Return to blog

Education leaders don't think schools should be used as polling stations

|
Press Releases
A blog post image

10th December, 2019: In a recent poll of The Key’s members, 69% of respondents said they thought schools should not be used as polling stations. 27% said they should be used and 4% said they don’t know. 

Caroline Doherty, Head of External Relations, at The Key said:

“School leaders are really feeling the stress and financial loss from having to accommodate this snap election. In the last 4 years alone, some schools will have lost over a week to elections.

In no other circumstances are schools expected or encouraged to lose a day of education so readily, yet, whenever there’s another election, schools will need to drop everything to comply again. Schools simply do not have the capacity to cancel or rearrange plans and communicate with everyone involved at the drop of a hat - no matter what time of year. And ultimately, it’s children’s education that suffers.

Our poll results, and the sheer volume of responses, show that school leaders have had enough. They do not want their schools to be used as polling stations - we must find another way."

------

Notes to Editors 

For more information contact:

Georgie Brown, Communications Assistant 

[email protected] / 0208 106 5437

About our polls

We regularly poll the 120,000 school leaders in our network to find out how they feel about pressing sector issues and to make sure our resources are delivering the support schools need.

3492 respondents (school leaders and governors) answered the question: Do you think schools should be used as polling stations?

The poll ran from Friday 15th November to Thursday 21st November, via the homepage of The Key for School Leaders and The Key for School Governors websites. 

Sign up for our news briefing

The Key's weekly education sector round-up, delivered to your inbox every Friday.

Get weekly news briefing