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

I’m not going to be able to sack a part time temporary head when we can’t attract a permanent one or even another temporary one, to be fair.

I imagine the LA will claw it back - it will
Be unspent after all, why wouldn’t they? Doesn’t change the fact the school missed the chance to spend it.

Honestly being a governor has been a pretty horrifying eye opener into school finances.

Passthecherrycoke - the governing body is responsible overall for the budget. The HT just does the day to day spending. You as finance committee chair are most guilty if £400,000 remains unspent and is about to be clawed back by the LA. You're lucky it's collective, not individual responsibility, in a governing body, as you sound negligent to have allowed this situation to happen on your watch, especially given the fact you are an auditor.

Mine did it when I was younger under Labour so I think this is one thing we can’t blame on those little nuggets. Ours was a Wednesday though, it was very odd. Doesn’t do it anymore

It’s not clawed back, it’s unspent budget. You don’t carry forward budget. Clawed back makes it sound like it’s repaid or something.

Would you mind telling me how I can spend a capital IT budget for the school? Totally off topic but you’re the one claiming it’s possible. Go on, how would I have done it?

Auditing is irrelevant to this btw.

The money is clawed back (ie taken off the school forever). LA schools are not allowed to carry forward unlimited amounts of unspent budget to the following year. Government also claws money back. The money is there to be spent on the education of the school population, hence strict rules on how much can be left unspent.

Living in Edinburgh, this started in the 80's. However it was a Wednesday for me then in 2005 all schools became a Friday.

If the schools are changing, after school clubs or childminders will most likely offer some care.

No one carries forward budget as standard. Schools, private businesses, noone.

That’s the whole point of a standard budget. Valid for 12 months. We’re saying the same thing.

There are also rules on what particular things can be spent on - eg sports premium money, DFCG, etc, etc. Money earmarked for one thing by government can't be spent on something else. I don't see how £400,000 can have accumulated without it being earmarked for something very specific and justifiable?

It’s the capital IT budget. If it’s ring fenced the local authority forgot to tell anyone.

“Claw back” means repaid. The school weren’t ever paid it, as they didn’t spend it, so it’s not repaid. It’s simply gone. Opportunity to spend missed.

Been like this in cornwall for many years

Passthecherrycoke - why did you let the school miss the opportunity, then? Have you been into the school to find out what IT equipment is needed? Have you insisted the school business manager get quotes? Have you insisted the school have a rolling programme of replacement of IT infrastructure? Surely your whole point is your financial background? Head teachers do not claim to be finance experts - it's your role to be proactive, not reactive (or in your case, apparently comatose) in this instance.

Walk around I’m actually still waiting for you to tell me how I could’ve made them spend it? All of your suggestions involve just talking to people, which is fairly obvious, and doesn’t cause any action to be taken

I presume you have had your governor training?

Have your requests for money to be soent on much needed IT infrastructure been recorded in the governing body minutes, along with justifications by the HT as to why this has not been done? Have you informed the LA, if it's a maintained school, that the acting HT is not getting sufficient financial support? What was their response?

Could exh collect her at 1pm with a packed lunch and either drop her with a childminder or find an older teenager to babysit? At least he is off then so could pick her up and take her somewhere quickly- that will expand the options.

Recorded yes

HT- claims not to have had finance meetings with the very poor LA finance service and says it’ll be followed up. Continuously.

LA- took them 9 months to respond to a request to come in and discuss orphan status so no, not readily on their shit IME.

Not brilliant when we are expected to deliver the same curriculum witheven better results each year, but in less time

I'm almost 50 and grew up in Edinburgh where our high schools all finished at 1pm on a Friday. We didn't lose any teaching time as we started at 8.30am instead of 9am so we gained the 2.5 hours we lost that way.

We loved a Friday afternoon being free to go for a wander in the town or head off to our friend's houses.

I’m done with this, calling bs on the governor role. No-one can be this dense/ unaware of effective practice. Goodnight all.

Night

@itwasalovelydreamwhileitlasted you do realise teachers don't make these decisions don't you?

Also many teachers are also parents and as pp's have pointed out they still have to work on the Friday afternoon and so are in the same quandary that other working parents are.

I actually quite like the idea of a shorter weekin principle, as a full five days is a lot for little ones. Just not the cuts that have led to this. And a nightmare to bring it in so quickly.

Passthecherrycoke - so, rather predictably when LAs are also seriously underfunded and have made most of their staff redundant, and the role of headteacher is so thankless that nobody can recruit anyone for the position, the result is that there is nobody left to ensure what little money is available is being spent on anything. I can't help thinking that if government funded LAs and schools better, they would be able to afford to attract more competent people to spend the money wisely!

I actually think it’s a brilliant idea and it works really well. It means that training for the whole staff team can happen in the school day, there can be cross collaborative planning as you know you will be able to find each other, it encourages conversation. I worked at a school 15 years ago that did this. My children’s school now does this and I wholeheartedly support it.

Well that’s funny walkaround, I thought you were going to tell me how I could’ve turned the whole situation around single handidly, as you claimed I should’ve

School is an educational facility and not a childcare one. It's always been up to parents to make sure they have someone to care for their child should school not be open for any reason.