To email Head Teacher about children being kept inside all week?

[mrsvilliers2]

Can't decide if am BU or not. It's an infant school and ds told me that they have had to watch a film for break and lunch for the past week. The first two days I understand (lots of snow and ice) but the last two the playground was clear and not slippy. Dd was allowed out in nursery (same school but different play area). My problem is ds is a child that need to be run

We don't keep the whole class in if some haven't got appropriate clothing.

you don't, but unfortunately other schools do!

inertia we were assured by an expert downthread that grit does have finite shelf life.

Grit is just little stones, you put it down on the ice and when the ice melts you sweep it back up and put it back away. But it's a hassle and a lot of extra work for the caretakers so doesn't make sense to bother with it when the ice will just melt in a couple of days anyway.

Maybe the school year could be rejigged so that the main holiday is over the winter, just in case of inclement weather

I'm truly fascinated by all these ideas you are coming up with, instead of accepting that the dear darling children can stay inside for a week or so when it gets very icy. I'm surprised that not going onto a yard for 30 mins is such a hardship. Perhaps we could spend this mystery 'containers for grit' budget on therapy for the children instead? We might be sitting in schools with no heat or light, but at least the trauma of A Day Inside will be lessened.

You have to admire the persistence of some posters Madge if you hadn't already noticed, it isn't us Brits who can't hack the snow and cold. It's just that we live on the edge of the temperate zone. Take, as just one factor, the fact that we are wetter and don't have the same certainty of ice/snow as the kind of country you hold up as proof that are incompetent.

So our ice is wetter because we get warmer period during our cold snaps. It freezes overnight, has a slight defrost mid morning and starts to re-freeze again mid afternoon. The sort of thing really cold places just don't experience.

It isn't just a matter of cost or preparedness. But that doesn't make such a funny, self satisfied headline, does it?

I think previous posters were referring to the difficulties of schools being able to store grit/ rock salt onsite, not its shelf life when stored in suitably equipped depots Madge.

Clearly I misinterpreted ‘grotbhas a finite shelf life’ to mean that its shelf life wasn’t infinite.

whoops

And how many children in your icy homeland regularly turn up with inadequate footwear and no coat in the middle of winter Madge? The children who turn up with no coat and what amounts to giant sponges on their feet would have to come out if I took my class out on the ice, because I don't have a TA to stay in with them.

I don’t think that the UK is incompetent, I just think the way in which it seems to be taken by surprise by snow and ice in the winter every year is kind of funny

and cute, in a way, too

it is also really unfortunate and I would even go so far as to say negligent that people are sending children outside in inadequate clothing.

however, maybe there is a really good reason for this too that I don’t appreciate?

Ah! So you're not taking in any details, you're just amusing yourself... OK

My two youngest children's school opened on Monday, one of only a handful in our county that did. They texted to ask us to send the children in with wellies and a warm coat and then took the whole school onto the field and had a kids vs teachers snowball fight at playtime. The kids had a blast, and the teachers probably had far quieter pupils to work with than had they not let them out.

We're not taken by surprise- it's a case of balancing costs against likely risk. In a country where you know it's going to be snowy and icy for 6 months at a time, local authorities/ schools/ highways agencies can ensure an appropriate budget allocation to allow for the associated costs.

However, in the UK, budgets to schools and local authorities are cut to the bone. There's a chance that it might be icy/ snowy for a couple of weeks- on the other hand, there's a strong chance that we could go a winter without snow in some areas. Schools are having to make tough choices, and one of those is to decide whether it's a sensible use of money to build storage facilities for tons of rock salt and grit which might or might not be needed, or whether to pay for something that will definitely be needed throughout the year and keep the children indoors for a couple of days.

My children have had outdoor p.e twice on a hard icy field this week, regardless to who had jogging bottoms and jumpers. My son would have loved to have spent time inside watching a DVD tbh as he was cold to the bone. DVD for wet play I am not opposed to on the odd occasion, it's when school use it as lesson cover that I do!

and cute, in a way, too

Oh, so you do patronising, as well as sarcasm? Good-oh!

AllPizzas "So who supervises the children who stay inside?"
We are two-form entry with lots of TAs so we can box and cox.

Schools are having to make tough choices, and one of those is to decide whether it's a sensible use of money to build storage facilities for tons of rock salt and grit which might or might not be needed, or whether to pay for something that will definitely be needed throughout the year and keep the children indoors for a couple of days.

Exactly this. I'm lucky to live in a county which produces the salt/grit so we're always well looked after, but even so I can recognise that budgets are difficult to manage.

The idea of having the longest holiday over the worst weather isn't ridiculous until you observe that the snow season could be any single week from early December to late February, or not at all. Britain has weather, where most of the world has a climate.

Our HT begged in the past couple of newsletters for children to be sent into school in appropriate attire, noting that a coat really is essential and children are welcome to wear e.g. boots on the way to school and change on arrival. Apparently people have responded well, so the children have been out for nearly every play, though some areas out of bounds because of ice.

I'm also from a country which is very cold and icey - but it doesn't bother me that my bit of England, which doesn't get lots of snow and ice every year for months on end doesn't plan for it. I bought a sledge 3 years ago and haven't used it yet.

I'm sure the caretaker had enough grit for the paths for a few days of ice but didn't get paid the hours to clear an entire playground for a few days extra than average.

Not sure what posters want- I’m agreeing with you. It is not possible to remove ice, or allow children outside. Agreed.

I appreciate that other schools may have a different set up to the one my children attend. They have a playing field, and it would not require literal tons of grit to clear a path from the school to the field. A fairly minor amount, actually.

If your children attend a school where all playing surfaces are paved, this may not be possible.

Likewise, some schools may have no playing surfaces at all.

Yanbu and not all teachers want to go out. My children were kept in one week because the teacher didn't want to go downstairs! They are on the 2nd floor.

My children were kept in one week because the teacher didn't want to go downstairs!

Yeah right, as if that really happened.

Absolute BS that one teacher didn't want to go out and that kept the class in all week. Schools have rotas for who is on a daily duty, it isn't just their class teacher outside with them every day...

Elf and Safety and No Win, No fee lawyers are why.

We don't want anything from you- just trying to point out (not just to you Madge, also to others on the thread who might think that teachers and heads are just looking for an easy life!) that actually there are reasons why just taking the children out is not as simple as it seems.

I'd have loved to have taken my class out to play on the field. But our school can't afford to buy the grit for the paths that lead onto the field, or the paving around the edge of it, or to pay the caretaker to come in early and stay late to do the extra gritting. We can't afford to buy wellies and suitable outdoor clothing for the children whose families either don't have them or can't afford them. I can't split myself in two to supervise children indoors and outdoors when we can't afford a TA. Our school can't afford to be sued if anyone is injured on the ice.

As with many of the school-related threads, the response to the many of the questions about why schools don't do certain things generally boils down to lack of money, not incompetence or failure to understand simple concepts like winter.

Actually, what we would quite like from you, Madge, is to quit with the sarcasm and thinly-veiled criticism of people whose intentions are good and who act with the well-being of their pupils in mind with every decision that is taken.