I suggested portacabins a while ago @LoveIslandVirgin. As someone, rightly, pointed out that won't work for some schools because of lack of playground space. But it would work for huge comprehensives like the one I work in, so a mixture of things could be used. Town halls, church halls etc could also be used as you say, IF the same class used it every week so they and their parents knew where they were getting taught. The issue, for secondary school children, is the travel as school buses only go to and from the school building, not dropping kids at church halls, leisure centres or town halls etc. Potentially that could be sorted out though depending on the sites being used.
However, I would think it would mean that every other club who had those spaces booked could not be able to use them. Because, like many schools, our school is 'demisting' spaces every evening so the classrooms are sanitised. School cleaners have specific products to use overnight. Little point in doing that if the WI is going in on Saturday or a Sunday School is using the hall or a pilates class is going on until 9.30pm on Wednesday evenings. Who has the responsibility to clean it to the right standard? Someone would have to go into all these remote places to ensure they were deep cleaned before and after each class or other organisation goes in. And, yes, an army of parents could help. But for how long? If a vaccine doesn't arrive, would all those parents still be happy to come in every night to clean up after pilates, WI, parish council meetings etc., to ensure the class using the facilities was safe? In how many venues? For what? Six months? A year?
Because, again, bodge it and paper over the cracks only works for so long. Parents will, quite rightly, begin to fall off cleaning rotas (they're working or have families to look after). Clubs will start demanding their hall back and that'll create ill feeling. If this is a long haul, if vaccines don't appear, money needs to be found to put an extra floor (or two) on each school, train and recruit more teachers, reduce class sizes, reopen gyms and libraries in school and get back to normality but with smaller classrooms.
So, yes, get temporary things in place but it has to be in parallel with more funding from the Chancellor for schools to fund permanent classrooms/teachers/smaller classes etc., As well as finding cash for the NHS and transport - those institutions that don't always make money but are vital if this country prospers. Our children deserve proper, permanent solutions to this, not sticking plasters and fingers crossed.
And it's the same issue with supply teachers - the money isn't there. Getting a supply teacher for one or two classes because a teacher has left (money is back in the pot from that teacher's salary) or because a teacher is ill (temporary with, potentially, a return date so a budget can be worked out) is very different to getting a teacher for almost every class. For what? Six months? A year? Two years? We have no idea. My son's year at his school has 11 classes. That's one year. Split that in two - 22 classes per year. Multiply that by 5 years and that's a hell of a lot of supply teachers, all needing to be paid. Where's the money?
There was a head teacher on the radio today speaking with a parent who asked about portacabins etc., She said they'd happily order them if the government would give them money to pay for them. At the moment, in her school, it's books/supplies or teachers or (potentially) portacabins. It can't even be two of the three.
And it's not necessarily even the need for temporary classrooms. I was having an on line meeting with my boss today. If our school goes back with 2 metre distancing we can bring back 1/3 of the students. That's it. That is using all classrooms, the sports hall, the gym, the canteen, the library, there's even a corridor that leads to a boiler room that is wide enough so that will be used! We have used everything except for the roof! And still we can only get 1/3 of all students back. Decrease the social distancing to 1 metre and get the kids (secondary level) to wear masks and you get 2/3 back as you can increase to 20 children per class. Considering that many of the remainder are sixth form with a more fluid time table and, with a bit of jiggling of their time table, we may get a vast majority back. But not with 15 to a class and no surplus cash. Unless the community comes to the rescue and gives us spaces like church halls, there's nothing in the pot to pay rent.
Some parents on the radio today were saying how it's madness that the government is 'yippy yi yaying' about sports people going back to work, restaurants opening and shops getting back but there's no cash available to help schools get the space needed.
You give my school the money and watch how fast those portacabins go up and the kids get back. Without them it simply can't be done within the current guidelines. One third will return and that's it.