Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Child-safe in minutes.

Meet the Other Phone.
Child-safe in minutes.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Schools as polling stations

220 replies

notedbiscuits · 01/05/2024 15:52

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

OP posts:
Hoolagan · 01/05/2024 19:39

Our school is being used as a polling station but completely open as usual to children all day…

Hoolagan · 01/05/2024 19:39

Tooearlytothink · 01/05/2024 15:57

My understanding is that's it's due to the potential security risk when it's operating as a polling station.

Show quote history

They can be polling stations and remain open as usual

Original poster
notedbiscuits · 01/05/2024 19:41

Abouttimeforanamechange · 01/05/2024 19:29

Liesure centers, Churches, supermarkets, etc. would be better. Apart from anything else, schools rarely have suitable parking.

Polling stations have to be where voters live. There are no churches, leisure centres or supermarkets in my neighbourhood.

And how many supermarkets and leisure centres would have the required accommodation?

Seen polling stations in supermarkets car parks - a marquee.

OP posts:
spanieleyes · 01/05/2024 19:42

@Hoolagan

It depends on the layout of the school. If an area can be separated completely, then the school can remain open, my polling station has that set up. But if members of the public would have unrestricted access to the school, it has to close.

Rewis · 01/05/2024 19:43

My local polling station has always been a school (not uk). But all elections are on Sundays so no school days. Pre- electikn day voting is in malls, libraries and supermarkets. When I've voted in the UK (on the elections I'm able to) the school has never been closed. They really should find alternative location or switch up logistics so the school doesn't have to close for this. Seems easy enough to organise.

LakeTiticaca · 01/05/2024 19:43

Used to annoy me when my kids were at school, particularly as there is a plethora of church halls and community centres in the town.
My school was Used as a polling station but never closed. They just used the hall

GingersOwner26 · 01/05/2024 19:45

The way my old primary used to do it was to use the separate building which was its specialist provision for the polling station, and then the pupils who usually went to the specialist provision joined in with the mainstream classes for that day. That seemed to work.

Needmorelego · 01/05/2024 19:46

@notedbiscuits my polling station was a portacabin in Morrisons car park one year - but I lived "in town" rather than on a housing estate. Unfortunately they put the cabin in the bottom part where it was kind of hidden. Several people claimed they "couldn't find it" !
For most people in residential areas the only community space is a school.

Squigglewigglediggle · 01/05/2024 19:49

I work in a school, we have inset day tomorrow so it all evens out.

LakieLady · 01/05/2024 19:53

OldTinHat · 01/05/2024 16:34

I'm 52 and schools have been used as polling stations since I was a child!

I'm 68 and can remember visiting my first school with my mum when she went to vote, before I was old enough to start school.

Iirc, everyone who's registered to vote needs to be within a maximum distance from a polling station, so there's not always a lot of choice, especially in rural areas. My polling station is in a community hall, but a lot of others in the district are in schools, because there simply isn't anywhere else suitable.

IbizaToTheNorfolkBroads · 01/05/2024 19:55

The DC's primary school was used as a polling station for some years. Sometimes it was closed just on election Thursday. School had an INSET day. Parents complained, some that school was closed at all, some that they had to come back on Friday (before bh Monday). Then they had 2 inset days together, election Thursday and then Friday, creating a 5 day weekend with the BH Monday. Parents complained.
Then the polling station moved to the church, with a massive army of people to assist with access. School parents complained they were missing out on their long weekend. The number of INSET days across the year never changed!

ACynicalDad · 01/05/2024 19:56

I like the idea of moving voting to Sunday so that schools aren’t closed. We’re fined if we take them out for holidays as they shouldn’t miss school.

Hankunamatata · 01/05/2024 19:59

Our school is surrounded by 3 churches with halls and a community centre which have all been used as polling Stations but nope now they decided to use primary for every single election 🙄

Voteer · 01/05/2024 20:07

Portacabins are awful. They need parking, ramps, generators, water and toilets. People staff the stations for 17 hours straight so need facilities. They also cost about 3k each but a school can only charge a small amount. Most councils have at least 100 polling stations so the costs and logistics are huge issues.

KreedKafer · 01/05/2024 20:08

They don’t just choose schools for a laugh. There will be a reason why it was the most suitable polling station.

Our polling station is a Portakabin on the corner of my street. It obviously costs taxpayers’ money to set it up and take it away again, plus it needs an electricity supply, plus it has to be accompanied by a Portaloo so the staff have somewhere to go for a wee, which also has to taken away and emptied etc, at a cost, and I suspect is also quite unpleasant for the staff having to use it. Also once there was a leak onto the pavement when it was collected. If there was a school within whatever radius is legally required, it would make a lot more sense to use it.

I don’t think there’s a church near enough to us that would fit the bill, and I suspect that (now more than ever) the security risk of using the synagogue would be too high.

Simpledimples · 01/05/2024 20:10

It will be an inset day. Every state school must have 190 teaching days.

Ellie56 · 01/05/2024 20:12

Kpo58 · 01/05/2024 15:56

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.

You can't have the world and his wife wandering round a school unsupervised when there are children in situ. That was how the Dunblane tragedy happened. And it's since then that security in schools has been ramped up.

Clearinguptheclutter · 01/05/2024 20:13

Our school is closed but it’s an inset day.
not sure what they’ll do when the GE is called as all the insets are fixed for the next academic year

annoying yes but no more so than any other inset!

yellowsun · 01/05/2024 20:16

My large primary school is a polling station for the first time tomorrow, following the closure of a local church. The Local Authority visited, viewing the halls and also a separate building we have (which can be secured separately to stop people roaming on the school site). They informed us they would need to use a specific school hall instead. There is no way to secure the site due to the layout of the school so we have had no choice but to close. We tried to challenge the decision about using our school but this was unsuccessful- we really have no choice! The decision was made fairly recently and we have already used our inset days. On this occasion, it will be an additional day off for children but the staff will be in another part of the building doing training.

ApolloandDaphne · 01/05/2024 20:16

We vote in a local school and it doesn't close. You go in a side door to the hall and don't go near the actual classroom area.

KeepYourFingersOutOfMySoup · 01/05/2024 20:17

Do some schools really stay open to pupils if used for polling? DC's school is closed tomorrow because the school next door is being used as a polling station! 😆🙄

PuttingDownRoots · 01/05/2024 20:25

KeepYourFingersOutOfMySoup · 01/05/2024 20:17

Do some schools really stay open to pupils if used for polling? DC's school is closed tomorrow because the school next door is being used as a polling station! 😆🙄

Edited

Not only is it open as a Polling centre... its used multiple times each week as the community centre for coffee mornings, toddler group etc (not connected to school in any way).

They just lock the internal door, and it's accessed from the carpark.

CaptainMyCaptain · 01/05/2024 20:28

ACynicalDad · 01/05/2024 19:56

I like the idea of moving voting to Sunday so that schools aren’t closed. We’re fined if we take them out for holidays as they shouldn’t miss school.

The day is used as a training day. There are the same number of training days every year. If you take your child out for a holiday they will miss the work the other children are doing.

This has been explained several times now.

snoopyfanaccountant · 01/05/2024 21:43

Needanewname42 · 01/05/2024 18:30

I'm Scotland they set it as an inset day about 4 or 5 years ago.
I do remember one year the inset being on the Monday, closed for Voting Thursday and the holiday weekend. Just a really disruptive week.

In much of Scotland the first Thursday in May has been an inservice day since 2012, although since there are no elections in Scotland this May some councils have moved the inservice day to Friday.
In 2011 William and Kate got married on Friday 29th April which had originally been an inservice day for some areas to tie in with the May Day holiday, with other areas having the Tuesday instead. The Friday became a public holiday for the wedding, so the inservice day had to be moved. Some schools were then closed to be polling stations on Thursday May 5th. It was chaos for everyone involved.

Rycbar · 01/05/2024 21:44

DappledThings · 01/05/2024 16:40

My school was often used as a polling station but it didn't close. Totally unnecessary for that to happen.

I’m a teacher and our school is closed tomorrow. It would be impossible for us to stay open. We are a tiny rural village school - the only room they could use would be the hall - leaving no where for the children to eat lunch, plus the safeguarding issues with random adults walking around the school!