Can School Extend Easter?

[EasterEvenLonger]

My kid’s school had published Easter holidays as:
Mon 7 April - Tuesday 22nd April

They have written today to extend it to:
Friday 4 April - Thursday 24 April
An additional 3 working/school days

I can’t list all the reasons this is a fucking nightmare for me. Can they just announce this without any consultation and just 3 weeks notice? They haven’t taken any subsequent days off to compensate. It’s an additional 3 days.

YABU - of course they can
YANBU - no they shouldn’t be able to do this

This.

They won't be days off. It will be a lot of work for staff.

Technically speaking all schools have to provide the same base number of education days per year. So yes, in many circumstances they would indeed owe them back.

Not if it’s an ‘extraordinary situation’ like weather closures or a school fire or a move. These just disappear as they aren’t very common.

I'm a teacher 👍

The majority of people work beyond their paid hours.

With teaching we have about 4-5 weeks paid holiday like the majority of other jobs but our holiday pay is split throughout the year so we are not getting a £0 payslip during summer holidays. Each local authority will have a calendar for teachers explaining what is a school closure day and what is a holiday.

It’s unfair that this has happened but it’s not unreasonable. At some point the school will have to do a move, the council who have approved the dates have obviously decided to tag it onto the holidays to minimise disruption to the children. Sadly they are in a lose lose situation as if they decided to do it a week before the holidays then parents would be annoyed that children are not having a straight run in school . This also depends on when the building work has been completed.

I don't know if it is the case here but things like dust can be a H&S issue with the asbestos in old schools. 200 teachers have died since the year 2000 and it can be a real issue moving does need to be done sensibly and carefully and, inconvenient as that is, that's much easier without kids around!

www.britsafe.org/safety-management/2024/asbestos-in-schools-we-need-urgent-action-now-to-protect-teachers-and-pupils

So the teachers should sacrifice 3 days of their holiday in order to work so it's more convenient for you?

In your shoes I’d be taking an extra two days off and having a cheeky term time trip.

I think you've got the picture now OP, but I feel your pain.
I am a lone parent. Fortunately DS2 is nearly at the end of year 11, so I'm OK when these things happen.
But there were many years when something like this would send me into a pit of despair, even if I knew that it wasn't the school's fault that they had snow, flu outbreak, flooding, power cut, no heating, busses broken etc etc.
I know school isn't childcare, but working parents do organise their working patterns and leave around their children being in school, and most can't just conjure up leave, or family or alternative childcare just like that.

I hope you find a solution. There will likely be other parents feeling the same as you.

Yeah....well darn those employers for requiring I work when I learn my children's school is shut at short notice.

I imagine some provision will be made for certain children - in the same way as they were during covid. Not just the children of key workers, but vulnerable children. It will probably be very hard to gain a place though.

Because school holidays are a nightmare for working parents especially when there's no childcare available. Not everyone has relatives nearby who are available. Most families need 2 inc9mes to survive.

Why can't the school be organised enough to move the furniture during the Easter Holidays and actually pay a removal company to do it instead of teachers doing it for 3 days / kids missing 3 days of learning (god forbid you took them out at similar notice for a holiday) / and working parents being completely left up the creek?

Schools really take the piss on things like this and it makes no sense when they get their knickers in such a twist about attendance / illness / being late etc.

I'm with you OP. I'd be so pee'd off. If you'd had proper notice 100's of families could have had a cheap holiday with those flight dates.

Schools run on teachers and support staff doing stuff they shouldn't have to rather than paying other people to do it.

I asked this and the teachers obviously have loads of their own stuff in the classroom and would need to set everything up when they get to the new room - bulletin boards and such. Also some time to learn the new tech etc. The 3 days is packing by teachers - moving company shifting - unpacking by teachers.

They must have known they were going to plan to do this way more than 3 weeks in advance though.

If parents had known in early January they could have planned their leave accordingly.

There's no consideration.

..........................

And people that say 'its crazy how parents don't think they need to look after their kids', are probably the same people that would be pee'd off if we all went on benefits till our kids were all over 13.

We work because WE HAVE TO. Working doesn't become optional the minute you get pregnant.
There aren't millions of women in their 20's thinking hmmm, should I work and never have kids, or have kids and never work . . . . .

Then why would someone in that position have children?

So working parents shouldn't have children? 🤨

Teachers in England get 4-5 weeks of holiday pay like anyone else, this pay is spread evenly between pay packet. So they are unpaid for 8-9 weeks of the year, but to being paid on a pro-rata basis recieve the same pay every month, rather than two months of £0 pay.

What resources would you like your child to go without to pay for removals?

That’s nice, I didn’t mention hate. Ironic that you assumed the worst of me. I referred to cringing because I’m too nice and end up saying yes and then feeling stressed because I’m doing too much. But if you feel superior to me, no worries.

I always think the childcare comments are weird, as if parents would pay for year-round childcare just in case the school decided at the last minute to close for unplanned days. School is childcare. We certainly get into enough trouble if we take kids out for unauthorised days?

Is the school an academy or LA maintained?

They must have known they were going to plan to do this way more than 3 weeks in advance though.

I very much doubt it. The builders have probably just told them when they expect it all to be signed off. School staff really don’t sit around scheming to get more holidays and fuck the parents off, even if some posters seem to think they do.