4-day school week

[midnightexpress]

Lawks. Working parents watch out if this goes ahead...

Of course they won't do it. Just scare tactic to get people on their side to make 'em protest against 'the cuts'. Cynical scaremongering.

FFS.

I'm well past the need for childcare but this would cause chaos.

There would not be enough childcare for the young children requiring it. Businesses would be seriously understaffed or possibly have to close.

Not viable and they know it. Arseholes.

At present they can't do it.

There's a statutory minimum requirement for state schools to provide 190 days of education per year.

This ante-dated devolution, and there is no subsequent Scottish legislation to amend it. Until there is, they have to provide that number of days. So they could extend term-times to accommodate a 4-day pattern, but I don't see how that saves money.

not going to happen

To meet the current 190 day requirement, total annual term time would be 47.5 weeks. So that's 4.5 weeks only of no school. Hmmmm.

No, they'll probably just use East Renfrewshire's fine example and use unqualified staff to teach the children instead .

Maybe if they just started career average pensions rather than final salary pensions for public sector workers then they can use the cuts more effectively. I have no issue with kids starting later though. I think that would be better alround.

The article says "The option to deliver the statutory 25 hours of education per week over four rather than five days is also being explored by other local authorities in Scotland."
So I suspect that they are thinking about a 4 day week but with more hours for the days spent in education but as Onimolap says I thought the legal requirement was for 190 days of education or 380 sessions a year.
Is it possible to put in more than 2 sessions a day?

The current statutory requirement is 190 days.

Which days, and the length of the day is decided locally. But they would need new legislation to vary the number of days.

Does this mean they will be cutting teachers' salaries by 20% then? How's that going to work? If it's even legal (doubtful) most teachers will be moving to other LEAs I should think.

They can't. The same statutory provision says that teachers must work 195 days per year, and salaries are based on that. You'd need new legislation to alter that too. You might be able to bear down on non-teacher costs, but as schools would have to open for 47.5 weeks per year (190 days at 4 days per week), I'd be rather surprised if there were real savings.

I think this is all an exercise in softening people up for other unpalatable cuts in areas not covered by statute.

They won't be able to cut teachers salaries unless/until there is new legislation to vary the statutory length of the school year for teachers.

No reason at all why such legislation should not be brought in, though. Anyone know how long would be needed to get it through the Scottish Parliament?