Schools closing early for the weekend to save money

s most people are aware we are still suffering through austerity, with significant cuts to most public sectors, including the police force, and the education department. Even though we are living through these frugal times, I was certainly not aware that some schools are having to cut short their working week because they can`t afford to educate their pupils for the full five days.

I was astonished to learn that as many as 200 schools across the United Kingdom have already cut their working weeks, or are considering doing so within the next academic year. The standard practice here seems to be sending the children home after lunch on Friday. To accommodate those parents who may be working, and unable to collect their children at this earlier time, most schools will offer some kind of `after school club,` enabling pupils to remain supervised on school property - all for a fee of course.

This practice seems to have been going on for a number of years in some schools, with the greater public largely aware of it - that was until last week, when hundreds of parents and pupils staged a protest march outside Westminster. The march was Organised by Labour MP Jess Phillips, whose son attends a primary school in Birmingham which has recently adopted the shorter working week.

Not content with just organising the march, Jess Philips has gone a step further - on Friday, after her 10 year old son Danny`s school day finished at lunchtime, she drove him and his friend Morris to 10 Downing street, where the boys sat of the Prime Minister`s front steps and completed their homework. This bold statement was obviously to highlight the Government`s responsibility to care for and educate children throughout the whole working week.

When questioned about whether it was appropriate for a child to be sitting outside someone`s doorstep doing their homework Ms Philips said `The whole thing is quite exciting for him - he wants to stick up for his school. It`s a brilliant school.`

Some might say that she is using her son to make a crude political point, but I for one applaud her methods. It is simply unacceptable that a large number of schools are adopting the practice of closing early. Half a day may not sound like much, but that`s ten percent of the working week - children in these schools will be missing out on a huge portion of their education. It could also be the start of a slippery slope - if half a day can be cancelled, why not a whole day? Why not just have a three day week - for the other two days the school can hire child minders, employing them at a lower salary than teachers, and charge the parents for the cost of looking after their children.

Ms Philips has said that in Birmingham alone there are 26 schools already employing a four and a half day week, or are in the process of introducing it; and this certainly isn`t to say that the problem is solely confined to that part of the country, as the MP was keen to point out:

`This is not just a Birmingham issue, which is what the government wants to paint it as - it`s a problem in Stockport, Oxford, Cambridgeshire, Berkshire there was one in Theresa May`s (Maidenhead) constituency Bournemouth, London, Leicester, Sandwell.`

The campaign group Save our Schools have said that children on this system will lose about 20 school days a year. For young children in primary school, whose brains are like sponges, assimilating information faster than any other age group, each day at school is valuable. The government themselves made this point when they stood behind their policy of fining parents who take their children out of school to go on holiday. This practice of shortening the working week is hypocritical, extremely damaging to children`s` education, and should be immediately stopped.