting damaged by other students.

Our lockers were at the back of our form rooms and we had registration first thing in the morning and then again after lunch, so we were expected to use that time to collect any books/materials we needed for the rest of the day. We were allowed into our form room at the start of lunch to return things to our locker from the morning classes and at the end of the day to collect things to take home.

If you forgot something then you just had to survive that lesson without it (share a text book with a friend, borrow a pencil, use file paper for notes and copy them into your exercise book later etc) unless you could slip into your form room to get it during the class changeover, but if you did that "I was getting something from my locker" was not an acceptable reason for being late. If it was something like a homework assignment most teachers would have a policy that if it was handed in at the end of the morning/afternoon session then it would not be classed as late but if you handed it in any later (eg after lunch for a morning class) then it was. This was to stop people from conveniently "forgetting" their homework from a morning class so they had time to do it over lunch and then hand it in later in the day.

secondary school
Unless you're American.
You're welcome.

DD's school is also xxx High School.
We are in England.
It is called a High School in its name. We refer to it as a high school.

We're less than two weeks back in school and DD1 and DD2 are already having knee problems and DD1 is also having back problems.

They both have lockers which are used sensibly but the weight going in and coming home each day is causing problems.

We're having to look at buying either a set of second hand books or ebooks for the heaviest texts. Which is yet more money after having bought one set of books already this summer.