School remaining open during polling

[MrBuckler]

My children attend a small, single form entry primary school that is being used as a polling station on July 4th, but the school is to remain open whilst polling is going on. The information we've had from the school is that the yr 6s will be out for the day doing a settle at the local high school, so their classroom is being used for the polling stations. There is an entry way into the school which makes it easier to access the year 6 classroom, but you can also gain access to the rest of the school via that entry way. The school is pretty open with no secure gates to stop people accessing the playground down the sides of the school, and it's not possible to block the year 6 class room off entirely independently. From the research myself and other parents have done the catchment for registered voters who will use that polling station is about 1500 people, and we've also learnt that the people sent from the council to run the polling stations won't be DBS checked. The head won't reply to any parents questions, queries, and concerns, and has so far refused to share the risk assessment. The head won't take an inset day from the end of the year because people may have booked holidays and it will mess up his attendance record.

Aibu to think that this isn't a safe situation and that the school should close? Would I be unreasonable to keep my kids off school that day? Wwyd?

I'm posting here for traffic and I've name changed as it might be outing.

My daughters Primary School is used as a polling station and they have made the decision to move to home learning that day due to the safeguarding risk.

As a HS officer I'm also inclined to think children should not be in school that day.

Of course they have also added an inset day the following day!

Precisely. They have been running elections in primary schools pretty much forever. If the council did not think the school could remain open then they would be closed.

I would have had the same worries as you, OP. Gently, I would have been over-reacting too.

Has the school been used for this purpose before? Presumably, all was well.

the people sent from the council to run the polling stations won't be DBS checked

Of course they won't, because they won't have any unsupervised contact with the kids.

OP, none of this is going to pose any kind of risk to your child.

He doesn't need to use an inset day, he's able to close for an extra day for voting of that's deemed necessary.

He's trying to help parents out by not closing for an additional day. Im sure he and hisbsraff would love it if they did close, infact hes probably alreay having to deal with disgruntled staff. Schools and heads really can't get anything right.

But if you're really worried, rather than looking for an opportunity to stir things up, keep DC at home.

A little?

The elections 3 weeks away. The RA probably hasn't been written yet,the head's too busy "never" responding to email. How many do you send?!

Over the years that my children have attended this school I have only had to email the head a few times, and only about serious concerns. The only time I got a response was by threatening to escalate the complaint. That incident was about the use of an external company being used for the kids pe lessons where one member of staff was issuing unusual punishments for whole classes because one child was talking. One class was forced to keep their hands in the air for 10 minutes. If anyone in the class dropped their hands before the 10 minutes was up the timer was reset. By the end of it the kids had had their hand in the air for 40 minutes. No teacher was present during this and there were lots of upset kids at the end of the day. Again, parents didn't get a response from the head when emails were sent in.

Right. And you've left your kids at that school after being tortured during PE but spend your time whining to the head via email about a complete non issue such as polling day? Bizarre.

How can the head decide to remain open if he hasn't risk assessed it? We're just over two weeks from the election, parents need to know for definite if the school will be open, so he had to have completed a risk assesment before he could make that call.

Unfortunately, there are sometimes no alternatives. The area that the station needs to cover is not flexible, it must be within the specified boundary. It must also have some parking, disabled access, safe lighting, toilets for poll staff... There aren't many options!
Also, even if 99% of voters were using postal votes, they would still need to set up the polling station in exactly the same way to serve the voters that do wish to vote in person, so less demand does not change how many polling stations are needed.

You're right, of course hundreds of parents should try and find places for their children in other local schools 🙄. The situation was dealt with, but how much effort would it have taken for him to respond to a parents concerns? It's the same with this election. Even an acknowledgement that he was aware of the situation and dealing with it? A request for information has been made, so far I don't know of anyone who has had a response. The lack of communication is disappointing and furthers the mistrust.

RA is about identifying risk and managing it, not looking for a reason to cancel. He'll do what the RA needs to make it safe and he will have thought about the risk, even if it hasn't been written down.

And it's things like this which mean we have a national shortage of people wanting to become Heads

The parents at this school sound like a bloody nightmare. But yeah, keep emailing about nonsense.

Op I think you misunderstood my point about parents' evenings.

I will try to explain it again.

When schools are in session, usually all parts of the school, within the gates, are in "ordinary safeguarding". This means, say, a child can leave a lesson to go to the toilet unaccompanied. All adults must either wear a staff badge, or wear a visitor's badge AND be accompanied.

Sometimes, all or part of the school (clearly delineated/cordoned off) will be in so-called "suspended safeguarding". This means adults can go there without signing in. Children cannot go there unaccompanied. As you say, either by their own parents, or by a teacher. This could be when the PTA is doing a cake sale, or the gym is being rented externally etc etc.

If you try to complain to the Head without understanding these basics, you will only receive an eye roll.

In ordinary safeguarding, a lone adults without a staff badge must be challenged.

In so-called suspended safeguarding, a lone student is challenged. "But I just need to get my violin" tough, you can't go there without an accompanying teacher.

The areas for voting and the passage to it will be cordoned off and in suspended safeguarding mode.

What sort of manic hysteria is this? It's no wonder the head isnt replying.

@MrBuckler you have only had to email the head a few times? During the 19 years I had school aged children (at 4 different schools) I never once emailed (or called or wrote to)a headteacher. Surely it’s not common to need to email at all? It’s not that my children went to amazing schools but that I managed to deal with queries in other ways. I don’t think you can have concept of how many things headteachers have to deal with from day to day. There is a far greater danger of your kids becoming anxious and mistrustful than anything else.

My DS is 16 just left school and throughout his entire time at school I think I emailed in once during Covid times. That's it.

If I was a teacher/head I'd get seriously fed up of highly strung parents!

Obviously I don't know the specific circumstances of your school but - also as someone with HS responsibility - closing the school is disproportionate.

So, you're happy for children to be taken out of an environment where they are under constant supervision, to a location where they are not, and - statistically speaking - are far more likely to be abused and/or witnesses to DV?

Because that's the impact of closing the school for a day.

Extreme events aside, the risks of which cannot be mitigated easily, they are in the best place. Also, witnessing and 'being involved' (kind of) in the election is a brilliant opportunity for them.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound hard, but this kind of over-reaction needs to stop.

There's another post running about the immense pressure on teaching/schools and how droves are leaving the sector thanks to changing culture and and stuff like this all contributes to it. I wonder how such posters dare get out of bed on a morning given the millions of what if scenarios that might happen.

Realistically though, why would a school share their internal RA with parents? You can assume its safe else the LA wouldnt have sanctioned the use of it. Is Mr Bloggs here expecting to go through it with a red pen and a load of revisions on how he would have done it better? Perhaps contact the LA instead as they'll have more time, resource and experience to deal with nonsensical queries like this one.

Lots of sensible replies here but if you’re truly worried and no one on here or the head can reassure you then why not just keep your child off school that day? What other solution is there?

Interested to see what our school do. Local elections they just move the nursery class for the day (nursery has it's own separate, gated entrance and exit) but GE will have a higher turnout so I am not sure if they will need to use one of the main school halls and close the whole school?