does a school have to consult parents before implementing a 4.5 day week?

[fivennotfour]

got letter home last week. After the summer, school will only be open 4.5 days instead of 5 due to budget retrains.

there will be limited placed for the Friday after school club - probably nowhere near as many needed. Many working parents will be shafted.

Anyhow, there was no consultation by school. just a letter letting us know that these changes will come.
Can they just do it.

You can cut out lots of smaller things.
You don't think they'll have already been doing that? This is quite a drastic last solution.
And as such, there's no point asking parents for their opinions as it look like it's a done deal. Bottom line is, it's not up to parents.

As a million others have said, school isn't childcare and the kids education isn't being affected.

There's no point in the school consulting if no other option is possible from a funding perspective.

Seven months to sort out childcare is really quite a long time. I imagine more childcare providers will spring up.

How does anyone know if they have looked at everything? No one has bern open with the parents! How do they know parents wouldn’t rather make a contribution to the school? How do they know parents won’t leave the school and reduce funding even more? They don’t.

Sharing resources and staff with other schools is something to look at. Federating. Few schools ever look at everything and try and maintain smaller classes, for example, which are financially unsustainable. They don’t maximise income. They don’t look at economies of scale. The proposed changes won’t be saving loads either. If it’s just TA time then it’s not much unless the school is huge.

All schools have to consider their relationship with their parents and the community. Secondary schools are better placed to have a short Friday but primary schools are in a very different position. Even with secondary schools, school transport changes can be an absolute nightmare to change to a Friday lunchtime. So it is a sensible school that listens to parents. Sen pupils might need taxis changed. I am afraid it’s never easy to change school hours which is why few schools do it.

Asking parents is problematic because inevitably individuals' views will be based upon their own circumstances, whereas the school considers the needs of the whole.

So, they consult with the parents and inform them that the school has safely cut everything they possibly can... and the parents unanimously say they don’t want a 4.5 day week!

What does the head do then?

They do need to consult but they don't need to comply.

The high schools in my area now finish at lunchtime on a Friday due to budgets and lack of staff. Primary schools are in talks of doing this after summer.

This might not be your school but this is a school which sent a similar letter home. It gives more info about why. s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/jotter2.files/9760942?response-content-type=application%2Fvnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document&response-content-disposition=attachment%3Bfilename%3Dletter-to-parents-re-4.5-day-week-4.2.19.docx&X-Amz-Content-Sha256=UNSIGNED-PAYLOAD&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAIH4MJHC24RK4EHAA%2F20190215%2Feu-west-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20190215T200120Z&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Expires=3000&X-Amz-Signature=e363e35966e8699f33086751ce9e03629b18ac48d9951a0358498c9433e10f8a