Local schools shutting at lunchtime on Friday? And what do I do about childcare?

[WhiteWavingCat]

Is this common?

Seems the schools here are starting between 5 and 10 minutes earlier. Then the primary schools have cut lunch by 5 minutes and have no lunch break on Friday to then close at 1pm on Fridays. High School has cut morning break completely and lengthened lunchtime by 5 minutes (gone from 40 mins to 45 mins) but is still shutting at 1pm on Friday with no lunch break.
All bar one of these schools (6 in total) are academies, the none academy is religious and run by a local religious group.

Is this normal? And am IBU to think it’s ridiculous? Not just because it saves costs (I assume no meals on Fridays saves £££s) but the missed education. And what about the families who rely on Free School Meals? What happens to those children on Fridays?

Also we live in a town with several rural villages around who bus the children to schools in our town, surely the very young children (8 years and younger) can’t be left alone?

This actually worries me as I am single parent and my DD starts school in September. Her school only runs After School Club on Tuesday and Wednesday as it is, and my working days are Wednesday – Friday, I cannot change this as it works around her dad. But what the hell do I do with her on Fridays when I have no help? Her dad has her EOW Sat morn – Sun teatime but works 2-10pm Fridays, she’s currently at Nursery until 4.30pm Friday but they have all their spaces filled from September (which is understandable) and don’t run an after school club. Her dad will be having her Thursdays after school and her gps on her dads side will have her if she's ill and neither of us can but they're emergencies only.

My work cannot change my hours as I’ve had to change them this year once already. What the hell do I do? I have family nearby but they’re not reliable so I am literally stuck with giving up work or trying to find a job that will let me leave early Fridays which I don't want to do as I love my job and it saves my sanity at times

Must be dreadful for teachers only having 13 weeks holiday a year and finishing at 3.30 every day.

Teachers at my school are there by 8am and have meetings after school and then have to go home and mark and plan. Their hourly rate is not great if you take into account the hours they actually do.

Schools shouldn't be childcare, but we have a benefits system that treats them like they are. Naturally, this has an impact on people's lives.

If schools aren't childcare then the jobcentre need to take things like this into account when pushing mums into applying for jobs that don't work with schools half day timetables.

All primary teachers are entitled to half a day out of the classroom for preparation every week. The school has to pay for this to be covered (eg a TA). If all the teachers have the same half day and the school is closed you can cut down on salary costs by not needing cover staff all week- that was my understanding of why schools were starting this.

Has been happening in Edinburgh since the 80s. Nothing new, we loved it as kids finishing at 12.15 on a Friday.

silvercuckoo - parents are asked to indicate order of preference for being contacted if there is an issue at school with their children. 9 times out of 10, the mothers have specifically asked to be contacted first. If office staff are ignoring a stated preference for the opposite to be the case, they are not doing their job properly. If no preference is stated, parents shouldn't really complain if office staff have picked the first name that came up on SIMS or the parent their child asked them to call. The parent first contacted by the school doesn't have to be the one to deal with it, anyway. So far as the school is concerned, they just want the vomiting child out of the building and not infecting everyone else - they really don't give a toss whether mum or dad achieves that for them, nor do they care about either of your jobs if they have to get the child out of the school asap, in all honesty. Normally, if no preference is given, they phone both anyway and wait to see who rings back first. They just want those with parental responsibility to take some responsibility for their child. As for missing uniform or forgotten lunches or glasses or whatever - just say you can't do anything about it now you are at work, like 90% of other parents do. It's your choice and your conscience stopping you if you don't do that, not powerless school office personnel who have been told to call the parents and hold no sway over your life whatsoever.

Blame the Tories and austerity. Vote accordingly.

Because Labour have a proven track record of dealing with education, don't they?

I have that issue SIlvercuckoo - still with DH but despite being told the school always phone me first if DD is ill. Silly thing is, DH is self employed with flexible hours, and he's mostly either at home or at his office both of which are considerably closer to the school than my work. So every time I just end up phoning him to tell him to go get her anyway!

I bet there is another mum at the school who would be glad of a bit of 'nannying' work. I used to do this sort of unofficial childminding when kids were small. Worth asking around.

This is happening increasingly in our area - not in Wales btw.
Schools are underfunded.
If you want schools to stay open all week and offer lots of free after-school activities, be a lamb and avoid voting Tory.
Saw a brilliant post on social media, along the lines of:
If your polling station is in a school, and you're voting Tory, why not take a shit in a cupboard on your way out, too'
Yes, I am a teacher - not for much longer if I can help it.
Yes, I spend increasing amounts of my own salary on resources for the children so that they are not disadvantaged by the school's dwindling budget.

Tories have been trotting out the line that they have increased spending on schools. It is a blatant lie. Every time a child leaves out school, we lose thousands of pounds as schools are paid per head.

Silvercuckoo Don't be ridiculous. Do you really think the office personnel should have to keep track of which child is with which parent on a week by week basis? If you're priority 1 contact, then you are priority 1 contact.

Because Labour have a proven track record of dealing with education, don't they?

I didn't realise current labour had been in power.. must have missed that.
Or, a different angle, Tories have been in power long enough to sort any issues labour caused, they haven't, they've made it 1000 times worse than it has been in my memory. Even the 80s weren't as bad as now.

Universal credit, food banks, cuts to police, crime raising, cuts to schools, education failing, cuts to benefits, people literally dying so on and so on.

It’s nothing to do with the Tories, it’s been like this in Scotland for years (I’m 30 and always had this at school) so maybe try growing a few brain cells rather than immediately blaming them for everything.

What generations of parents have done before you - suck it up. I mean, they shouldn't be allowed to go on leave EVER if it interferes with your working life...

How do you "suck it up" when you don't have childcare available?

Wow - only for religious reasons in my part of nw London- some of the Jewish faith schools close early. I never knew it happened for budgeting reasons - that’s hard, would the school let you use the hall and parents hire childcare/ Spanish classes whatever? Sounds like you need a parent meeting and devise a plan.

Everyone who has children of school age is limited to only taking holiday in term time! And everyone who has a permanent job gets a salary that includes paid holiday time. The time off is part of a package. The idea that it’s unpaid leave is something dreamed up by the unions.

I’m not here to pick a fight with teachers but I am aware of schools suddenly changing arrangements with no thought about giving parents notice. For example holding an important meeting about public exams at three days notice at 2.30pm. Or not issuing their holiday dates more than nine months ahead.

How funny that if you disagree with teachers you are branded uneducated! Shall I go straight to detention too? I am allowed opinions of my own. I am past school leaving age.

@Walkaround
There are additional issues around my situation, and the school was very aware of the situation (I had a seventy page long custody agreement at that time, specifying what I can and cannot do on "his" days, e.g. attend assemblies, parent evenings, plays etc., we had 50/50). It is the principle. The school calls the father (who had dropped off a sick child literally 10 mins earlier), get back "I am busy", then call me and insist that I come immediately and collect the child (being 90 mins away at work), or I magic up a nanny / friend to collect. The conversation with the father stopped at "I am busy", for some reason no one thought of speaking to him in the same patronising tone. The man is busy at work, nothing to see here, move on. Thankfully, my ex lost any desire to be involved now, and things are a bit more predictable.

No money in the local authority pot, central government have cut the budgets to the bone. Schools have no option but to do this and unfortunately they are not responsible for your childcare issues.
Remember this when you vote next time, Tories don't save money for us, they cut services to give tax breaks to the rich.

Nixen some schools have done this for a while (especially secondary) as behaviour is worse after Friday lunchtime so they just write it off or have it as clubs/sports time. The problem is that now many schools especially primaries are copying this tactic purely to cut cost. If you don't believe that Tories are making massive cuts then please look at the school cuts website. My county alone has lost more than £40m in less than 4 years. That's roughly £200+ per student. I've been teaching for about 15years. Where we used to have 2-3TAs for most classes we now have NONE. Where we used to have 4 Admin staff we now have 1.she spends her entire day dealing wih angry parent phonecalls when they haven't read their letters properly and are upset about some announcement/change they didn't know about because we no longer have the extra staff to phone these parents and ensure they know. Where a pastoral team used to be available to deal with (often very serious) day to day social issues there is now nobody and teaching staff are told not to waste any of their time helping students like this because we are purely about results. It is absolutely dire and a child's experience of school is not a patch on what it was 10 years ago.

My DDs secondary school is moving over to this system and have advised that it is being recommended to the whole of the county. Senior staff will have a rota to supervise any pupils who need to stay until 3.40pm on Fridays (the original finish time) but I think the bus companies will bring pick ups forwards. Suspect primary in same academy will go the same way, but the after school club will pick up the time - although, of course, that will be an extra cost.

Interesting thread. Im older than you Nixen Im very nearly 46 and this was unheard of when i was at school in the 1980s. North Essex. We had the teacher strikes and thats what i mainly remember.

@silvercuckoo i remember a thread on the Relationships board where the OP told how the school contacted HER to ask what SHE could do about the child being late on the days her DH was bringing her in.

silvercuckoo - that sounds a horrid situation for you, and a bit of a minefield for the school. To be fair, though, you don't know what tone the school adopted with your dh when they phoned him, nor how aggressive and dismissive he may have been back. You are just assuming they were letting him get away with it. It's more likely they were stuck between two angry parents who loathed each other so much they needed a 70 page custody agreement that they expected anyone who spoke to them about their children to have read and made detailed notes on so as not to anger either party whilst their child was busy vomiting copiously into a bucket.