Schools to open evenings and weekends.

[WaterSheep]

Anne Longfield has suggested that schools should open in the evenings and on weekends, in order to help prevent children being preyed on in the streets by gang members.

Apparently this would allow children to access their sports, drama and technology facilities. Wonderful... but what happens if anything goes missing or gets damaged, who is going to replace them?

Oh and just one small point, i'm sure it's an accidental oversight, she hasn't actually stated who will be supervising the children....

TheRebelAlliance She sounds about as qualified as those who have / currently hold the role of education secretary.

Seems like a crap idea

My dd is at private school and is there everyday until 6 plus all day on Saturday.

If they could manage to pay staff well, then I think its a great idea.

Our school used to be open 3 evenings a week for paid clubs. They stopped at the start of the year because the Trust refused to pay any more overtime (caretaker and one cleaner who was willing to come in later) and they both voted with their feet.

New management is already floated the idea to the caretaker who laughed in his face when he suggested his time was 'paid' as TOIL.

It's a fantasy suggestion.

Not forgetting the fact that when the kids go home at 3 the teaching staff spend the next 2-3 hours in school marking, planning and preparing for their lessons. Very few skip off home as soon as the kids have gone! So the school spaces are not all vacant.

My dd is at private school

She's very lucky, but you have no idea how poorly funded things are in the state sector.

Crazy idea on the whole.

What I’m seeing more and more is school being regarded as childcare primarily rather than a place for their children to go to learn etc. Depressing.

WaterSheep

I know after I read the thread i felt stupid for posting it.

Well if the children's centres that cost a fortune to build were still open premises then they could have hosted facilities for all ages.

There absolutely is a need for more youth group and teenager activities.

But placing them in schools is not the answer.

youmadorwhat yours sounds a very sensible place to work. I've often wondered why some people need to be in school for so long. We arrive at about 8.20 and the HT is always there after us and are always gone by 4 and she has usually gone before us.
My sister once said she was sending her daughter to a school because "the HT wouldn't employ anyone who would be in school after 8am or would go home before 6" as if that somehow made them a better teacher. Needless to say the school wasn't any better than any other one

Kids need a break from the school environment.
Funding youth clubs again is the obvious solution!

I've often wondered why some people need to be in school for so long. We arrive at about 8.20 and the HT is always there after us and are always gone by 4 and she has usually gone before us.

Depends where you work and how you structure your day. We have young staff who would rather stay til 5 and get everything done then go home and relax. Otoh some people go home at half 3 but start work again at 8 once their kids are in bed.

No need to feel stupid Trewser, it's just a completely different experience to private school.

I've often wondered why some people need to be in school for so long.

OK, so my day might go something like this:

Arrive 7.45. print out all resources for the day (they have sometimes changed after the previous lesson, so it is my choice to do so on the day). Trim them.

Between 8 and 8.30, meet year group colleagues. Brief 1:1 and class TAs (if I have them) on the plans for the day. Put out resources for all lessons, make a cup of coffee. Often chat to the head or SENCo or PP person about high needs children.

8.30 - on duty, or might respond to a parent with a specific concern.

8.45 - 10.45 and 11-12: Teach. I, and my TA if I have one, usually work with a group or individual child in each lesson, so might mark their books, but cannot mark any others.

12-12.20 - Assembly or small group intervention.

12.20-1.15 - Lunch. Debrief with TAs, also discuss interventions and provide training in them as needed, resources out for afternoon lessons (some children eat lunch in classrooms so have to do that in latter part of lunch) run a lunchtime club, deal with any issues arising that lunchtime staff have (this took every lunchtime for 7 solid weeks at one point last year), review morning lessons with year group colleagues, meetings with other staff, for example colleague with the same subject responsibility.

1.15 - 3.10: Teach, as in the morning.

3.10 -3.30: Debrief with 1:1 TAs etc. Meet any parents with concerns or make phone calls home etc.

3.30 - leave (anywhere between 5 and 6.30, depending on the evening): Run club, have staff meeting, meet with year group staff to e.g. revise plans for Maths or English for following day. mark. Prepare work for display, do SEN paperwork (we do all MyPlans, MyPlan+, half termly tracking against targets etc ourselves, and provide input into EHCPs), make more complex resources for following day and make sure classroom tidy. Mark books - I do 3 sets a day on average, as all work has to be marked for the next lesson in the same subject. Children often self-mark in Maths, but I obviously review it for seating / support / input the following day. Deal with pressing CP / SEN / behaviour concerns, entering details onto appropriate systems. Answer e-mails. Meet with business manager re purchases for my subject responsibilities, etc etc etc.

As I have my own childcare to organise - and children's activities - I choose to do longer term planning on Sunday. I also mark longer writing tasks then - we would on average do one of these per week or so?

Schools do obviously vary in their requirements, and also, as said above, some people work in school and some at home. i would say that staff in my school work harder than 'average'. Because there is very limited 'non class teacher' backup - no pastoral team, SENCo / PP / vulnerable children leaders all have teaching responsibilities - class teachers do the vast majority of the teaching AND the social work aspects of the primary teacher role.

In a secondary, I think that those roles are more separate, which means that fewer meetings have to be outwith the normal school day (if I and the SENCo need to meet, it is necessarily outside normal hours), and also that I would pass more of my 'non teaching' workload (in terms of admin, meetings with parents / specialists, managing resulting behaviour issues... and of course worry) to someone else.

(Also, in the interests of full disclosure - last year had an unusually high planning / resourcing workload as we completely re-planned and re-wrote our entire Maths curriculum. Virtually no lesson left unchanged... and of course, with every lesson being new, more 'tweaking' of lessons was needed as we went along. This year there is some work on the 'foundation' subjects to ensure that the curriculum remains wide and balanced, but it will be nothing like as intensive. However, every class is different - last year i probably had an 8-10 year gap between the 'working age' of my least able child and my most able, this year that gap is halved - and so tweaking to differentiate appropriately is always a thing)

I had this in school growing up. We had different clubs and sports in the evenings as well as scouts/girl guides. I was in a club called Service Club where we helped the teachers with varying things around the school. We helped them set things up, graded papers, stapling and filing. It was great. It showed you everything teachers did while also preparing you for tasks you would do later in life.

Depending on how it is done, it could be a great thing.

cantkeepawayforever

You're making me so glad I don't teach primary! The marking load is ridiculous (and probably has little impact on students learning) compared to secondary.

You're partly right re SENCO and pastoral being separate but funding cuts mean that more of that responsibility is landing on subject specialist teachers. We also see a lot more students every day so extra reporting etc comes from that.

I now work a max 50 hour week and just about manage everything. I think I'd have quit in primary!

cantkeepawayforever are you in primary or secondary?
I'm in Primary in Scotland and we basically spend our day teaching our classes. There's no phoning of parents (that's done by HT) and any getting together is done in staff meeting time which is on a Monday for no more than an hour.

Id refuse to work.

Like a PP said that support staff get15 weeks paid.

Find me that job and ill apply.

Support staff are paid ONLY when the school is open. I get paid for 39 weeks per year.

I certainly couldn't see any of our teachers agreeing to cover up or remove everything with kids' names on it if their rooms were used for any of this kind of stuff.

When I was a teenager we had a youth club on the school campus, it was independent of school, ran 5 nights a week. It was somewhere that we had that was ours, there was a disco, coffee bar, a snooker room. It also opened during the day serving snacks & drinks & provided somewhere for students & young unemployed to go to get help with getting a job, applying to get on the housing list, support with unplanned pregnancy, relationship advice, further education choices etc. There was always someone to talk to if anyone needed support or advice. That is what we need now, a fully funded youth service as young people need more support & advice than ever before.

Have any of the teachers on this thread getting up in arms about being expected to work actually read what Anne Longfield said. In the article in the TES she clearly states: She said the cost of these additional services “must not be borne by schools and teachers”. and goes on to talk about youth workers being attached to all school to help with children at risk.

It seems pretty clear to me that what she is suggesting is using school buildings, not school staff.

Plenty of posters have outlined the various issues with using school buildings.

Classrooms aren't suitable.

Halls and sports halls are fine but many schools use them out of hours for after school clubs and other groups.

We have a religious Saturday school use our building and they take equipment, move desks around and leave the place a mess. This would be horrendous to deal with every single morning.

It seems pretty clear to me that what she is suggesting is using school buildings, not school staff.

The article I read this morning didn't mention who would be supervising the children, but it did mention allowing children to access their sports, drama and technology facilities.

As I said in my original post what happens if anything goes missing or gets damaged, who is going to replace them?

We already have after school / holiday clubs, which are confined to the school hall and outside areas. We don't have any other space free to utilize. If we did, then like other schools, we would already be letting it out as our budgets are shocking.

I applaud her for trying to deal with the situation, but school buildings are not the answer to the problem.