To think the school should grit

[SnowyOwl97]

Aibu to think a primary school should grit the school grounds and paths?

The schools in my area grit.

Surely the council won’t want parents gritting when they could slip and injure themselves?

They do it in my kids school and the one I work in. Not the paths leading to the school.thiugh, just the school.grounds.

Well said.
There have been a few very odd replies on here, implying folk are being defensive when really they're explaining the reality of the situation.
I hope some folk do appreciate you. 💐

We pay an amount per family each year for bits and bobs outside of the school budget (optional, but encouraged) - one of those things is a part-time caretaker who does all the little bits of maintenance, and that includes gritting the paths in the cold. Worth every penny.

I think there's 2 questions here:

Should schools be given adequate funding so they can have equipment and staff to grit if needed

&

Should schools as they are grit?

Answer to the top one is yes, answer to the bottom one is depends if they can afford the staff to do so, which isn't always the case.

I wouldn't mind helping to grit DS' school but the council removed the grit bins ages ago, where do people get grit?

This is why nothing ever improves in the UK, because people are too happy to get a little rush from a catty pile-on than actually thinking, hang on, we could band together and demand change in the face of this unreasonable situation.

Lovely excuse for your school. Ours manages it perfectly fine.

Last night I looked up how much grit costs as contemplating doing my path and daughters driveway (very large and steep) I then decided well maybe not, £10-20+ for a small sack. Would need about 10. Local councils have grit bins but are only to be used for public places. So even if parents did decide to help the cost would have to be found.

There are big commercial suppliers schools use which have everything from big boxes of pencils, to playground equipment to grit in thier range. 1/2 a pallet is around £300. (which is more than the art budget for the year for instance)
Our caretaker actually would grit a safe path and he lives on site, but this is increasingly rare.

Yeah it's the thing isn't it, fine for people to say to muck in and help but it's not that easy!

Yes a relative of mine did this job. But it wasn't 24/7. They got the same about of time of as janitors not on site 😏🙄

Are you saying they are liable if they do NOT grit the surrounding pavements ? That isn't their property so how can they be liable?

Many schools will clear/grit a path from the school gate to all entrances so you can walk safely on their grounds.

I think I misunderstood the post, I initially read that as the area surrounding the buildings.

By law they must grit the paths within the property, around and between buildings. That's OLA 1957.

It is an extremely low risk of liability to grit the paths outside the property. It would definitely be reasonable for them to grit the footpaths outside the school gates where pedestrian traffic will compact snow to dangerous ice at pinch-points and bottlenecks. And where parents are expected to wait, or rather forced to wait because most schools won't allow them onto the premises. The existence of the school creates the risk at these points. Providing a grit bin and a shovel by the school gate, and stocking it with salt, will probably see one or more parents making use of this.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the last few years you must know school budgets are horrendous and schools have had to make so many cuts to staff/resources. Smaller schools will inevitably be sharing a caretaker with many other schools. So the caretaker who lives near the school may not just look after that school, and even if that school is their sole responsibility their hours may be reduced to the minimum and the school might not be able to afford the grit. Other schools may still have some reserves to be able to afford such resources but I wouldn’t bank on that lasting.

It was still better for them as it is usually a split shift job, with a few hours in the morning and a few in the afternoon.
The school my husband is at has an onsite caretaker poor bloke is 66 and stressed about retiring as he will lose the home he’s lived in for nearly 30 years - yes he should have saved but at the time he took the job he was told he would be entitled to a council house when he retired and he had no reason not to believe them.

When my DC were at Primary The PTA organised a group of parents to do it.

Our school caretaker who had a second role as the caretaker of the local secondary, was Polish and left due to Brexit, returning to Poland.

We have advertised and readvertised since. Can't appoint.

Our janitor does it but just the most icy areas and the main path round the school. He presumably cant do the whole playground as that would take a lot of grit and budget etc.

I was a headteacher until recently. We struggled to find a caretaker for a long time whilst I was there, and when we did find one a split shift wasn't practical due to the short hours we could fund. I was often in even earlier than usual on icy mornings gritting, as I couldn't expect teaching staff to do it.

We don't currently have a caretaker-we couldn't recruit for the hours we could afford so have a basic contract with a cleaning firm who are paid extra to lock/unlock. Thats not being 'defensive', just explaining.

Why don't you ask the head about gritting? They might give you a perfectly reasonable explanation!