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 oldest didn't start school to 2016, I definitely remember having school with inset day Monday, voting Thursday. And thinking surely they could change that.

I read a report around February that said Glasgow was moving their inset day to the Friday this year as a last minute change to the published holidays

The polling stations near me are all in local halls. In fact my gym class tomorrow and DDs rainbows are both cancelled as the 2 halls they would normally be held in are both being used for polling.

Fuming. Maybe best to save proper fuming for the big issues.

That used to be the case for educational purposes too, especially primary. Doesn’t stop people driving from two streets away, though.

Our primary school was also closed as a polling station despite what appeared to be other local alternatives eg church halls. The school said that the council could use their buildings for free as they owned them but had to pay for other venues, so the school it was!

In the end the school put up a security fence which went from the gate to the dining hall (which was a separate building) and used TAs to patrol the fence, so that the rest of the school could remain open. The entire day was spent in the classroom though with no outside time.

Massive safeguarding risk to have unchecked members of the public roaming around the school and potentially coming into contact with children.

DS's primary was used as a polling station and it never closed, the children went in as normal.

Schools are sometimes used as polling stations where I live - but only on Saturdays. I can't imagine anyone here thinking a school should be closed for that reason, are there really no other options?

It depends on the layout of the school. You need to be able to provide separate access.

safeguarding - most schools have restrictions on who comes in and out, bit difficult if people are trooping in to vote?

Safeguarding issues often prevent this, especially in smaller schools or ones with only one of two entry points.
It isn't always possible to have a totally separate entrance that can be used by the public which doesn't then grant them access to the main school.

It’s just one of those things - for the kids it’s good fun. If taking leave then make an effort not to waste the day!

Our school is closed. DD (6) is delighted. She’ll do lots of crafts, play, watch TV and then we might pop out for lunch. DH and I are both working at home but she will entertain herself for most of the day and she’s fine with that!

Local church round here - praise be.

As I remember it, for local elections as long as the school can provide a separate entrance to the voting area then it can stay open, for General Elections they have to close if they're used as Polling Stations. That may have changed though.

I don't think they should, no. Unless the school schedules an away day of sorts, at no cost to parents.
A polling station could be set up in a marquee tent? My local one is in a library but only bc that's across the road and barely used as they want to close it down.
To make parents take days off is out of order. If anything, it sours people's views on bothering to vote. Do vote though.

Stupid answer, schools have been used as long as I can remember under every government even when the other facilities were available.

Back in the 70s and 80s schools could function as polling stations without closing for the day. Basically just one room with easy access route to the school entrance is needed. Modern safeguarding guidelines can’t facilitate this, so they close schools if they feel they can’t use other venues.

We are lucky hereabouts as each neighbourhood in our city area has at least one community centre. Our local polling station has a pre school/nursery used to a communal access entrance but with a separate spur to the preschool door. So no closure needed.

LA Schools are free for the council to use.
Schools CAN stay open but only if strict guidelines can be followed ie no entry to the school /playground where pupils are, separate entrance etc.
Safety kn schools is massive and rightly so. Can you imagine the nightmare with risk assessments etc of having hundreds of people walkibg through the corridors and past classrooms etc? School would have no idea who was on their grounds and if they were real voters or upto something.

I am a governor at my kids school and can assure you this is not the case for us. Only one campus is closed, the other carries on as normal, some schools use it this way but it is wrong to say that because it happens in your experience it happens at all. It simply does not. Whilst the local elections can be predicted it’s still possible there is a general election this school year, schools haven’t held an inset back just in case.

They don’t miss a day’s schooling. They will have exactly the same number of days every year (except for additional royal events like the Queen’s funeral etc).

They aren’t missing school for voting. They’ll still have 190 days.

They’ll move an inset which is being provided in house. Easy enough to do when it’s not an external speaker.

My first thought (from Australia) was surprise that voting isn't held on a weekend. Schools are used as polling places here for federal and state elections, but they're on Saturdays.

No schools closed here - they're using library, village hall, scout hut, etc.

Not necessarily - schools are allowed to lose a day's teaching if being used as a polling station:

https://thehub.naht.org.uk/management/use-of-schools-as-polling-stations/