School closed next Monday!

[Schoolclosure]

I’ve been meaning to post this all week, I got a text from my dc’s school on Monday saying that due to the electricity board doing work on Monday 2nd dec the school will have no electricity and therefore will be closed. AIBU to think that it’s a tad ridiculous and. They could have just done the work over the bloody weekend!!??

I don't believe teachers get an Xmas shopping day. My children have never had a day off in December until the end of term. I assumed teachers just did their shopping at the weekends (not that I ever really thought about it).

schools close for teachers xmas shopping days .. please tell me this is not really a thing
It's just like in the summer when schools finish on a Friday, but there's two PD days Mon/Tues the following week. The teachers have done the hours elsewhere in the year through twilight sessions.

Term time is 190 days for students.

The school would be closed to students for a day anyway, just instead of staff going in for a PD day, they've done the hours elsewhere in the year so the school is closed for everyone m

Schools don't care that when they do this, we have to run around sorting childcare.

You do know that many people who work in schools are also parents, so they do know what it is like when there is an INSET or an unplanned closure.

I'm surprised they don't have a back up generator. They're not dear in the scheme of things.

Who is going to pay for it? School budgets are incredibly tight as it is and they've had several cuts. They also have increased demands on their services over the years. Many schools are struggling to pay for the small items let alone big purchases like a generator!

Don't get me started on how they always close when it snows

You really think schools close for the fun of it? It is done after a lot of consideration, and based on LEA advise, other local schools (the heads often speak to one another), police advise, and most importantly the health and safety of pupils and staff. Remember most staff don't work in catchment for obvious reasons. And they can't win: close and you get complaints, open and you get complaints. Infact we usually get more complaints on the times we've stayed open!

We live close to the school and we walk past and the lights were all off and no one was at home

I have had many an ISET day where we have had training elsewhere - either at another school, a training centre, etc.
Plus, as said already, the odd INSET day is sometimes aggregated and done as Twilights int he evenings at another time, due to the training and/or trainer needs.

I had one such INSET last week. We had planned training but the trainer called school earlier in the week to say she couldn't attend as she had to go to a funeral. Instead we had the day 'off' but we will still do that same training - just now it will take place across 2 or 3 evenings in January.

Posters going on about "shopping days" are either thick, goady or both.

Ours closed last week. We live close to the school and we walk past and the lights were all off and no one was at home

Did it not occur to you that the staff might have a training course somewhere else? You must know that these happen in hotels, training centres, other schools and that schools club together to use their budgets effectively by sharing the cost of training.

Why are so many people so hard of thinking?

Posters going on about "shopping days" are either thick, goady or both
Both I'm guessing.

Then again there's people on here who bitch about how inconvenient it is when there's PD days because the "children shouldn't be missing learning so the teachers can have a day off... We get fined if we take the kids out but they can do what they like". They seem utterly incapable of understanding that term for most schools is 190 days so they're not gaining an extra day with their child or losing what they see as free childcare, it's just term time.

To be fair any thread where a school is closing brings out the name sort of rubbish in places.

So unreasonable of the electricity company to want the school to be closed - of course it should remain open and who would then be crying their eyes out when their little darlings were fried to a crisp because of faulty electric wires?

Boney

I can assure you I'm neither, nor are those who have also experienced shopping days.
just because you haven't doesn't mean they don't exist.
No they aren't inset days, they are listed as such on the letter and not teachers shopping days. The TA's get the day off too, obviously as the school is closed.

Drabarni

I can assure you I'm neither, nor are those who have also experienced shopping days.
just because you haven't doesn't mean they don't exist.

They are a day that has been earnt/ed back by attending after school training sessions and in no way remove teaching time from the pupils.

If you can't understand that then I will let you make your own decision about your cognitive abilities.

@Drabarni the teachers do the training at another time. My DH's school do it over 2 evenings. The day is given back as time in lieu. School is not free child care and if the training is still being completed there is no reason the teachers shouldn't be given the day as time owed. The children are not losing any teaching time. Schools are being transparent by not calling it an inset day as that would imply the training is being done on that day.

All the teachers round here short circuit the local electricity grid on their shopping days, the workshy bastards.

BerwickLad

shhh

Teacher here.
We had to go in for an INSET day in the summer holidays (it was annoying as affected my holiday plans). As a result, we don't have to be in school for one of our INSET days at the end of this term.
I will probably end up doing planning though, rather than Xmas shopping!

You do realise school isn't childcare? School could close for any reason, and as parents, you have to arrange childcare. The week notice isn't ideal but I'm sure they gave you the notice as soon as they knew.

No they aren't inset days

Regardless of how they are listed the act remains that in England schools have to be open to pupils for a set number of days per year.

Aragog
Don't go around with common sense. It ruins the opportunity for people to whine about how teacher training time is ruining their free childcare. We haven't had a bitch about teacher contracts and working time for a few weeks now. I'm contemplating getting my bingo card at the ready.

Technically, academies can alter school day lengths and term times, but generally that's to make the school day an hour longer whilst paying staff the same as if they were working 5 hours less a week.

This school year has a leap year day in it so could be that an occasional day has genuinely come up and the school has chosen to take it now when everyone is knackered and could use a day to catch up with Christmas preparations rather than tacked on at the end of the summer term. Or the teachers may have added at least a couple of hours on to a few nights over the last weeks in order to have an inset day as a day off (which the kids would have as holiday anyway).

I see you @BoneyBackJefferson. 👀

As for leap years, those Gregorian wankers never think of hard working parents.

It's just like in the summer when schools finish on a Friday, but there's two PD days Mon/Tues the following week. The teachers have done the hours elsewhere in the year through twilight sessions.

Not in my school they don’t. We are expected to be in on those days.
Often training on one day and classroom sorting out on the other.

My DS has an inset day tomorrow and another one on Monday.
My DD has one next Fri.
I have zero sympathy.
Also, my friend's DCs' school was closed for a deep clean due to norovirus a couple of years ago, no real notice. It's an emergency. They didn't have a choice.

Ours is closed tomorrow and Monday for Inset days, whether it's teacher shopping days I don't know and don't really care tbh

LolaSmiles - True :)

my friend's DCs' school was closed for a deep clean due to norovirus a couple of years ago, no real notice.

A lot of schools are having to do that at the moment.
TBH the level of sickness in my own school is really bad at the moment, we must have been almost on that cusp this week or last. The sickness numbers for this month are way higher than previous years here.

FlamingoAndJohn
So you do your hours on those 2 PD days.

Many schools do twilight hours so staff don't go in for them.

Point being the same hours are being done, and a "Christmas shopping day" which is a PD day where the hours have been completed elsewhere in the calendar is no different to schools closing either side of a holiday and being closed to everyone because staff have done their hours.