Powys: Schools may go online one day a week to cut costs

Pupils could be taught online for one day a week as a way for schools to manage their rising heating bills, a council has suggested.

Wearing coats in class and leaving staff positions unfilled are also among the possible cost saving measures sent in a briefing to headteachers in Powys.

Every option must be considered to deal with a financial crisis, said the county’s cabinet member for education.

But each school will be left to decide for itself how to make the savings.

Pete Roberts, the Powys cabinet member for education, told a meeting of the council that school budgets were being looked at “in detail” for “potential solutions”.

“We did suggest the possibility of a four-day week,” Mr Roberts said, “with a fifth day being taught virtually as well as blended weeks of learning as extreme cases for consideration.”

But the he stressed school have been given no “clear directive” to do this, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

“Ultimately it is the decision and responsibility of the headteacher and their chair of governors regarding the school budget,” he said, “and one size does not fit all.”

Schools were directed to produce plans explaining how they will continue with children’s education, he said, and would need to think about “any and every eventuality”.

Online learning could “reduce the utilities cost for the schools and lead to a considerable saving,” Mr Roberts said.

Wearing coats in classrooms, he added, is something pupils have already been doing.

“For the past two winters in some instances, a few children have had to wear their coats in their classrooms due to windows being open as part of the Covid guidance,” he said, “not because the school could not afford to pay the heating bill.

“With Covid increasing, this situation is likely to happen again this winter.”