School announces plan to close early on Fridays to save money

[DJ-1701]

School announces plan to close early on Fridays to save money | Edexec.co.uk

[Svella]

I'm down with this!

Now, how do I get our Headmistress to see this?

[sted]

I'm down with this!

Now, how do I get our Headmistress to see this?

 

set the article as her homepage?

 

it makes sense wages are the biggest pot a school has if you have less money coming in you have to start saving where you spend the most so realistically you either reduce staffing levels, reduce pay or reduce hours

[mrbios]

I'm a bit confused as to where the school are actually saving money in this scenario? Presumably teachers are still paid as normal for those friday afternoons if they're planned to be doing PPA, and that's the biggest expense is it not?

 

I would be absolutely livid if my childrens primary school did the same thing, I'm with the parents on this one.

[FN-GM]

I would be absolutely livid if my childrens primary school did the same thing, I'm with the parents on this one.

 

That was probably the idea. It sounds like a publicity stunt to me. The school want to make a point.

[sted]

I'm a bit confused as to where the school are actually saving money in this scenario? Presumably teachers are still paid as normal for those friday afternoons if they're planned to be doing PPA, and that's the biggest expense is it not?

 

I would be absolutely livid if my childrens primary school did the same thing, I'm with the parents on this one.

 

but without kids in you dont need the nta's in so you save on their wages id imagine

[PotNoodleTech]

The really sad thing is, they are going to be saving hardly any money at all because the only staff that are going to be unpaid from 1pm - 4pm are the teaching assistants, all of the teachers, which is where 80-90% of the cost comes from are still going to be employed and paid during that time and they're not actually going to close the school to save on gas/electricity/caretaker costs.

 

So really, it isn't going to save anything.

 

Seems like more of a publicity stunt to me!

[LeMarchand]

I'm a bit confused as to where the school are actually saving money in this scenario?

 

Presumably the teaching assistants are sent home and fewer TAs (and supply staff?) are needed to cover PPA during the week. So the worst paid staff members take a pay cut.

[sippo]

One of my kids primary schools does this already. Finish at 13:30 on a friday.

[Chuckster]

I think the idea is to enable teachers to do their PPAs during that Friday afternoon so as not to use other teachers or agency staff to cover lessons during the school week, which in part will help reduce the wage level.

 

And yes, teaching assistants and other support staff will ultimately take a hit on their pay, with a reduction in hours equating to a lower salary.

[GuyJD]

It's a sad, sad time when schools have to consider this as an option to save money, I agree it is more than likely a publicity stunt to draw attention to the cuts that we are all facing in schools.

 

Do I think they'll follow through with this proposed plan? No, the money saved will be virtually nothing, but the publicity from this is what is needed to bring this very real problem we're all facing to the public eye.

 

My ICT budget has halved since 2015, it's now at the point that I don't have enough even for the basic stuff and am looking at free alternatives to software and trying to make our ageing hardware last well past it's regular life cycle.

 

Good on them for calling the government out over this.

[Lonix]

That was probably the idea. It sounds like a publicity stunt to me. The school want to make a point.

And there we go. You've hit it right on the head. You would however save money on support staff. If things become dire here there's still ways we can save money without closing/redundancy.

 

We've got a school not far from us resorting to something that's angered parents... I also know they can do better at saving money.

[sted]

i sometimes wonder if angering parents if they are a good school might mean less apply there next year meaning fewer dont get their 1st choice school which im sure helps someones statistics somewhere

[hardtailstar]

They should of just sacked the PPA time and got the teachers working together after school.

[LeMarchand]

They should of just sacked the PPA time and got the teachers working together after school.

 

 

...about 5 seconds after that idea gets floated.

[hardtailstar]

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...about 5 seconds after that idea gets floated.

 

Well they have been a bit quiet recently.....

[Lonix]

Well they have been a bit quiet recently.....

 

Well for once they've got a major reason to strike.. you'd think they would be on the strike band wagon very quickly. They tend to prefer striking when things are pretty good in education. They strike when schools can lose a portion of their staff and continue to operate.

 

Now... it wouldn't surprise me if it caused more closures due to the fact schools have less spare staff available.