Schools as polling stations

[notedbiscuits]

For some parts of the UK, there are elections tomorrow (2nd). The school that my friend's DS goes to is closed tomorrow as its polling day. She is fuming to waste a day's annual leave as her DH is away for a week on a course and has no one to look after DS.

She said in the past, both the village hall and the church hall have been used. So why use the school which is then open for one day, Friday 3rd and not open again til Tuesday 7th as Monday is a BH.

Both the village and church halls are disabled friendly and have plenty of car parking.

When I lived 100 miles away, my polling station was a small mobile on a green area between two streets.

Do you think schools should be used as a polling station? Friend says they shouldn't unless the polling day moves and stays on Sundays which is the case for many countries around the world

My polling station is a school too but they don’t close. They have a side building that can be closed off to the rest of the school.

If it’s being used as a training day, booking the day off was inevitable but unfortunately coincided with his week away. 🤷‍♀️

Appropriate buildings for polling stations can be very difficult to find. DH runs elections for the local authority. He's lost one building because the place is used by an adult special needs group, which won't cancel its booking that week because of the impact of a change in routine to those using the hall. The local university now allocates the room previously used as a polling station to students for revision in the run up to exams and a local church building has been taken over by a new church group, which isn't interested in letting out its building for an election, despite the income the rental would bring. it can be complicated.

I don't have an issue of a school being used, but I can't see why it can't also be used as a school at the same time. They only need a hall or classroom for the polling, not the entire building.

No way would this be allowed! These days, allowing a load of random non-DBS-checked adults onto the school site without having signed in, got a visitor's badge and without being accompanied by a member of school staff at all times would be a massive no-no, even if they were only supposed to go into one room!

To give you some idea, I had two visiting teachers here on a language exchange last week. Even though they'd been here several years running, the school knew who they were and had given them named visitors' badges, they were still absolutely forbidden to walk around the building unchaperoned by me.

Schools will take it as teacher training day so the students won’t have any fewer days in school.

It's usually combined with an in service day so we'd be off anyway.

I'm older than you and I agree.

Schools will take it as teacher training day so the students won’t have any fewer days in school.

Exactly. Schools don't get to just ditch a day - they have to have a certain number of teaching days, training days etc. There's nothing hypocritical about it at all.

My son’s teacher has arranged a class trip for the whole of year 3 . I think that’s a brilliant idea .

My local primary is being used as a polling station and will be closed.

My friend is going to be a polling clerk at another local primary and, she said it's staying open.

Some parents aren't happy about either situation.

@notedbiscuits
Yes using schools are polling stations is very annoying.
About 15 years ago I had to take 3 separate days of annual leave because my DC school was used as a polling station within a 6 week period (either side of Easter school hols which also needed covering).
The council Civic Centre was only 5 minutes walk from the school so they should have had the polling station there instead of interrupting children's education.

The issue isn’t that schools are used as polling stations, it’s that the polls are on a week day. If it was held on a Saturday it wouldn’t be a problem.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft but some schools do remain open. The public isn't left to wander around, its in a closed area.

Comes down to building design.

(I remember being annoyed we seemed to be the only primary school open on Pilling day while all the other kids got it off... they used the adult education centre next door)

@TerrorAustralis I think there's some reason why elections are always Thursday....I'm gonna Google.......

The school where I worked used to be used as a Polling Station with only the Hall off limits to the children but then it became less acceptable to have people coming through the playground and into the building (although they came directly into the Hall through a side door some would get lost). Changing times.

All my life I've known schools to be used has polling stations in nothing new.
My local polling station is in the community centre but other polling stations are in schools.

Possibly to reduce the number of working class being able vote, because they are least able to take time off work. That seems to be how it works in the US, hidden behind ‘it’s tradition’.

They are open from 7am to 10pm - who is working all those hours? There is also the option of a postal vote which anyone can take.

When I was young, our primary school was always used as a polling station, and our teachers used to take us all out for the day (with a few volunteer parents) - I have fantastic memories of us hiking across the countryside and stopping for our packed lunch!

Admittedly it was a tiny village school so probably only the equivalent of a single classroom today 😂

Tell her to vote for anyone other than the Tories. If they hadn't spent the last 14 years defunding everything, there would be another facility and the school would not have had to close.

It’s not hypocritical. All the children are off on the same day. The reason you’re not allowed to take your child out of school randomly on other days is that they’re missing education that all the other children are getting.

plus schools don’t get a choice whether to be a polling station or not. They are directed to.

agree with all other posters who are rolling their eyes at all the unnecessary fuming.

@TerrorAustralis ok....a quick Google says that Thursday's have been used since 1931 (except for a rare couple of times). The reason isn't 100% sure but it's believed that because traditionally Thursday is the day before payday people will be skint on Thursdays and won't be out at the pub or socialising. Thursday is also far from the previous Sunday where many people could have potentially been influenced by their Vicar at church.
Thursday is apparently also traditionally market day in many towns so people would have been out in town anyway.
How true that actually all is......🤷

It's yet another thing education is less important than... but heaven forbid I take them out for a day...
Our school is closed tomorrow. Within 100 meters there are 2 churches, another school and a community hall. Quite why this school has to close I don't know.

Why the heck they can’t organize the elections on Saturday then? Uninterrupted school and people can vote. Win-win.

it’s dressed up as in-service day. Every year I’m using all my AL to cover the holidays. 14 fecking weeks of school a year. That includes all school holidays,midterm breaks, bank holidays and in-service days. Then we get the school closed for electricity issues, bad weather and so on.

The people that complain never seem to base their 'fumin' on anything factual.

Children are all in school for the exact number of days they would have been if there was no polling day.