Surely polling day school closures are outdated now?

[SchoolRunRealist]

I know this comes up every election cycle, but surely routine school closures for polling days feel outdated now?

Many schools already remain open safely during elections using separate entrances or isolated polling areas, while others still close completely.

It just feels odd that schools are under so much pressure around attendance and minimising disruption, yet predictable elections still routinely interrupt learning and create childcare issues for working parents.

This morning I finally ended up starting a Parliament petition asking councils to minimise school closures during elections by prioritising alternative venues where possible.

Not anti-voting whatsoever — just feels like there should be better planning by now.

Curious whether others agree or whether I’m missing something obvious?

Crikey I had no idea they were a thing! Is there literally no village hall, church hall etc they can be done in?! I presume using a school is a last resort. I’d be bloomin cheesed off to have to take a day off to cover tbh.

Where I vote, polling is always on a Sunday and the polling station is our village hall. School premises may be used in towns and cities, but as it is always a Sunday there is no disruption.

It depends on the design of the school. DD's primary school would have had to close because the classrooms opened on to the hall.

Fortunately, we have a church hall in our village, but in many places the nearest and only suitable building is a school.

Ours stays open but it's pretty miserable for the infant and primary age kids as they lose the use of one playground and the hall is locked.
There's a church and large hall that can be seen on the same road so it makes no sense to me.

The one school I taught at that closed for polling used the day for INSET and therefore no teaching days are lost - I’m sure that is the case now as students and teachers have to fulfil their academic days each year.

Our school is small so classrooms are used on election day, our kids love learning about elections, government, politics etc and coming with us to vote. It's ok if political process requires this i think personally.

very frustrating.
My polling station is at the nursery of the local school but they close the whole school.
My son’s school is closed and I had to pull in a favour for babysitting as I couldn’t get the day off work.

Ours stays open but the class I work in is the polling station so we can’t access the classroom today. I also had to spend a big chunk of yesterday removing anything which identities any children from the room and at the end of the day moving furniture to prepare the room.

Friday morning I will need to replace the furniture and get the displays back up over the next week.

It’s a massive inconvenience!

They close our school nursery which is disruptive for half the day for those parents but better than closing part of the main school obviously. We don’t have a church hall or similar in the vicinity really so not sure where else it could take place.

Do they still have to stick to the same number of school days in a year though? So will it be made up elsewhere?
Or are elections given as an exception to that? Thinking about it, the snap election in 2024 must have been an exception, because no one knew it was happening so couldn’t have planned the number of school days around it.

There is no financial gain. The payment is enough to cover the electricity costs and paying someone to open up at 6am and close up at gone 10pm.

I’m surprised they are still closing schools for polling day when schools are constantly talking about attendance.

I would think any school that has to close for this reason would make it an inset day. Do they have to make up the day?

Our school is closed tomorrow as it's the main place for vote counting in the county. They use the sports hall and it could easily be closed off from pupils. But no, they close!

It was used for INSET when I taught at a polling station school.

This. It will be used as an INSET and no teaching days will be lost.

Maybe tuning down the attendance hysteria would be a better solution?

My parents used to take me to the voting and I felt proud that my school was hosting the elections.
I live in a big city and a big part of the school was used, every few streets (my street had some 500 voters) in different classroom

I remember being jealous as a kid as it seemed every other school was closed... but ours was open as they use the Adult Education centre next door.

The buildings have to meet strict criteria, so even if it seems "obvious" it might not be suitable.

I once lived in an area where the polling station was a mobile room: put up the day before and gone by the weekend. There weren't any schools or public buildings in the area so I guess that was all they could do.

Probably a very expensive solution though.

It depends on the design of the school and whether there is a completely separate entrance that can be used as a polling station. If not, the school may have to close.

In some places there are no other suitable buildings - church halls etc are not council owned and have no obligation to allow the council to use it, or they might charge an extortionate amount of money, or have an existing booking (especially for a snap election).

I remember teaching while the school was open for Polling. The Hall was blocked off from the rest of the school but people were traipsing through the playground all day , some of them with their dogs not to mention people driving into the staff car park causing chaos, so it was a nightmare. There was no separate access to the school grounds.

That was in the 90s when schools had less security. It couldn't happen now as all the gates would be locked.

Lots of people misunderstanding. The number of days in school are set. So are teachers in service days. It’s not an extra day off, it’s how the school year is arranged. Children don’t lose a day of school, of course they don’t

Ours primary is closed. No inset day instead but pupils are sent work to do online.

In my area schools haven’t been used for a few years now but all primaries are closed today to allow willing support staff to work at the elections - recruitment of election staff has been an issue so polling moved back into primary schools.

Didn't realise it was still a thing? In my town they've used other buildings for some time.