School closure due to rail strikes

[jane135]

We've just had an email from the Headmaster of our children's central London school saying that they are closing and moving to online learning for four days (Tuesday 21st- Friday 24th June) due to the rail strikes.

It is a specialist school, and online learning does not deliver the same results as face-to-face.

Are other London schools doing the same? Has anyone else had this?

I can understand why they are doing it as there are also due to be tube strikes on some of the days. The first strike is the day after my daughter's showcase and it is causing havoc for people travelling back. The recent tube strikes dd was able to cycle in but they had various students and tutors who just could not make it. You couldn't get on a bus, they were rammed and just drove past.

So it's not ideal, but understandable.

Our school is central London and no plans to close as far as I’m aware.

I think it's really understandable. Probably 99% of their staff commute by train or tube and they probably won't know until last minute if they will be able to make it.

It's not ideal but I don't think anyone should be angry with the school, they're just being pragmatic.

I imagine a specialist school has pupils travelling further than usual.

Are there any children taking GCSEs or A Levels? What’s happening for them?

I guess it depends how wide an area kids come in from, and staff may be travelling from a distance.

There will be relatively few to be sat by then.

My DC have between them 2 A Levels and 2 GCSEs to take in that time period (with one of them being Physics GCSE which will involve a lot of year 11s)

There are still some important GCSE's on those dates such as History & Physics

Doesn't matter how few, they're still just as important as all the rest.

National contingency day is 29 June, so these strikes are adding to the stress for candidates and their families.

I haven't heard of planned closures at our school, or anything on the gripevine about others nearby doing so.

Keep in mind that a school has a catchment area (although that would be much larger with a specialist school) but staff usually don’t live in the same place as they teach. They probably don’t have enough staff who are able to manage a commute with the strikes to run the school effectively face to face making remote learning a better option.

It's understandable if the teachers can't get in.

If no teachers can’t get in then there’s no much they can do.

The school is opening for the children who are sitting exams.

Most of the children come to school on minibuses, so they would be able to get to school as usual.

A lot of the parents think that the school could, for example, pay for the teachers to come in by taxi. Other parents who drive are happy to offer the teachers a lift. It feels like it is just the default option to revert to online-learning since Covid.

It is also the fact that the school is shutting on the Wednesday and the Friday, when the train strikes are finishing at 8am on both of those days, instead of having later start and maybe doing 10:30-4pm

Let's just hope that, in the event, the strike doesn't go ahead.

I am interested in what other schools are doing, though, as presumably it isn't only this school that is based in Central London but has staff that have to come in from much further afield?

No we’ve had an email confirming school is open and to try and get in

Taxis are not going to be available, and staff are not going to want to be collected by parents. That would be an invasion of privacy. Anyway. What makes those parents think they are going to be able to drive around?

far better a planned closure than unpredictable chaos on the day

it’s going to be inevitable in many schools

We are planning on closing one year group, but it might be two

Who will look after/supervise the children until 10:30am?

I think this is daft. The tube is only striking on 21st so the others days it's closed because of national rail strikes which will affect mainly teachers living outside of central london, but not all. There will still be some trains and plenty of teachers are on tube lines.

Lots of teachers in my school uses buses, not trains, but it’s pretty much impossible to get on a bus in London during a train or tube strike, unless you are at the first stop

Roads may well also be gridlocked

Taxis are going to be i
possible to book during a strike.

different country, but our schools had to close several times this year because of bus driver shortages. We have a legal mandate for schools to provide student transport. Since too many drivers were out and there weren’t enough subs, they had to close all the schools in the area. It becomes an issue of equitable access. Kids who have parents that can drive them to school or who are lucky enough to live close enough to walk can’t be prioritized in education.

I doubt they will have made this decision lightly or as an easy option.

While some parents will be dismayed at a return to online learning, others would find it very difficult to make arrangements for their child if the school waited until the 11th hour to close.

Every school is different with regards to where staff live and their ability to get into school when transportation/roads are disrupted. Therefore even schools very close together can have very different outcomes in such situations.

I'm not sure if you mean specialist school as in they focus on particular subjects or a school for children with special needs but if it's the latter, they'd also have to take into account the impact to the children within school from the disruption to staff (eg who the children expect to see), routines and safe staffing levels. Also the ability of children to get home, as well as staff, later in the day.

They've probably decided to focus their efforts on those taking exams that week.

Each school has a unique array of location of pupils, staff and the school itself. They won't be closing lightly. It sounds like they've chosen the least disruptive option. At least the children will be learning and staff teaching instead of all being stuck in traffic.