Primary school closing early.

elsien

As financial years tend to run from April to March, it's entirely possible that the school have budgeted well and only run out in the couple of weeks before the new budget come in to place. School budgets usually run in line with the local authority's financial year rather than the academic year.

GwylimT

Cakeguts wrote: »

I can't remember where it was. I just remember thinking that something about the whole article didn't look right in terms of how the school was being run financially.

I assume that the budget for a primary school is based on the whole school year so they should know how much paper etc that they can order for the whole year? It appeared that the teachers had been told not to buy any more paper now in March? They have used a year's worth of paper between September and March? Does that sound like any budgeting going on?

The news item was shown where there were leaks in the roof of the school and that the playground items were old but not how old. I couldn't tell by looking at them. They didn't say they were broken in any way but were just old. To be honest the whole attitude of the school sounded to me like a black hole in money terms.

State schools are limited on how much they can spend, so even if £10,000 of paper is needed per year, they have to order in smaller chunks. Schools are also paid in arrears, so in schools where the lower groups are large, they have a huge deficit until they aquire funding for those children once the school census has been completed by county hall.

AnotherJoe

Cakeguts wrote: »

You probably didn't see the news item. I am old and I can honestly say that in any of the primary schools that I attended in the 60s and 70s no one ever cut out a triangle shape printed in the middle of a large piece of paper. In fact I can't remember ever doing this. I can remember cutting paper in art classes but not just as the purpose of cutting out. The news item said that this was a primary school not an infant school.

Whatever. In the grand scheme of things this is an irrelevance, and you have been hoodwinked into looking at the trivia whilst ignoring the bigger picture of cuts for school funding which are the real issue.

If you really think that cutting a triangle out of a bit of paper is whats causing the school to run out of money, and even more ludicrously that A3 paper is a fire risk (whilst presumably A4 isnt?) you need to look into the facts more and take your eyes off stupid rabble rousing headlines.

Where i live schools are having a hard time due to ludicrous funding policies, whether or not they bring their own paper in wont make a jot of difference.

chris_m

Cakeguts wrote: »

Actually this was my first reaction. There was paper everywhere and water dripping through the ceiling.

That's to mitigate the fire risk :rotfl:

Cakeguts

AnotherJoe wrote: »

Whatever. In the grand scheme of things this is an irrelevance, and you have been hoodwinked into looking at the trivia whilst ignoring the bigger picture of cuts for school funding which are the real issue.

If you really think that cutting a triangle out of a bit of paper is whats causing the school to run out of money, and even more ludicrously that A3 paper is a fire risk (whilst presumably A4 isnt?) you need to look into the facts more and take your eyes off stupid rabble rousing headlines.

Where i live schools are having a hard time due to ludicrous funding policies, whether or not they bring their own paper in wont make a jot of difference.

I can't understand why anyone would use good quality paper for cutting out pre-printed triangles. For paper cutting you could use newspaper especially if you were on a tight budget.

I went to 4 different primary schools and I don't remember having any lessons in how to cut out pre-printed triangles at any of those 4 primary schools. Not only that but I don't think that not having studied the art of cutting out pre-printed triangles has actually ruined my life.

For those people who didn't do cutting out pre-printed triangles as it is such an important part of primary school education should we be running adult education courses in cutting out pre-printed triangles?

The whole thing just looked like a very badly run school with no attention paid to what they were spending or on what they were teaching.

Cakeguts

ilovehouses wrote: »

Paper and crayons - minutiae.

Probably about 0.1% of a school's gas bill.

So if it really cheap to buy the parents could buy it for their children then like they used to?

Graham_Devon

Cakeguts wrote: »

So if it really cheap to buy the parents could buy it for their children then like they used to?

They didn't though. We always had such items in the classroom, especially in Primary School.

And newspapers bring a whole new level of difficulties. Firstly, where do you get them all from? Secondly, they will need vetting for indecent photos etc.

Not sure that's a good use of teachers time.

You'd be better off looking at the levels of money paid at the top of the newly formed academies and waste that goes on there, including dinners out etc rather then trying to take crayons off the kids.

lookstraightahead

Until you know the context of the paper cutting exercise it!!!8217;s very difficult to know whether paper is wasted. Also not all parents would/can provide stationery for their children.

Owain_Moneysaver

Cakeguts wrote: »

For those people who didn't do cutting out pre-printed triangles as it is such an important part of primary school education should we be running adult education courses in cutting out pre-printed triangles?

I hate to tell you this but councils do. It's usually dressed up as "craft".

molerat

As for providing pens and crayons, you would be surprised at how many parents would not provide those items. Parents have the right to have their children educated free of charge but are not interested in having any responsibility towards that education. I know of parents that will have no input in their child's education such as helping with homework (which the child should not be doing anyway in their own time !) as it is not their job, that is for the teachers.