to think that closing schools actually isn't necessary at all?

[manicinsomniac]

I fully accept that I might be and I have several pros and cons in my head. Just interested in others' opinions.

Where I live we have had a lot of snow. Not all roads are clear. The school is in a rural area. 50% of staff and 80% of children live between 10 and 60 minutes drive away. We are open (due to our 20% of boarders) and only 2 staff members and 14 children (out of about 40 staff and 350 children) are absent.

The children were under no compulsion to attend (email just said come if safe) but they have made it so AIBU to think that closing for almost all other schools should not have been necessary?

Cons (reasons I think I might be BU):
*we don't very often get snow like this so maybe the children are gaining more by being at home and getting the chance to play in it.

• if all schools opened then the journeys might have been harder than they were and maybe it wouldn't be possible to get in (ie maybe it was only ok for us because the roads were quieter)
  
• For staff who are nervous drivers there is an awful lot of judgement
  
• The children who don't make it in are getting behind through no fault of their own.
  
  Pros (reasons I think I am not BU):
  
• the children continue to get their education
  
• the children are with their friends and have all the grounds to play in all together (we have an organised snow fight and a sculpture competition today for eg)
  *'community spirit and British reslilience' and all that jazz!

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

I shouldn't think inadequate flooring or matting is very often the main reason a school is closed. I think heads probably think about all the very sensible points raised in this thread, such as that above, and make what seems like the best decision for all concerned.

I think it's a bit perverse to assume they could never have a good reason to make the decision not to open. I do wonder why some are so keen to do that.

[IAmLouisWalsh]

My school is a public building with totally inadequate flooring thanks to the cancellation of Building Schools for the Future. Some of the kids don't have coats, let alone wellies. One pair of soaking wet trainers, maybe.

[perfectstorm]

Big blue papaer towels to wipe off excess water . There's 2000 kids in my school. How long would that take? Where would they do it? |Where would the towels be stored and disposed of?

Is your contextual reading that poor when teaching?

[wordfactory]

nit I don't think HTs make random decisions but I do think some make very negative ones.

Sure there will be some HTs who have absolute reason to close, but many will take the decision based on fear of any risk. This might happen, or that might happen.

In our area the snow really has not been bad. The roads are clear. The buses to the independent schools ran and on time. Public transport ran, only slightly late. Trains still ran in and out of London (and they're notorious for being cancelled at the sniff of inclement weather). As far as I could see, not one shop, restaurant or business was closed...

But the majority of schools still took the decision to close. No wonder the parents were annoyed!

[deleted203]

Schools predominantly close because of an issue with staffing, rather than it not being possible for kids to get there, in my experience. I teach in a secondary school 32 miles away and the majority of our staff are coming in from roughly that far. School was closed on Mon purely because it was clear that it would be dangerous for many staff to attempt the journey when warnings were being issued to only travel if essential. Roads are rural, hilly and not gritted too well. People who remember 'in my day' forget that people were less mobile. In my day the teachers didn't live 40 miles from school - they were mostly local-ish.

[VBisme]

Surely the Dunlops referred to are wellingtons, like this rather than the green flash tennis shoes like this.

[joanofarchitrave]

My school closed for almost a week I think in 1986. I was doing A-levels at the time so worked at home. I was so bored I put on my wellies, went to town and lost my virginity. So, exceptionally educational.

[ShellyBoobs]

Have a bloody snow day and keep your kids safe.

Just exactly what is a 'snow day', though?

Is it just a day where you say, "sod it, I'll stay at home", instead of going to work?

Not everyone can do that.

Do you not have to go to work thebody?

[dayshiftdoris]

My school is a public building with totally inadequate flooring thanks to the cancellation of Building Schools for the Future. Some of the kids don't have coats, let alone wellies. One pair of soaking wet trainers, maybe.

Right so for a school to be open when it's snowing there needs to be the following:

*Clear main and side roads leading to school
*Clear pavements
*Buses running
*Local staff who are not risking their personal safety to get to work
*Decent size cloakroom
*Good flooring
*Every child to have a pair of wellies and a coat...

Thank goodness hospital staff don't have this mentality!

[Pixel]

If the main problem is teachers living too far away, maybe we need a system for extreme weather where teachers report to the school nearest to their home. Head teachers could have a list of possible 'volunteers' to call on before deciding if it was necessary to shut the school. It would be simple enough if it was set up in advance.
I realise that a teacher probably wouldn't be able to teach a class of strange children at the drop of a hat, but it shouldn't be beyond them to provide primary school children with a fun and productive day, they might even learn something that they wouldn't have otherwise. . Older children don't have the same teacher for all their lessons anyway, so chances are they would still get most of their lessons and the volunteer could fill in the gaps, perhaps supervising revision or something. Personally I wouldn't even be adverse to the children watching a fun dvd if it was just for 1 or 2 lessons and stopped them feeling hard done by for having to go to school! They would still learn the valuable lesson that making the effort can bring unexpected rewards .

[Pixel]

Think that should be 'averse' .

[deleted203]

This would not be possible in many schools, Pixel, due to CRB requirements. Even though I'm a secondary teacher and have an advanced CRB cert. my local primary school would not accept me as a supply teacher for the day without requiring a separate CRB check. (God knows why - we work for the same LEA).

[JakeBullet]

Thing is....and possibly someone has mentioned his up thread; it's not just a case of opening the school is it? It's the knowledge that rush hour is made much much worse by snow and ice. It's knowing that the school run makes rush hour worse in any case......just think how much easier journeys are on school holidays at that time of day. It's knowing that opening the school will add to the risks by introducing more traffic to the roads in difficult conditions.

My DS's school coped with this by opening at 10:30am instead which dealt with the "extra traffic" issue, gave everyone time to get there and ensured that the day had had a chance to warm up a bit. I am in SE Essex though and we had far less snow than some parts of the country.

[merrymouse]

Yes, standard green Wellington boots. Although clearly some families do rely on their trainers in the snow.

[merrymouse]

@Sowornout In my day teachers smoked in the playground, whacked the children and there was no such thing as a risk assessment. The cultural and legal environment has completely changed.

(Although I can certainly remember that even then schools closed in unusually adverse weather conditions)

[boredSAHMof4]

This is a strange thread.
The gist seems to be because the roads where you live were passable,despite heavy snow, you think that must be the case everywhere.
Also I know 2 children who broke a leg one school premises let alone getting there and back in the snowy winter 2 years ago.One on a slippy path to the science block and another on ice that had been brought in on a shoe to the toilets.The second one was a very bad break involving weeks in hospital and the best pat ofa year to heal.Fortunately (for the LEA) the child's parent was the COG so they didn't get sued.

[perfectstorm]

The weirdest thing about this thread is people extrapolating their own situation and then insisting it applies to all.

Some schools plainly can't open. Nobody is arguing the toss there. Our local school? Well, the catchment area is half a mile. It has 300 kids in each building, with total separation in every way between them (infant/primary). It's a reasonably affluent area with involved parents. All of whom were texted, to advise closure, so all of whom could have been asked to bring slippers or thick socks, if the child had no wellies, and shoes in a bag with wellies left at the door, otherwise, plus a towel. As mentioned, for the VERY SMALL number whose parents wouldn't or couldn't comply, blue paper towels to clean shoes would be fine.

And the snow was so light, you could see the ground beneath it.

Nurseries didn't close. Workplaces didn't close. Only all the local schools. Secondaries? Okay, maybe they had to, I don't have the facts so can't comment. Primaries? Well, I can only quote the local preschool head when I dropped my child off: "Good excuse for a day off, if you can get it."

[Bunbaker]

"In the winter of 1947 there was so much snow that people had to dig tunnels through the snow. Schools didn't close and people went about their business pretty much as usual. There was 5/6ft of snow in some places."

But back then people lived a lot closer to school/workplaces. It was pretty unusual to have the long commutes that we have today.

"I don't think people deserve either criticism for not making the journey, or praise for living in the right road and having the right car that makes the journey doable"

I agree Clouds. I live in a close off a cul-de-sac on a hill. We never get gritters in our close. I managed to get the car out yesterday for the first time since last Thursday. My car is a modest Ford Focus, but has low profile tyres that are useless in icy weather.

[Chelvis]

My DH is a teacher and his school closed because

a) not all the staff could get in and they couldn't meet ratios - I know some people say 'well, we had classes of 40/50/60 in the snow of 19**' but there weren't children in mainstream schools then who needed 1-on-1 supervision because of LD / violent behaviour / toileting needs. There was a child at his previous school who had to be supervised 1-on-1 constantly because he had previously physically and sexually assaulted other children - I wouldn't have wanted him mixed in with a class of 40+ with a teacher who didn't know him.

b) many parents - not all, just quite a few at his school - are willing to sue at the drop of a hat. They threaten it for any minor problem at school and there is a very strong 'where there's a blame, there's a claim' culture. They've been sued for minor PE accidents and playground slips, they WOULD get claims if anyone slipped in snow.

c) the head cares about her staff and doesn't feel it's reasonable for them to have to do long or dangerous drives (DH's is over 10 miles, partially along country roads), even if the majority of pupils could get in.

[wordfactory]

Boredsahmof4 - that's an odd reading of the thread. Has anyone said all schools should open? I haven't seen that. The reality is that some schools clearly should close, but there are many that should not. And parents of those schools and rightly annoyed. Its very interesting to see the difference in peoples natures when there's a bit of difficulty though. A rather lovely case study for some bright sparks lol.

[boredSAHMof4]

Word factory have you read the title of the thread ' to think that closing schools actually isn't necessary at all?

Ok then the rather obvious cons she missed

• being injured whilst slipping trying to walk into school
  *crashing on icy roads.
  
• being stranded in sub zero temperatures in the middle of nowhere because a road is impassable
  
• Conditions worsen and the school is stuck with hundreds of children on its hands overnight.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

Well, the OP does say in as many words that closing schools 'actually isn't necessary at all' - that's what I've been concerned with, and that's what I think is silly.

I could not, of course, claim to have any idea whether there were schools which closed and shouldn't have, any more than I know whether there were any schools which really ought to have closed but didn't. To pretend to seems a bit daft.

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

x posted - exactly, Bored!