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.

yes, lone parent.

will definitely look into other schools. DC will start y5 and will be gutted as they are very happy there but it's an option.

Education is a mess and has been seriously underfunded for far too long.

I have several good friends who are teachers and they are at breaking point and so frustrated. Many have potential redundancies looming, have left education totally or are off with stress.

My DSs are at high school and about to start their GCSEs and I'm so worried about what they'll end up with. All I can do is keep helping them and hope the government wake up seriously doubt that they are ruining a generation's education and that is unforgivable.

NHS is on its knees, policing has been cut, education is in pieces - they need to bloody wake up.

Rant over!

There may be after school clubs run in your area that do pick ups from all the primary schools within a set distance. That is the case in our area. They go round in a mini bus and collect the kids taking them to club where they can stay until 6.30pm.
Also your local authority will have a list of all registered child care in your area so you can ring round and check availablity.
Another option that I have seen used here is preschool staff or TA's within the school that offer babysitting. They will take straight from school and can either do it in your home or take them to theirs.
There will be a solution, at the moment you are understandably in a bit of a tail spin due to the only just finding out about it.

The law in England requires an LA state school to be open for 2 sessions every day

I expect the afternoon register before they go home counts as a session.

Are there any teachers on here in England who work in a school with a 4.5 day week? I’m sure some schools in the midlands recently changed-Leicestershire maybe?

I’d be interested to know how it works and what you think?

If the school day is longer on the other days will your after school costs be less on those days? Then that money saved can be used to help with funding on the Fridays. Can you adjust your working week to finish early on a Friday too?

I personally would rather the school day was longer and they did an hour of physical activity every day....

Our letter says that many schools locally are adopting this pattern, and it's got lots of educational benefits, but I can't find any info or other schools anywhere doing this. I don't know what the benefits of a longer day 4 days a week are for young children, I'd have assumed shorter are better. I worked in secondary and we introduced an extra period a day before I left, and that exhausted staff and students.

Sorry just to add. Is it just 1 DC that you have? If so I notice that you say that they will be starting year 5 this year. If it is the case that you only have 1 child then it is a fairly short term problem. They will be heading to secondary school in 18 months time and things will be much easier as no childcare will be needed then.
I am sure you will be able to get something sorted out.
Just one more thought you could try advertising for someone to babysit via a local college that offers childcare. There are many students of 18 plus that would be happy to make a few extra pounds a week picking up a child one day a week and looking after them for a few hours.
Can I just ask as well do you normally finish in time to pick up from school or does DC go to childcare or after school club at the moment?

no, I couldn't change the working hours.

It actually just occured to me that the longer days during the week will mean DC will miss out on a hobby as we won't make it there in time now. I bet we won't be the only one caught out by this side effect either

You could look into other schools but you won't necessarily escape the problem unless you are thinking of private schooling. Schools will all be thinking of how they can survive as most of them are now in debt because of the cuts. In my school we used to have teachers covering PPA time but now it is all TAs. We also had some general TAs who supported teachers in class now all of them are gone. Only children with EHCPs receive extra support now. Those with SEN are now no longer receiving any support - teachers have to find ways to support them whilst not impacting on the education of the others in the class.

Your school's idea would save the school money because it wouldn't have to pay TAs to cover PPA and any TAs employed to care for children with EHCPs would also not have to be paid for that time.

I would imagine if this is occurring in several schools to save money, someone’s wages will be being cut in the process-most likely the TAs that are currently being paid to cover PPA. It wouldn’t surprise me if these same people start to offer something-childminder or clubs-to make up the loss in their pay packet as their hours have been cut so more things will become available.

Do something more constructive than trying to get your child into another underfunded school which might well be planning to do the same. Sign this petition, instead, to get school underfunding debated in Parliament, and write to your MP to complain.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/232220

In the school where I work, the changes you describe would save around £40k in staff costs alone - support staff hours would be cut and the staff who currently cover PPA time would no longer be needed. Heating could be turned off earlier, lighting costs would be reduced and I'm sure there would be other potential savings.
Given that our school has already had to make redundancies among both teachers and support staff, it would not surprise me if this was an option that has to be considered in the future.
Yes, it is inconvenient for working parents, but instead of complaining at the school, maybe parents should be complain, loudly, to the real problem here - the government.

The law in England requires an LA state school to be open for 2 sessions every day

I imagine they'll just move the formal break back to 11:00, and have the second session register after said break is over.

You don't want to be told your anger is misplaced, OP, but it truly is.

I am a teacher and also a school Governor and the budgets look AWFUL. One teacher was off long-term sick and it has totally destroyed the budget (which is absolutely not her fault, obviously! It's a horrible situation). We are cutting and scrimping everywhere to make ends meet. At the beginning of the financial year, we have to set a budget and we are not allowed to set a budget that is in deficit, but there isn't enough money - so absolutely everything is squeezed. We have no pencils in my classroom at the moment. I've bought class sets of pencils, glue sticks and felt tips for my class just so they have basics for learning. I'm far from the only one.

The Head is like the electricity police. She goes round turning off lights so that we are teaching half in the dark. She goes round turfing teachers out of their rooms and into the staffroom at lunchtime - not because she worries about their workload or stress - but because she wants to turn off the computers and the lights in all of the classrooms. It has got that silly.

What is happening is a national disgrace - and this is actually quite a smart solution. Staffing is, rightly, the largest cost in a school - and the one thing it is not wise to scrimp on. Not paying cover teachers to cover PPA is one of the biggest savers in terms of costs. It also means that teachers will be able to plan together and hold meetings and do things that would benefit your child's learning in a way that 2.5 hours of PPA, on their own - often with no quiet place to go - doesn't provide.

Saving in this way also means that experienced and highly qualified teachers might not get squeezed out for being too expensive. We are experiencing a brain-drain in schools because newly qualified teachers are cheaper. Why employ an experienced, highly skilled teacher for twice the cost when you can take a newly minted teacher for half the cost?

I totally get that it's inconvenient and annoying. I would be equally screwed in this situation as a single parent/teacher who would be working on a Friday afternoon - but please don't blame the school. They won't want to be doing this either. There is just no money. And that is entirely down to the Government trying to wash their hands of schools by underfunding them into oblivion until they have no choice but to become academies.

Write to your MP. It is an unacceptable state of affairs.

And it's not down to the school. Trust me on that.

Yes, it is inconvenient for working parents, but instead of complaining at the school, maybe parents should be complain, loudly, to the real problem here - the government.

Yes, this is the whole problem. Parents and the press generally do not react well to teachers striking about what a mess the government are making in our schools, I think this is the one thing parents will actually listen to and might support schools in.

@bananasandwicheseveryday
If teaching hours remain the same, wouldn't support staff requirements stay the same? And ppa 'should' still occur within those hours so cover also the same.
Exception being catering staff on the half day.

The Head is like the electricity police. She goes round turning off lights so that we are teaching half in the dark. She goes round turfing teachers out of their rooms and into the staffroom at lunchtime - not because she worries about their workload or stress - but because she wants to turn off the computers and the lights in all of the classrooms. It has got that silly.

That sounds like my head! She turns the heating off at 12pm. It is so cold in my classroom (the draughty windows that need replacing don’t help) in the winter, that I am usually teaching in my hat and coat come 1.30pm and marking in my gloves after school. I don’t think a lot of people realise just how bad things have got.

And ppa 'should' still occur within those hours so cover also the same.

I expect it just won’t.

PPA will occur for everyone on a Friday afternoon and the savings will come from not having to pay support staff to cover it Monday-Thursday like before.

I doubt anyone from the government will care that any rules and regulations about PPA have been modified if the schools are managing to struggle on a bit longe through saving some money.

but yeah, so many here my anger is misplaced. I only have my job to lose

And that’s the impact of austerity for you.

And this is why the government has been able to get away with it for nearly 9 long years - because people are too busy blaming those immediately in front of them (in this case the school).

However OP, if David Cameron and Theresa May had at the very least maintained funding, per pupil, we’d be in a different position.

Instead they chose austerity. Austerity was always a choice - we had a high credit rating and were in no fucking way going to be another Greece. They could have chose to invest and grow..... but they took the ideological route instead.

It’ll take generations to undo the mess they have made.

The People voted for austerity and also for government to focus on Brexit. If The People don't like austerity and MPs ignoring its consequences in favour of trying to get out of the EU, then The People need to stop doing nothing to change the situation. Stop wasting energy whingeing about schools not babysiting your children for long enough and start focusing your energy on getting the powers that be to pay attention to the mess they are making, instead of focusing on making an even bigger and unnecessary mess in Europe.

I suspect other local school will soon follow suit and activities clubs etc will move to Friday afternoons - not helpful for you though.

What job do you do that is absolutely rigid on working hours? Many employees these days acknowledge the need for flexible to retain good staff - you need to get a flexible working request in ASAP

@Sortingfinances

Whilst we all know what 'should've happen regarding PPA, we also know that in reality teachers will be expected to take it on the Friday afternoon.

Wrt support staff, if teaching hours are increased by 25 minutes per day as in the OP's situation, I would expect that TAs, LSAs will lose hours. In our school this would be achieved by having those members of staff begin work at the end of morning assembly rather than when the doors open to children - that's 20 minutes there and they would leave when the children pack away before getting coats on to go home at the end of the day, that's another 10 minutes. Of course, there would then be no time to prepare for the day ahead or update the teacher on how children got on with the work during the day.

We are all being asked to do so much more, with less, I do wonder how much longer things can continue as they are.

I fear that this sort of cut is the reality of post-Brexit Britain with the Conservative party in power. Remember Theresa May's speech about doing something for ordinary people? What has she done? Absolutely nothing. Education funding inadequate, housing situation for many is terrible, public transport is a mess, NHS in crisis, universal credit mismanaged and resulting in increased poverty, homeless people everywhere, zero hours contracts.........the mystery is how the but conservatives ever got so many ordinary people to vote for them. But they did and this is the result.....

immortalmarble

Annoyed at your very generalised comment - I'm Irish with 3 primary school children. I work full time. As PP says, school day for primary children finishes 2.20/2.30/2.40 latest. I pay €1500 per month for before & after school care. No family nearby. So do most working parents. Of course some have family thar help but in no way most.

(Sorry OP I'm not helping answer your question, don't know the rules!)