To be disappointed that my children’s teachers have not come into school?

[Mixedbags]

My teenagers are at secondary school in crucial years. They have said that the last 2days many teachers have not come in due to snow and the supply teachers have not been very effective. The snow fall here and within a 60mile radius (relatives and friends all over) has been close to non existent. What example does this send to our children? Snowflakes? 🤪

The workers in my local Aldi are very young-I would imagine they still live at home.

Nothing to do with percentages required to run a business. It only takes ONE person to make it in to work through the same weather/travel conditions as someone who hasn’t bothered to understand it was doable.

Enough of you have argued it’s because teachers don’t live close enough to work to be able to walk. Do you not understand that not many people do these days?

If a teacher can’t afford to live in a particular area how do you think shop workers can? oh yeah, they all live with their parents!! Now who’s making assumptions?

YABVU
I travel 40 miles to my School. Most teachers live far away from their Schools to avoid grief from the children they teach in the evening etc. Medical staff do not on the whole need to avoid their patients!
My safety is more important than your child tbh

They probably live in different counties to avoid running into the likes of you Dorset 🙄 you are as narrow minded as OP

STILL not getting it! Glad the teachers our DC’s have had so far have been a little bit brighter.

It doesn’t matter how far away you live, if someone else lives the same distance and can manage to get to work in the same conditions then it shows it was doable.

I gave you several reasons they might, you picked up on one.

It isn't an assumption that many Aldi workers are younger - it's an observation. Older ones may have had a home in the area longer, from a time when property in an area was more affordable, because the schools weren't as desirable then(!)

In a poorer area, teachers might not want to live in an area with high levels of poverty, etc, when they can afford to live in the nice village 20 miles away. Should they not be allowed to work in a failing school in a rough area? Or should they be slumming it, like their students have no choice to?

Mummy. And just FYI, we live in a small village with a primary which both my DC’s attended. We are friends with many of the teachers, including the deputy head as they all live in the village.

No need for subterfuge and hiding out miles away from pupils or their parents, we’re all civilised enough around here to go for a beer together in our village pub and enjoy both school and community events, so no need to avoid anyone.

When it’s snowed here the parents and teachers have ALL turned up at school to clear any snow, just as we do with the paths through the village.

Maybe you’d be better off looking for a similar setup if yours is so difficult.

dorset
You're coming across increasingly smug.

Nobody is saying all teachers live miles away because all parents will hound them. But depending on the school and area people may not want to be close to school, or they just enjoy the space or they can't afford it, or their DP's job means they need to, or they want to be near to family, or they've taken a promotion but don't want to uproot their family.

I see students on nights out and at the gym. It doesn't bother me. They're nice and my school is the sort of school where lots of staff do live close because there's very few issues. There are still others who choose to commute over an hour for their job at my school for reasons that are theirs.

The fact you're now telling people they should be looking elsewhere for job having also gone on about why people might live out of catchment again seems bizarre.

How hard is it to understand that people will make career/living decisions based on a range of factors?

Mask. And I only gave Aldi as one example, I could give you the example of my own organisation instead. In the same town where every single school (several primaries, two secondaries, an academy and a technical college) closed yesterday yet only four people out of 110 did not come in because they had to take the day off due to schools closing.

Or I could give the example of someone who lives in my village and teaches in the next village, her son is at nursery on the same site yet she had a lovely snow day yesterday as she couldn’t get to work. I drove to the garage right next to her school for fuel with no issues whatsoever.

As I’ve said before, teachers are no different to any other profession. There are great ones and there are lazy ones.

Maisy. Not smug at all, just explaining why the teachers at my Dc’s School clearly didn’t feel the need to avoid me as the poster wrongly assumed.

I’ll refer you to my last post...there are great teachers and there are lazy ones. parents don’t have to bow down to them just because of their job if they fall within the latter group.

*STILL not getting it!

It doesn’t matter how far away you live, if someone else lives the same distance and can manage to get to work in the same conditions then it shows it was doable.*

And you're clearly not getting it either, how do you know the Aldi workers live the same distance? I don't think anyone is willing to travel the distance teachers do to work in Aldi 🙄 you also don't know the teachers' situations... as many PP's have said, but you've chosen to ignore

But that's also another MN cliche of people bowing down to teachers.

The bottom line is that people can choose to live and work where they like for a whole pile of reasons without having someone inventing hypothetical stories about hypothetical strangers in different lines of work.

When all is said and done, the OP is annoyed that their child had (shock horror!) a cover lesson and her mate has been gossiping.

Are there some skivers in every line of work? Of course.
Does the OP have any real reason to argue they have insider info about staff at their children's school? Not at all.

And for what it's worth, no school closure I've been affected by has been due to teachers not being bothered to get in. There have been bus issues, heating issues, frozen pipes, site not safe, There's been entire dual carriageway closures preventing staff beyond 15 mins radius from getting in etc. Sometimes the schools have opened only for KS4 and KS4/5 if enough buildings could be approved. Sometimes local staff have been in helping site staff to make the site safe. Sometimes there's been a delayed start so school has started at 11am due to issues with traffic.
The decision to close a school isn't done lightly and it's a decision that a minority of people will sit and bitch about whatever decision is made.

My friend who lives 1/4 of a mile from me is often snowed in and I rarely am.

Her road is narrow, potholed and does not get gritted. Our road is wide, in good condition and does get gritted.

There is a very steep slope into her road. Ours is almost flat.

Her drive and road are shaded. Ours get the sun.

And she even has a 4x4...... bit despite this she gets stuck.

Maisy. Clearly there are lots of reasons a school might close however we’re not talking about those, we’re talking about schools closing due to teachers not getting to work in bad weather.

As I said in a previous post, on both my local county council websites where school closures are listed there are schools on there which state ‘teachers unable to travel’ as the sole reason for closure. If that isn’t the actual reason, or there’s another cause such as lack of heating, I don’t think the schools would be stupid enough to say that do you?

Of course teachers can choose to live wherever they want however they should, like any employee, take into account how that decision might affect their ability to get to work and therofe fulfil their contract of employment....that’s just common sense and something everyone would think about when they either moved or accepted a new job.

Redrawn. And no one’s saying that doesn’t happen or that your friend should travel if it’s not safe.

We’re talking about people who could get to work but choose not to.

Sorry meant *redyawn

Maisy. Clearly there are lots of reasons a school might close however we’re not talking about those, we’re talking about schools closing due to teachers not getting to work in bad weather.

What we’re talking about (ir the subject of this thread) is some kids at a school gossiping that a handful of teachers couldn’t get in due to bad weather. Nobody know she if this is true and the school didn’t actually close!

dorset
As people have said repeatedly, for a school to close due to staff not being able to get in you'd be looking at a significant number of staff not being able to get in and a significant number of staff isn't a few people skiving.

That's my point. Schools don't close because a few members of staff decide they can't be bothered to go in.

Of course teachers can choose to live wherever they want however they should, like any employee, take into account how that decision might affect their ability to get to work and therofe fulfil their contract of employment....that’s just common sense and something everyone would think about when they either moved or accepted a new job.

What you're getting very close to here is suggesting people choosing to live in a location that's right for their personal situation is somehow a contractual issue.
The odd day of potential poor weather a year is not in any way, shape or form a reason to expect people to change where they live or not take jobs (even if thinly veiled as 'of course they can live anywhere but really there's a contract issue here).

Holidayshopping
I agree.
There's some serious chips on shoulders going on here.

The OP is 'my DC had a cover teacher and some gossip says it was due to snow. I'm annoyed'. To which the correct response is 'spend less time gossiping and if a cover lesson is the tipping point for your DC education then there are bigger issues'.

Maisy. Don’t be silly, of course every employee has to consider the feasibility of getting to work as part of their decision on where to live

Clearly a significant number of teachers would need to not to go to work for a school to close. The point is whether every single one of them genuinely couldn’t get in or whether some of them took the easy option and decided a snow day was a better idea (like the teacher who lives in my village).

It only takes a few teachers taking that decision, on top of those who genuinely couldn’t get to work, for a school to close. Perhaps if some of them had made the effort to get in when they could, some of the hundreds of schools that closed might not have done.

Ultimately of course, it’s their right to make that choice. It’s also the right of someone who is personally affected by that decision to be annoyed by it.

The OP’s school clearly said that teachers weren’t at work due to ‘inclement weather’. Not language that would generally be used by pupils making something up and you would assume the school wouldn’t be stupid enough to lie about the real reason if it makes the teachers/ school look worse so the reasonable assumption is that it was true.

With regards to two days of non working affecting results, of course that’s going to be hard to prove either way but schools seem to make a very big deal out of attendance to the point of referring parents for fines for taking their DC out of school so you would expect every day does count otherwise why all the fuss about fining parents?

I give up. You're right Dorset. Your reasonable assumption must be true. Teachers are lazy workshy buggers. That's why they entered the profession in the first place. Shame on the lot of them, particularly the ones at the OP's school, who have set such a bad example to the pupils by staying at home when they could so easily have been at work.

Dorsetdays important exam work could not have been taught to a reduced class.

If several teachers were missing and the classes were merged or lots of students were missing then the lesson would not have been overly valuable anyway.

Your children would have been better focusing on revision at home.

LJ. Nope, not all teachers as I’ve repeatedly said, just some...like in any profession

But don’t let that stop you trying to find ways to be offended

Don’t be silly, of course every employee has to consider the feasibility of getting to work as part of their decision on where to live
I guess some people better stop living near to rivers in case they flood.
Nobody should live anywhere that might get ice on the roads.

People DO consider whether they can get to work when choosing where to live. My point (which is common sense) is that the prospect of a couple of days potential poor weather doesn't have to dictate where someone lives.

With regards to two days of non working affecting results, of course that’s going to be hard to prove either way
There's only no work happening if the STUDENTS choose not to work. Cover work is left and for GCSE groups it is usually exam prep and revision, the sorts of things that will help them achieve
but schools seem to make a very big deal out of attendance to the point of referring parents for fines for taking their DC out of school so you would expect every day does count otherwise why all the fuss about fining parents?
What?? More nonsensical drivel.

The lessons were COVERED. How is that the same as taking random days out of school?

If the OP's child couldn't possibly manage to complete some cover work whilst being supervised then I think there's the bigger issue.

Dear me, students opting not to work one cover lesson gets brought in as proof schools are unreasonable about attendance. What next, silly nonsensical links to international education systems?

I opened my school. Staff went to great lengths to get in. Half the school were then absent!