Parental responsibility (politics warning)

[FactualFrank]

If kids are tired starting lessons at 9am then they are going to be tired at 10am too

It's all about the extra hour (sometimes 90 minutes for those that begin at 8.30am) that makes all the difference, and it's more to do with natural sleep patterns in the brain.

[tarkys_ears]

I live in a town with less than 2500 people.

It has two primary schools, TWO. They're right next door to each other.

Both schools now have to have mixed classes (years, not sex) due to funding issues.

Neither school is anywhere near capacity. I reckon they could comfortably merge. But they won't, because one is a Catholic school, one is a CoE. Unfortunately there are no non-religious schools nearby.

Also, the CoE school have a part-time executive head and 2 deputy heads - frig knows how much this is all costing. Their idea of fundraising is to sell cakes and ice creams... you know, the kind of thing that 7 year olds do to earn £20 to go to camp - hardly the same stuff the Oxford University fundraising committee are doing!

I don't know what the solution is but clearly running two half empty buildings next door to each other is going to cost substantially more than running one. Of course, if anyone ever tried to close one of them down, the unions would be all over it like a shot. And that, I suspect, is the main issue.

(On a side note, they seem to have unlimited funds for purchasing expensive electronic equipment which could be sourced for a fraction of the cost if the staff were held accountable for what they were buying!)

[evensteadiereddie]

It's absolutely nothing to do with unions or unaccountable staff whatever your agenda might be.
The two schools are based on different faiths and cannot merge.

[GodIsADeeJay81]

It's absolutely nothing to do with unions or unaccountable staff whatever your agenda might be.
The two schools are based on different faiths and cannot merge.

Same god, just differ over some of the details, so not different faiths.
Bit like Shiite and Sunni Muslims, worship the same god but argue over other stuff.

[nil_desperandum]

I don't know what the solution is but clearly running two half empty buildings next door to each other is going to cost substantially more than running one. Of course, if anyone ever tried to close one of them down, the unions would be all over it like a shot. And that, I suspect, is the main issue.
)

Can you provide any source or link of any kind that supports the bizarre idea that unions have any say whatsover about school buildings, closures, PFI, budgets, planning etc.?
I very much doubt you can find even a tenuous link to this. Unions only role in this is to try to mitigate redundancies etc., and ensure that staff are redeployed, which considering the recruitment crisis and the number of vacancies is not currently a major issue.
It's also quite possible that there are other reasons why you have 2 schools in close proximity that have empty places. Local authorities etc look at things like birthrate and projected numbers before taking the big decision to actually close a school. (It's massively disruptive to pupils apart from anything else.).
It's very expensive to close a school now and then have to start extending another one either now or in the future. (It's also the case that most parents prefer an element of choice, and smaller schools, though I'm not saying that this would be the case in your particular scenario).

[nil_desperandum]

It's absolutely nothing to do with unions or unaccountable staff whatever your agenda might be.
The two schools are based on different faiths and cannot merge.

1st sentence - totally correct and fully agree.
2nd sentence not actually correct.
There are quite a number of what they call "Joint Schools" in the UK, (mainly secondary). There are even a couple of joint RC / Church of Ireland schools in Londonderry!
{I just checked and the first joint school opened in 1973, so it's not a new idea, but it's one that is being explored increasingly with the various initiatives to open academies, free schools and MATs etc.}
Not quite the same thing, but Wellfield School in Burnley is joint Anglican and Methodist.

[evensteadiereddie]

Fair enough, let's go with "highly unlikely" to merge.