Schools 3 day a week?

[Sunflowerkeep]

Is this for real or just media again? Is it seriously being considered?

@overitall1 I remember when I was at school there was a year (or two?) when we had a longer Christmas holiday and a shorter summer break. 3 weeks and 5 weeks instead of 2 and 6. So it's not beyond the realms of possibility that it could happen again or that it could be taken to a greater extreme.

It would be horrible. But I wonder how schools could justify not doing it, if asked to?

Interesting. My school is in one of the historically underfunded areas , and in a certain notorious culture sec's constituency. Funding for the huge upper schools has gone down and is well below England average. I did not know this. I assume this is because of paltry sixth form funding : upper schools in this area begin at year 9 and have huge sixth forms.

I also note a 3k per pupil difference in funding between county lower schools and have no idea why a tiny rural lower school gets £7.2 k per pupil and the (oversubscribed) one in my (massively growing/creaking at the seams) village gets £4k. This'd be powerful information to parents if it was well known!

"For 2022-23, the DfE requires all local authorities to pass on at least £4,265 per primary school pupil, and £5,525 per secondary school pupil, although there may be exceptions to this requirement.

This is a 2.0% increase in cash terms compared to the minimums in 2021-22, but a 0.7% decrease in real terms."

That link says the funding average for all schools this year in England is £5215 representing a 0.1% increase on last year, so Jcyclops figure of £6700 for last year can't be right.

This is both interesting and depressing. We’ve had a cut of over 3%, moving us from underfunded to even more underfunded. Fabulous.

@RumbleStrutt Yes, I am aware that 45% is the current UK maximum. That's why I was saying 50% .... not sure what level of earnings I would put it at though.

From the DfE link, we will get £4327 per pupil this year, same as last! We have already lost most of our class TAs, the rest will surely follow!

Agree with posters above saying they need to save money elsewhere first. I've also been in schools with radiators in in May when it's warm and has been warm for ages.

Also if my children forget their reading diary they are given a new one. i have 7 or 8 for my eldest alone from just one year. This is not an exaggeration. he also came home on the last day of school with several half filled in school books for each subject. A few books were even mostly empty and this happens every year.

When we were at school you didn't get a new book until you finished and if you finished in June then your use paper for the rest of the year and stick in a polly pocket at the end.

Also they are using A4 books for the whole school. We used to have A4 for infants (so year 1 and 2) and then we moved to A5 books for juniors. That's half the paper right there.

Unfortunately I wouldn’t put anything past this government.

Any idea what ‘there may be exceptions to this requirement’ refers to? We’re being funded below this figure and I’d be interested to know how that’s justified.

It's absolutely ridiculous. In the meantime the big energy companies are making billions of pounds of pure profit and giving themselves huge 'bonuses' while hundreds of thousands of families are being pushed into poverty and small businesses are going under. Ban the energy companies from being allowed to do it! It's destroying our country and people's lives.

@meditrina I would rather cut social care than go to a three day week. It would be interesting if we could come up with a top up system. I.e I would happily contribute towards better resources for kids in school but not towards elderly care as I have no interest in being here if I can't look after myself.

I'm also happy to go down the USA route where you send in school supplies at the start of the year or to supply DS directly with what he needs.

I think realistically we are going to have to pay more if we want to keep the same level of services the question is making it palatable to the masses but also keeping the middle happy as frankly it's us that will be paying for it.

This would work for me if they had three days of school and 2 days homeschooling. We really enjoyed the lockdown homeschooling experience and my kids all still made academic progress whilst being less tired, stressed and emotional.

We have huge numbers of parents at my school who refuse to even pay £15 for their child to go on a trip. I’ve been told that we ‘can’t make them pay’. Those parents are not going to pay for stationery.

Those DfE figures are interesting, both the school I work in and the one my children attend are receiving less per pupil funding this year and funded below notional minimum funding. I presume LEA can choose how to distribute across their schools. We are in a prosperous area, but also one of the most expensive to live in outside of London weighted areas.

The problem with the Amazon wish list model of school funding is that it benefits schools with an intake of better-off families who can put in £200 for glue sticks, while schools who have a much more disadvantaged intake are deprived of that additional source of funding (same as the PTA, really).

@Shinyandnew1 even if most parents paid or provided it would cut costs. You could also make it socially unacceptable not to provide, you would send your kid to school without wellies and a coat why would stationary be any different. Be harder in deprived schools but they already get higher funding

That is a logical temporary solution for families with someone at home but it's not realistic nowadays.

They could justify not doing it because of employment contracts and the fact that heating and eating is still to be provided at schools through the winter for children who might not have either at home.

Most working parents need schools to be open, there are so many that cannot work from home, as lockdown and the ever expanding keyworker list has shown.

Schools won't shut to children, while we're not just childcare, we are still the main setting for the children of working parents. I work in a school in a deprived area and no way will we be cutting our days from 5-3.

I'm also happy to go down the USA route where you send in school supplies at the start of the year or to supply DS directly with what he needs.

Which means the teachers would provide most of this as some already do.

I agree teachers in poor areas would end up providing most of this. When families are already relying on foodbank, no teacher is going to let a child sit at their desk without the supplies they need to learn.

I wouldn't necessarily call it scare mongering because there is a serious issue with a lack of investment in schools and that needs highlighting; however we aren't going to end up with 3 day school weeks.

Don’t parents in Ireland have to pay for books etc unless on low income. Not sure who then pays the shortfall

2nd hand information but low income families in Ireland still need to get their own books.
The HT helped a friends sibling in Ireland source 2nd hand books for their kids as HT knew they were a family struggling for cash.

A5 books in KS2 would be daft. We would need twice as many due to the quantity of work produced!

The info provided on the link is excellent...
commonslibrary.parliament.uk/school-funding-2022-23-find-constituency-and-school-level-allocations/
...but you should note it only covers one part of school funding.

It should also be noted this only covers the funding that changes with pupil numbers. It does not cover funding allocated under the NFF that doesn’t change with pupil numbers (known as school-led funding). A school’s total per pupil funding is calculated based on both its pupil-led and school-led funding.

and

It excludes high needs funding, early years funding, the pupil premium, and funding for sixth formers.