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 local school used to just use a separate entrance to one room and kept the school running. Also some sites used portacabins.

And because we didn't know this one was coming, we don't have any childcare planned 🤬

@MaggieFS you've got 6 weeks to arrange childcare.
Get chatting to other parents.
30 kids in a class means on average 30 - 60 potential adults who could look after the children.
I'm sure you could find someone.

Polling districts and polling station stations are reviewed under a mandatory process every five years against a range of criteria, including legal requirements, and are actually very comprehensive. You can read more about it here: https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/reviews-polling-districts-polling-places-and-polling-stations - including about the review appeals process. The current review timetable began on 1 October 2023 (ending 31 January 2025) so some LAs will ahead of the curve (hopefully those with boundary changes to consider!) whereas some will be scrambling with the announcement yesterday.

I think sometimes people think locations are just plucked out of the air with no forethought, which isn’t the case at all. In my school career I ‘missed’ four whole days of school in 12 years due to my school being a polling station. It really wasn’t a big deal we were a single parent family with a working mum… in fact she was a Polling Officer!

I think we're all aware of how to arrange childcare thanks. It's still a massive PITA. Presumably you're offering childcare that day?

@Kinshipug yeah if my daughter was still at the primary school I'd be happy too.
I'd feed them lunch, take them to the park, play with them, walk them to the library - no problem at all.
It would be a nice day.

DS has already missed than 4 days, and he's only 7. At what point does it become a "big deal"? Given how much they've missed for other reasons in recent years.

Ours was closed on 2nd May. And they didn’t swap an inset day, so it’s an extra day of annual leave to take off. Which means an extra day of holiday club to book over summer hols. July will probs be the same. They said they couldn’t keep the school open due to safeguarding risk. It’s just annoying how much they go on about attendance and fines etc, and then do this.

Did you actually do it though?

@Kinshipug yes several times. Polling days, inset days and that random day when they closed for snow.
Several before and after school times too if someone needed to dash off or were running late.

Do you feel it is a big deal because he’s missing out on schooling or for childcare issues? If the former then you talk to the school about resources you can use at home to supplement his learning. I’m not saying it’s ideal but if the school, having been reviewed, is the most appropriate setting for thousands of people to execute their democratic rights, then you have the right to appeal. Personally I want to see electronic voting become a thing, it’s not acceptable that previous governments have not invested enough effort into looking into it. Think about all of the other things you can do online… you can even buy a house these days. Plus it would be certain to improve votings number amongst younger people.

I'm a SAHM until September, so no childcare issues for us. No sorry, home learning is not an acceptable substitute for school, nor realistic with a house full of other children. This current cohort of primary children have had endless disruption. There are multiple other buildings within 50m of this school, including 2 other schools with whom the burden could be shared. The disruption on the education of this particular group of children is inexcusable.
I personally utilize postal voting, so I do agree that electronic votes might be a good solution.

No I agree it’s not a substitute, hence why I said supplement. But you can appeal if you feel it is unduly impacting on his education, pain in the bum though it is to do. I do postal voting too as I travel work for, it’s so much easier.

You can check on your local council website when the last review of polling places was. Ours was 2020 so will be another soon. They published the consultation and anyone can make representations so if you feel strongly school shouldn’t be used you do get chance to say. You could also ask school if they would respond.
We vote in school as it’s only suitable building in village but it stays open and they use a stand alone building away from the children.

It's the opposite up here. They are now going to be annoyed at having to open the school during the holidays!

A nice day out in the summer where places are quite because most kids are in school. That's something to be pleased about am sure your child will love that day with you more than an extra day during the 6 week holidays.

It might make the councils have a rethink on what buildings they use, if they are having to pay janitorial staff to open schools up.
Also summer is when a lot of maintenance gets done in schools

Hopefully that time of the year, some of the school years may take opportunity to take the pupils on a day trip somewhere....
.

As I said earlier in the thread they used the church hall for voting before changing to the school so they may do that again.

My polling station is at the local secondary school, but the school stays open. Voting is done in the hall which is about a 15 second walk from the gates, so presumably deemed safe enough to keep open.

When I was at primary school we closed completely for elections