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....

They have just closed the local youth club in our town.
They are trialing a new one in the local soft play which is brilliant. The teens can buy snacks and drinks and know they are not allowed on the equipment (you get a 4 week ban) but it's a building with sky high rent in the middle of town that's being used in the evening.
The only way I could see it working in schools in regards with keeping people out of classrooms etc is to have locks on the doors.
Not sure if that is even legal in a school though.

Maybe there can be a bin in the delivery room where babies can be left to be raised by the state, after all mothers have done all the hard work til then.
School isn't a form of child-minding despite the opinion of many.
Maybe these wonderful sessions can be staffed by Vicars, they just do an hour on Sunday witht he odd wedding or funeral thrown in.

Cormneliawildthing,

I teach primary in England.

We do have a formal staff meeting every week, but that is dedicated to specific items each week.

As we are a multi-form entry, there is a lot of communication across the parallel classes to ensure consistency and understanding of planning - on the good side, we share planning (whereas in single form entry every teacher plans all subjects for their own class), on the bad side the planning does have to be more detailed for others to understand, and sometimes details need to be ironed out or e.g. if one class didn't meet the objective of a lesson, we'll get together to discuss whether the problem is general (so whether the year group plan needs to change) or class specific (in which case we'll work out how to re-align the classes over a period of days).

So are all your discussions about SEN children, vulnerable children, pupil premium children, children whose behaviour is a concern etc during staff meeting time? It's been a few years since I have had a class without a full time 1:1 EHCP for high level SEN on top of the usual MyPlans / MyPlan+ for everything from sensory impairment and slow processing to ADHD or similar behaviours, but it is those conversations that take up a lot of daily time, because e.g. the adaptations for or response to specific situations or lessons are so fluid.

CassianAndor

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”.

So presumably the cost will be born by the parents who will be paying the currently non existent providers who will pay the school for the extra insurance bills and licensing for the machine and equipment and then pay the extra to their janitorial staff to clean, maintain and close up the buildings.

TBH she can clearly state what she likes but it just shows how little she understands about how this would work.

We don't really discuss SEN pupils on a daily basis. We set their IEPs at the start of term and review them at the end. We are also multi entry so last week's staff meeting was used to do our termly plans. We don't have objectives as such. We have a plan of what work has to be covered at each stage so as long as we have covered it all by the end of the year it doesn't matter if we're all doing it at the same time. I have a less able class than my colleague so I am tailoring my work to suit their needs.

We hire school facilities for breakfast club, after-school care, after school club twice a week and playscheme during the holidays and it costs over 20k a year. Local football clubs and karate/tae kwon do classes hire the big hall after us every day and are charged a premium rate as they are profit making businesses - schools cannot afford to lose that income.

The irony of Anne Longfield's plan is that the children MOST likely to be recruited by gang members are those that have ALREADY been excluded or off-rolled by their school!

I’m happy to pay for childcare, but it needs to happen somewhere. Oh, look, there’s a school building in my area standing empty for some of the time. Why not use that? Oh no, terrible idea, let’s building a completely separate building (where, with what money) instead.

I have no problem with general use areas being rented out (and ours does get used - very small community), but would absolutely object to my classroom being used. I recently moved overseas and had to value all of my items for shipping. My teaching resources came to over $25k. Who is going to cover that if things go missing when used by an external group? I have student work in the classroom, what if that gets damaged? Students have their pencil cases on the desks, things could be stolen or used without permission.

Gym, courts, food service room, theatre, absolutely can be used. Classrooms must be off limits.

Using the school building isn't without it's issues. We use them every single day of term, and most of the holidays.

We have a cupboard that the HT very kindly gave us space for and we have to keep everything in there.

The school is not insured for us to use their stuff, and we're not insured for using their stuff either. We're insured for our stuff so how they'd work it if they let outside groups use computer facilities and the likes I have no idea. The insurance would be sky high!

Plus you don't want groups roaming around the school building as how does the janitor keep track of that? In our case the janitor lets us in and sees us out. We're in our three spaces (main hall, small hall and dining hall) and that's it. Having people roam around the building would mean things would have to be locked away all the time, or they'd have to be at risk of being stolen (and again insurance would get higher).

Then you have the issue of responsibility. If you are using school equipment then who is ultimately responsible for it? The Head Teacher is ultimately responsible for the school and it's equipment, but she has nothing to do with my after school care. So where is the line if one of my kids gets hurt or damages a piece of school equipment? Who is ultimately responsible if its one of my charges, but the HT's equipment? It's a recipe for disaster

We don't really discuss SEN pupils on a daily basis.

Obviously not those on lower level plans - but for our high needs children, the team around them is often so large (and multi-skilled) that it is quite common to speak to both people doing 1:1 work, the Vulnerable Child person, the SENCo and - if it affects behaviour during break times etc - lunchtime supervisors over the course of a day or so! Often there are child protection issues around them as well, so the DSL gets a look into the general communication!

Your planning sounds a lot looser than ours! We set out a termly plan at the end of the previous term, then 1 or 2 of us take each subject and turn that termly plan into resourced lessons. For some, we just write a whole term's plan all through as a one off, and those are commonly only tweaked between years. For Maths / English we tend to write a unit at a time and then review it in shared PPA each week for any revisions needed. There is a Big Thing about consistency across the year group - obviously the delivery and differentiation will vary from class to class, but you would see e.g. the same Maths lesson (in terms of objectives, approach and most resources) being taught across all classes on the same day.