School on a saturday.

[onasuma]

Hey guys.
Yesterday i got some odd news. The school has made a saturday coming up a complusry school day. I dont even know if they are allowed to do this.
Anyhow, question is: Have you ever had a similar thing happen? Better yet, tell me they cant do it, and ill enjoy a hell of alot of complaining (Im head of the school council, dont you know)
Thanks

[Ceska]

Usually it depends on the law of the country in question. I know here it would be perfectly legal and some schools do have Saturdays as compulsory school day.

[onasuma]

Good point. Well, its in England.

[Tempest Fennac]

I never heard of anything like this happening. Why exactly are they doing it?

[Studoku]

If they've only just told you, I doubt they're allowed to without giving enough notice. Why is the school doing this anyway?

[banjo1985]

That's a real drag :smallfrown:

As for whether they can make it compulsary I'm not sure. The amount of notice is definitely important, and I think they can hold lessons on a weekend. There's a school by me that has Saturday as a regular school day every week, but for a school that doesn't do this as normal I think it might be a bit dodgy.

My gut feeling is that they can try and get everyone to come in, but that they can't enforce any punishment if people don't, especially if the notice period is small.

[Ceska]

Usually schools that have lessons on Saturday do not have any more lessons in general for the student. It simply means that they can make shorter days in general and avoid conflicting timetables like others cannot.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I had school on saturdays for the entirity of secondary school, so 4-5 years I think.

My school was a mixed boarding school (I was not a boarder, my house is just over a road from the school playing field), which is why it had saturday school. Most boarding schools that I know of have saturday school.

So yes, it is definately legal to have compulsory school on saturdays. Due to inspectors it isn't really possible for a school to make an illegal scheduling choice.

[Rykaj]

And april fools is too far away for that to be an option... Sounds like you're screwed, buddy :smallfrown:

[BlackStaticWolf]

Short answer is: Yes, they can make attendance compulsory for an event they schedule on a Saturday.

Unless, of course there's some actual law prohibiting it. Frankly though, I tend to doubt that there are any countries that have such prohibitions (excepting theocracies which may have laws relating to sabbaths or other holy days for everything, including schools).

Think of it as training for the real world, where things like that aren't exactly unheard of or even uncommon.

[InaVegt]

I assume the following would be in order, as long as you've got no religious reason or similar not too show up on the sabbath, you most likely have to come, however, in any proper democratic country (like england should be) religion *should* be a valid excuse as long as it's true and not just some sort of way to pidgeonhole yourself out of the day.

[Semidi]

Say you're Jewish and you're prohibited from doing things on the Sabbath (Saturday).

Cha-ching!

[PlatinumJester]

Say you're Jewish and you're prohibited from doing things on the Sabbath (Saturday).

Cha-ching!

So far I like his answer the most.

[TheThan]

I've had Sunday school... does that count?

[onasuma]

Having been told more today, i have more information to depart.

Its along way into next year, think mayish. And supposedly we get a day off to compensate. Two months before hand!

Also, with the religion thing, enough of my school know im buddhist (because its that uncommon) so i doubt it'd work.

Edit: Oh, and i forgot to mention, its for sports day, which up until now has been on a friday.

[Tempest Fennac]

I always considered sportsday to be pointless when it was taking up actual school time, but what exactly is the point in wasting people's Saturday for it while giving them a day off on a different day as compensation? I can't see any point to this set-up unless the school just likes wasting people's time with pointless garbage (which my primary school liked to do).

[onasuma]

Yep. The headmaster is leaving, so he wants to be remember as a timewaster.

[Closet_Skeleton]

So, you're worried about 1 saturday you don't get to spend sleeping in?

Some people had to endure three hours of school for 2 out of 3 saturdays in school weeks. This isn't really anything to worry about.

[Totally Guy]

I work on a construction site, mainly dealing with various accounts, keeping my hands clean, however I also carry out a very basic safety training session and gather individual qualification info from the new workers to the project every other day.

My boss suggested today that I should perhaps come in on Saturday morning each week to run this site induction. Just for an hour, first thing in the morning, and then go home. Today he was only really joking about it. In the future it may become a reality. I wouldn't be paid any more but I am, at the same time, committed to the project so I don't know whether I should refuse or not.

[Greebo]

I work on a construction site, mainly dealing with various accounts, keeping my hands clean, however I also carry out a very basic safety training session and gather individual qualification info from the new workers to the project every other day.

My boss suggested today that I should perhaps come in on Saturday morning each week to run this site induction. Just for an hour, first thing in the morning, and then go home. Today he was only really joking about it. In the future it may become a reality. I wouldn't be paid any more but I am, at the same time, committed to the project so I don't know whether I should refuse or not.
I think you should ask your boss if you agree to give up part of your Saturday for a regular gig, will you be compensated for it, since for you it would be a recurring thing, while I suspect for the people you indoctrinate it would be a mandatory 1 time deal?

[onasuma]

So, you're worried about 1 saturday you don't get to spend sleeping in?

Some people had to endure three hours of school for 2 out of 3 saturdays in school weeks. This isn't really anything to worry about.

Its not the fact that we come to school on one perfectly good saturday, when i should be playing d&d. Its the fact that if we lie down, and let them take our saturdays then he'll think he can. Hes already extended the school day since i started there. Now hes taking saturdays. Next he might ban lunch (exadgeration but still). Give someone an inch and they'll take a mile.

[Semidi]

Its not the fact that we come to school on one perfectly good saturday, when i should be playing d&d. Its the fact that if we lie down, and let them take our saturdays then he'll think he can. Hes already extended the school day since i started there. Now hes taking saturdays. Next he might ban lunch (exadgeration but still). Give someone an inch and they'll take a mile.

Just one Saturday? Geez, just don't go. If I were still in high school I wouldn't go on one Saturday out of all the others, not because I'm a bad-ass, but because it just isn't worth it time-time ratio. The worst thing that could happen would be an after-school detention, around 2 hours at the most. 2 hours sounds like a better deal than waking up on a Saturday morning.

[Tempest Fennac]

I'd say that you should get paid overtime, Glug, being as you would be doing something that benefits the company. I'd also agree with Onasuma's comments (I've found that head teachers love to waste time, and you should make a stand over the sports day out of principal). Incidentally, do people who aren't even involved in any of the sports still have to go?

[onasuma]

@ /\: Yes we do.
@ Semidi: Thing is, truency is punishable by... Saturday detention.

[Miraqariftsky]

Hmm, depends also on your academic level. For example, I'm in college and, this semester, I have saturday classes, 9-12 am. Mondays are the same, Tuesdays and Fridays are from 7 am to 4 pm but I get Wednesdays and Thursdays off.

Of course Sundays are off! Sundays are untouchably reserved for church, family and personal rest.

Freaky schedule, eh?

Precollege schedules, of course, were faaar more predictable... and regular.

[Tempest Fennac]

Why do you need to be there if you're not even in an event? Also, why can't they have the sports day in their own time if they are going to insist on wasting time with it?

[Illiterate Scribe]

Hey guys.
Yesterday i got some odd news. The school has made a saturday coming up a complusry school day. I dont even know if they are allowed to do this.
Anyhow, question is: Have you ever had a similar thing happen? Better yet, tell me they cant do it, and ill enjoy a hell of alot of complaining (Im head of the school council, dont you know)
Thanks

Hehe, that would be nice. At my school, sure, they only schedule 5 days, but that's more than made up for by the homework - 10,000 words of essays per weekend, normally.
:smallyuk:

I don't know what you can do, though. Write into your local paper, maybe, discussing this change?

Still, if it's just one day, then that shouldn't be too bad. Perhaps you can obtain, as head of school council (which, at least in my school, is a figure head justification for the staff, but still carries some weight) some assurance on behalf of the students that this day won't set a precedent for further ones?

[onasuma]

Hehe, that would be nice. At my school, sure, they only schedule 5 days, but that's more than made up for by the homework - 10,000 words of essays per weekend, normally.

Its the same here. Lower years are able to do that. Me, i have 3 essays, a novel to write, a novel to read, 3 pages of maths questions and a description of how we chage crude oil into petrol and other substances on a two day weekend. With a one day one, my year are mainly gonna be stuck.

Also, i have my power, but its really more than any teachers job is worth to back us on this, so we are pretty much alone on this one, even though they like it as much as we do.

@ Tempest: We just dont know.

[thubby]

thats the kind of stuff i use my relatively untouched reserve of absences for :smallbiggrin:
best part is my parents are ok with it so long as i have a reason.

[Lord_Butters_I]

If you're willing to risk... complications... you could show up, be counted in attendence, and leave in the chaos of begining a sports day. Just keep a low profile in the couple of days afterward. I do the same thing on my schools Walkathon (we walk about a mile and a half around the neighborhood around the school, meet back in the football field, and then go home. I just go home from the begining. Never been caught, honestly they probibly just don't care.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I had school on Saturday when I went to private school in Kiev for a few months... Needless to say, that's why I was there for only a few months. But I didn't really care. I think I only showed up to two Saturdays. The classes were pretty useless for the most part - geometry (which I aced anyway, showing up for tests), basic computers (this was way back in 2000, and they were teaching retarded stuff no one needed anymore, like how to create directories in MS-DOS even though the computers had Windows 2000 and we could have been learning useful stuff like typing, programming or stuff like Word, Powerpoint, etc) and I think there was geography but out teacher was in the hospital, there was no sub, so we never had the class anyway.

But yeah.. sports day. I would show up to walk around and say hi to people without actually doing the events. And I would come something like 2 hours after it started so I could sleep in.