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

I don't quite understand the logic of using schools at all. In areas where there is cjoxie, it doesn't seem like the easiest option. Within a minutes walk of our closed school there is a leisure centre, 2 churches, a separate church hall, a community centre. On what planet is a primary school the best option?

When I was at school our school hall was the polling station but school was open. I expect it's a security risk now though.
I don't see why your friend is so annoyed, she gets a day with her child. When you have kids you always end up taking AL when you'd rather not.
It doesn't sound like it's always at the school so I wouldn't have a problem with it.

Not all of them. It’s definitely possible to move them about, even though it might cause some individual parents issues. It’s not the school’s fault though - and you seem to be complaining they might lose a day while also complaining they might aim to work it another day.

Our primary local school is our polling station it's not closed.

It depends. The rules say (and have said for as long as I can remember and I have teacher parents and started myself in 1988) that school can remain open only if there is a separate entrance which can be used by voters and the building/room they are in can be closed off/made inaccessible from the rest of the school. Some school set ups don’t allow this.

I actually think schools shouldn't be used. Community centers, church halls, mosques, bowling clubs make much more sense.

Rather than trying to mess around with holidays, inset days and kids time off school.

One issue of Saturdays and Sundays is it will cost more to get people to man the polling stations.

I sound really pious, but fuck it. There are countries where children don't have access to education at all. Equally it wasn't so long ago women died so people could vote in the UK. I'm just grateful for that. They made an enormous sacrifice and if it means school closing for a day, then so be it. The fact we live in a democratic country is brilliant.

As if the school would move inset days after the term dates have been published. Imagine the AIBUs... I booked my holiday and now the school have changed the dates, so either I fork out £££ to change holiday plans or get done for missing a day of school. AIBU to think this is unfair?

Who owns the church?
If unused, is it still safe inside?
Is there suitable disabled access?

Your child won't be missing any additional school.
As mentioned previously, your children will still have the same number of days in school.
It will be made up elsewhere, usually via inset.
The teachers may not be allowed into school for this one day, for in person inset, but may have it elsewhere or done as 2-3 twilight sessions after the school day instead.

Inset days can be moved if necessary. They don't like to, obviously.
Or a day could be tagged on at the start/end of a term. Again not ideal. But all possible.

My school stayed open for them in the nineties up until dunblane and then they changed it to say they couldn’t just give access to anyone to the school so started closing

I. The case of something bigger like a general election the Lea may also decide to allow the school one extra closure day. This is permitted if there are reasons why the day can't be made up elsewhere

Well you don’t know that, surely it depends on the school

Keeping a child off school, just for a day, is doing the work of the devil when it suits them.

My next post clarified that for one off events then the Lea can give schools an additional day off. Staff are usually expected to work, either in school, at home or as twilights. But occasionally children get one additional day off in the year. For obvious reasons this is best avoided but not always possible

And for those saying it makes voting more difficult - postal votes. Me, Dh and Dd always do a postal vote regardless. Easily arranged.

Dds previous school used to be a polling station. They first used to continue the school day while polling was happening but I think either safeguarding rules were updated, or there was an incident which meant for subsequent polling days the school was closed. Now they have changed the polling station to a church a few min down the road

I can count the inset days, we have 2 campuses, one is closed, one is open. They are getting a day less. Just because your experience is one thing it doesn’t mean all at that way.

According to my economics teacher, it was because election results can affect the stock market, which can affect interest rates. The Bank of England used to announce the bank rate, which affects other interest rates, every Thursday. Holding the election on a Thursday gave a week for markets to settle down before the next decision on bank rate was made.

It might interest you that, in Australia, elections are always held on a Saturday. Voting is mandatory for all levels of government - council, state and federal. Polling stations are most often local schools, and they usually use it as an opportunity to fundraise by selling cakes, slices and pies.

Here in Canada, Federal and Provincial elections are on a Monday.

Another important factor is cost. Elections aren’t free - rooms have to be rented, poll workers paid, supplies purchased.

My Federal electoral division is roughly the size of England but only has 120,000 electors. Schools aren’t mandated to make themselves available for Federal elections and didn’t back in 2021 due to Covid. I know polls were held in airports and even an IKEA. My most expensive location cost the equivalent of £3,000 a day to rent and I needed it for 5 days. I had 36 days to train roughly 600 workers.

My budget was just over $1,000,000. And there were 338 electoral districts. And guess who ultimately pays for it?

@RustyBear The Bank of England has only had independence to set interest rates since 1998. Prior to that, at the direction of the Chancellor, in discussion with the B of E, they could be changed at any time on any day. Elections have been on a Thursday for long before that.

It was always referred to as the Bank of England base rate, since the establishment of the B of E in 1694. This chart shows that, with some exceptions, probably in response to certain political conditions, the rate has been set on a Thursday on the majority of days from around 1856 until October 1972 (after I had started my A level Economics course😁), when it became known as the Minimum Lending Rate, and the day changed to (mostly) Mondays.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/monetary-policy/baserate.xls

Yet another closure on the 4th of July. Tell me again how this is not disruptive? Why this particular school must be used rather than any number of alternative public spaces?
Our school have complained this time, and essentially been told tough shit.