C of E schools - diocese helping?

[MrsCaplan]

DD(9) just asked me if the big affiliated church directly opposite her (exceptionally) cramped C of E school is helping by letting school use their spacious and safe church for teaching, since it's only used once a fortnight for parish services. School is so tiny that they can't even fit in R, Y1 and Y6 and keep to 2m apart etc. She added that it would obviously be the Christian thing to do!

Is it such a crazy idea? I didn't know what to say. Presumably its a no-no on Health & Safety grounds or something?

It could potentially work. I am a teacher at a C of E school and our local church is quite old and in need of restoration. No toilets in the building and no decent heating (may not be an issue now but could become one depending on how long this goes on for!) Also quite a distance from the school. If there are other churches/church halls close to a school that are suitable I don't see why it couldn't be looked into.

Not crazy at all! It’s absolutely what should be investigated! And church halls too. Our local church has very effective heating, lighting and a kitchen and loos. Temp loos could be ordered if more are needed.

The courts are looking to run in halls and conference centres. Why not schools? (If nearby of course).

Ah! It made a whole lot of sense to me too. This huge Church is directly opposite their teensy Victorian school (80 pupils) and the kids already use it every week for Assembly etc.( No village hall locally, but that crossed my mind too). Didn't know about courts. That is very interesting indeed. Thanks again.

With very many churches, it wouldn't be practical - you'd need toilets and running water, and pews and stone floors don't lend themselves very easily to being converted to classroom space.

But it should perhaps be explored where there is a modern church building, or a hall, in close proximity to the school.

The current CoE guidelines allow almost nobody to enter the building, but presumably these will be reviewed as time goes on, and they're probably largely as they are because of the lack of hand-washing facilities and so on in the vast majority of churches.

Well again they should investigate temp loos and hand washing area. You won’t get everything you would ideally require in a church but it’s worth looking into. Our church has modern seating which is linked or separate and a re laid flat modern stone lookalike floor. It’s pretty set up for this. Unfortunately it’s not very near the school but parents could drop off there and dc do one day there, for example. Y6 possibly better suited but we have churches used for nursery groups here too. All the chairs are moved and soft floor and toys are moved in. Flexibility for a few months might just have to happen.

Church hall perhaps a better proposition. There are probably a few H&S considerations as well as the spacing/distancing calculations, and the deep cleaning requirements, that would need to be worked out in terms of both the buildings that are in question here.

At the moment, places of worship are to remain closed as part of the lockdown so can't offer themselves to be used as schools. There's some suggestion that 4th July may be the date when churches etc. might reopen but with strict measures in place, including possibly needing to leave 72 hours between useage of the building by different groups - if that goes ahead, it would mean a place of worship used on a Sunday morning couldn't be used by a school until Wednesday afternoon... and couldn't be used later in the week!

So how will the courts run in conference centres with different judges and legal teams every day? Of course it could be done if need be. Can do is what’s needed. Not cannot do anything. Don’t have the services. Just have the children. Have the services outside. Or carry on with zoom ones.

@BubblesBuddy I have no idea what the guidance is about conference centres or courts - this was a post about primary schools using church buildings so I shared my knowledge of the situation. It's not about our church not having a 'can do' attitude, it's about having to work within the guidance as it currently stands as well as following the instructions from the CofE. We're really flexible about facilitating the use of our buildings for the wider community ordinarily and once we're allowed to have the building open again, if it's needed by a school at that time then we would do everything we can to support that.

As someone who works for a diocese, it has been mooted, all options are on the table but given that church buildings are in phase three they can't be opened up for schools ahead of there being opened up for the parish. I guess it will be very dependent on local situations and completely on a case by case basis e.g. not every church school will be within walking distance of the church, not all have toilets, etc. But it's not outwih the bounds of possibility. Our education teams are working so closely with schools, local authorities and MATs help in every possible way.

We need access to a sink in every classroom we use as frequent handwashing is key to schools opening. We looked at the church and church hall but none was suitable. It would depend on that structure and if you can do everything there or still need to use the school to provide a hot meal.

Children can bring packed lunch. No hot meals in my county are provided unless the school sets up its own. The schools no longer have kitchens. Yes, church spaces would have to open sooner but that’s what a lot of people want. It would be generous to open the buildings to schools and temporary sinks and loos are possible. They appear at virtually every outside commercial activity.