Dept of Education told academies they cannot close a week early for Xmas

[Gobacktothe90s]

Anyone seen this,

twitter.com/focustrust1/status/1330975676640464897?s=21

A group of academies announced they were closing a week before they were due to at Xmas on the 11th Dec to avoid any children/staff getting a positive result or self isolation over Xmas.

They have now been told this is against the law under the Coronavirus Act that they cannot change term dates.
I thought academies could change term dates and it will be interesting to see if private schools are threatened like these academies have.
It is obvious they don't want other schools following suit and shutting a week early so put the pressure on

They can't just shut early, they can choose the terms published in advance (usually 3 years ahead)

I'm pretty sure they have to follow a process to change term dates and can't do it last minute on a whim.

When were they proposing making up the statutory requirement of learning days?

As far as I know term dates have always been determined by the head. I know of 3 schools in my local area who announced way back in September they would be closing early. No doubt all those parents have juggle holidays to ensure they could be off with there children.

They were proposing to make up the days over the year.
I thought academies could change term dates but it's interesting they then asked for 2 inset days instead of the week off and was told no term dates can be changed due to Coronavirus

Good. Schools shouldn't shut
School and education is more important than Christmas

I can see it would place working parents in a very difficult position if a precedent was set.

I'd have been supporting the school in that decision to be honest.

The government is very short sighted if they think schools are going to be full the last week of term. I can see many parents making the decision to phone in saying their child has a sickness bug .

Boris said last night they wouldn't allow this in response to a question from a member of the public at the press conference. I think it's a sensible plan and may consider just not sending my children that last week.

Fair enough. If people want to keep their dc off they can. But not everyone will want to and school should be open as usual.

My sister works in one of their schools. She is more annoyed that it had been announced before it was agreed by the dept of education etc. She says some parents were happy and others were not so she thinks that the people that were happy about the closure will just keep their kids off school the last week of term instead.

I presume many private schools will already be closing a week earlier as they usually have a longer Christmas holiday

Good, children shouldn’t be off school for this

Our local academy sent out a survey to parents this week asking their opinions on closing early.

It’s perfectly reasonable for parents to make that decision for their families, however it shouldn’t be made unilaterally by the school.

Our local authority has just announced that schools are closing earlier than planned.
It was supposed to be 22nd, now will be 18th.
Cited reason is to minimise self isolation over xmas break. They say those last 2 days will be “homeschool” hence getting round the legal aspect but teacher friends admit they won’t expect anything substantial to be done those last 2 days.

Frazzled these academies originally said a week off early for home learning as well but there was backlash from working parents so it was changed to a week early for holidays.

But they are primary schools, aren’t they? Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation surely people can appreciate it really places working parents in an incredibly difficult situation having to unexpectedly arrange childcare at that short notice.

I don’t think schools should close early- but if parents decide to take their children out that week then there should be no fine. Compromise.
We end up with less children in so less risk but those who need it still have childcare.

Academies are subject to the terms of funding agreements with the Dept of Education, and they basically say they have to obey the same laws as state maintained schools. So presumably they can be told not to close.

Considering the rates of infection it would be prudent to homeschool in secondary schools for a week. But when has this government been sensible? Dd breaks up on 18th...

@Welcometonowhere

But they are primary schools, aren’t they? Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the situation surely people can appreciate it really places working parents in an incredibly difficult situation having to unexpectedly arrange childcare at that short notice.

In our case (authority closing all schools early) vast majority of parents are supportive but yes a number of working parents unhappy for obvious reasons

It would cause a logistical nightmare for me.

Are they not even open for key workers children?

@Welcometonowhere

It would cause a logistical nightmare for me.

Are they not even open for key workers children?

I don’t think so. Some childcare provider might step in though (at a cost) I think the general feeling is parents were left in the lurch for months earlier in the year so a few days on this occasion won’t cause so much trouble

They are in the North West, seems pretty sensible to close a week early while providing online education for those that want to use it.

They are primary schools - if a couple of staff need to self isolate (quite likely at the moment) they'll have to shut the school as unsafe anyway.