To think this isn’t fair? School and snow

[Tania90]

My DD primary school stayed open today. I think one of the very few that did in the area. However, found out that staff and students were expected and try and get in but the headacher stayed home

Nothing to do with u

When my kids were at high school the vast majority lived within 3 miles if the school so that is walking distance for a teenager. Friends of my two would call at ours and they would walk in and back together.

Many of the teachers, including the head teacher lived om the other side of the Pennines to us where the snow would typically be heavier. On an average day it took some teachers an hour and 20 mons to get in. Obviously with snow and coming over Pennine roads it would take much longer and be unsafe.

Schools did used to open in years hone by.
I think they are scared to now because of the suing culture.

Also schools were smaller and teacher tended to live locally.
I knew where our science, English, physics and maths teachers lived as they all lived within 2 miles of each other. and our head lived in the next town

Maybe the HT own children's school closed and they had to stay home
Maybe the roads are more dangerous where they live.
Their role doesn't have to involve any face to face or affect supervision for one day, they ll have plenty that can be done on a laptop and phone

Absolutely agree that schools can't win - people will complain about anything!

Students and teachers were told to try to get in. I assume that if it was genuinely too risky, people called in. Maybe this was the case for the HT? I grew up in rural area and it was quite common in snow that some villages were cut off and some were ok. If enough staff could get in, the school opened.

I grew up in Scotland and never had a single snow day. I travelled 6 miles in the deep dark winter.

A teacher friend (in England) told me that, back in the day, if there was snow, you were supposed to report to your nearest school to cover for teachers who couldn't make it because of distance. Obviously that couldn't happen now with safeguarding and general deterioration of pupil behaviour.

Makes sense for non-frontline staff to work from home if they can, especially if they don't live locally. The head would almost certainly be working from home & contactable rather than simply having a day off.
It's important for schools to stay open wherever possible as we learned from COVID lockdowns.

It used to be that teachers could rock up at a local school if they were unable to get to the one they worked at, that’s not allowed any more!

sorry, just seen CraftyGin has posted the same!

I lived in a Welsh village as a child and we often had time off in January because of snow. No idea if school was open, but not being able to get there was always a thing.

Maybe the head teacher worked from home so that he/she didn't need to meet up with entitled parents like yourself. Possibly the head could have been ill themselves and would be able to be in touch with staff if needs be. Cut them some slack here .It was a tricky day for a lot of people you are not showing much understanding OP.