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.

I'd expect that the overall teaching time is the same, they probably cut or shortened breaks and /or changed the start finish times

I don’t solely blame the schools at all; this is nearing the tip of the iceberg for how the education system, including funding of it, has been mismanaged for a long time.

But, the short notice, lack of consultation (which could have helped parents try to make other arrangements earlier) and repeated, ‘we aren’t child care’ line isn’t ok.

@TildaTurnip I understand what you are saying but yet again that is not the schools fault or problem it is the government.

The finding issue is mostly the govt.

The communication issue in this case seems to be the fault of the school.

*funding

I am slightly at a loss to see what it has to do with funding. Teachers will still be paid as full time of full time equivalent. They are not reducing staffing are they? (Maybe the Head is only doing 9/10 of the job and taking 9/10 salary?) Assuming they are not, and neither is anyone else and, as staffing is easily the biggest cost, where is the saving? The children still get the same hours of teaching. So I assume they are cutting lunch breaks or starting earlier? So a small amount of lunch time supervision. Teachers will still get their non contact time so no change there either.

A secondary school near me does this in the summer. The children wander into local coffee shops or go home. Primary schools just would not do it! They value communication with parents and understandtheir parent body and their needs. Schools are not an island. I guess if parents do not like it, they will go elsewhere if they can.

They are not reducing staffing are they?

TAs in primary (not sure about secondary) get paid hourly. Could reduce admin roles too I guess.

Yes they will save an afternoon's pay for the classroom support staff and at least some of the admin staff

An afternoon not paying for heating too over the winter and electricity.

Quite often in a school, you’ll have someone who’s job is PPA cover. That person goes round covering all the teacher’s planning time. If all the teachers have their planning time when there’s no children, you don’t need that PPA cover person. That’s one salary saved. If you have a bigger school, you might have two people doing this job, or even three. Also, all the TAs/admin staff will be sent home and paid less.

I get its school not childcare but childcare costs me £66 a day and I earn £62 a day so where is the incentive to work? The government want us to work my family won't even commit to looking after the kids for me if they are ill imagine what they would be like if I asked them to look after them regularly (like her mother and mother in law did for her)

It's unfortunate that it does not suit your current job but schools are not free childcare.

yes that's not really helpful is it as a single mom working 9-5 childcare is too expensive should I start a thread about the legal age to leave a child alone for half a day because I'm pretty sure it isn't age six with sen

Actually according to uc guidelines you need to get more hours when your child goes to school because your children are at school and you don't need to care for them

TildaTurnip - the school has given people quite a lot of notice, as the change will not apply until September, which is 7 months away. As for consulting parents first - no point in doing that if it is the only solution other than providing a substandard education for the sake of childcare.

absisspartacus - underfunding state schools is just another of the many ways government is shafting those least able to cope with more austerity. State schools are not permitted to run deficit budgets. They cannot afford to provide everything expected of them any more than you can afford to pay for childcare costs with money you don't have, either.

Actually it's inspired on behalf of the school. They'll be saving 10% on support staff costs and possibly on PPA teachers too. It will also be really popular with teachers so could help with retention and recruitment to - perversely, they'll be able to collect their own dc from school once a week. It will be less popular with support staff because of the pay cut but may suit some and they're generally easier to recruit.

Childcare really isn't their issue, they have to spend their budget in the most efficient way to provide the best education they can.

The "they" people talk about when discussing the requirements put on people to work with young children are not made by the school. Take it up with the people who fund them.

FWIW the school that I'm a governor at consulted on this and the majority of parents were supportive.

In my view the school should consult because it helps to find out the specific issues that will arise for individual families as a consequence of the change. Not all these issues can be resolved by the school p, but many can by (for example) careful planning of after school clubs.

These decisions are not taken lightly.

Well I would and I do but unfortunately they seem to persist in telling me that the school is not free childcare and I just need to find more hours to cover my childcare deficit which begs the question where do I put my children (in childcare) but I cant pay £8 an hour out of 7.83 (get more hours) again with the where do I put my children? I could have this argument all day sadly I'm trying to get more hours this time working from home so my kids can see me burning the candle at every end plus trying to get dla for the youngest and considering the eldest son as every fucking question i answer seems to apply to him too while i cry and I'm so fucking lonely and miserable even my kids would rather be with there dole dossing dad than there overstretched mum still at least i would be able to work more hours oh yes then i need to pay him

A PP said teachers got 3.5% this year. They that's singularly not true. Mainscale teachers in maintained schools got 3.5% on the top and bottom of their scale senior teachers 2% and leadership 1%. That was advertised by govt. as fully funded. It cost us £45k for the part of the year from Sep to April and we received £13k "full" funding.

The £32k difference is close to the cost of a teacher....

(junior) teacher

Bestseller, At least your school funded the increase. A lot of schools didn't, so many teachers didn't get that pay-rise at all.
But that small fact didn't get reported on in the same way as the initial news of a rise, so everyone thinks we all got it. I'm still waiting for mine.

OP I think between now and September you will find that either more Childminder’s open up or those specifically after school clubs (can’t think of a better name - private companies not the school’s own after school) will spring up/extend their hours for fridays. It’s a bit all or nothing to say this would mean you couldn’t work. Even if you found someone through Sitters or gumtree, you won’t need to give up your job (and live on what?) try not to think the worst

Schools in Edinburgh have been doing this for decades - at least 30 years. But they didn't just spring it on parents half was through a term.

You're right, but it's definitely more than 30 years. I started secondary in Edinburgh in 1981 and had a 1pm finish on a Friday from the beginning, although we had an 8.30am start every morning to make up the lost time.

I don't think anyone's parents had childcare issues, we just hung about around the area in groups until it was time to go home, or we went to our friend's homes for a while. At 12 and over we were expected to look after ourselves.

All schools got the funding - there's a spreadsheet on the DfE website showing the allocations.

All maintained schools were obliged to apply it to the bottom of the sales and ime most did it across the board. Academies, as we know, set their own rules.