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Primary education

Join our Primary Education forum to discuss starting school and helping your child get the most out of it.

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Original poster

For anyone who works in a school re snow days.

47 replies

mumto2andnomore · 08/02/2009 13:12

If you work in a school and it was closed this week due to snow did the people who could walk there have to go in ? What if they had young children who were off too ?

I dont feel that what happened at my school was very fair and really interested to see what happened elsewhere. Thanks.

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

MrsWilburton · 08/02/2009 13:13

I think they shut it if the staff cannot get in or there are H and s issues

gagarin · 08/02/2009 13:17

Yes - the adverse weather policy states to walk in if safe to do so or work at home if not. If you can't work at home then it's annual leave or time you should make up in the following weeks if you are part time.

But the dependant's leave policy allows for carer's days too.

So if someone stayed home with their kids but their partner was home too and they could have walked in then they would be told they had in effect taken a day's annual leave.

But if you had no child care it would have been a "carer's day".

Ask to see both policiesif you are unsure.

The one that caught most people out in my organisation was the fact that they could have walked in but stayed off to play with hubbie and kids. That is annual leave I'm afraid!

TheCheeseAlarm · 08/02/2009 13:19

I walked in with my kids on the first day, and we were all turfed out by 10am. The school did not open at all on the second day so I worked (marking and planning) from home.

clam · 08/02/2009 13:23

Well ours was closed, so it's a moot point for me really. Although I asked the Head if I would have been able to bring my DCs in with me if their schools had been shut and ours open, and she said yes of course. But then, they're 10 and 12 and used to attend the school anyway. Bit different if you have toddlers.

MrsWeasley · 08/02/2009 13:23

I work in a school and live very close I could have easily gotten to work but it was closed so I didnt have too.

If you go in then you need to know the security codes and how to reset the alarms, heating etc etc.

I could imagine some senior members of the teaching staff going in IF they lived locally and didnt have young children.

Its wasn't your decision to close your workplace.

A friend of mine is a teacher and her school wasnt closed but the school her children attend was so she stayed home to buid snowmen look after her children.

gagarin · 08/02/2009 13:28

Mrs Weasley - I think the issue is that the OP may well have been told that she's taken a day's annual leave or unpaid leave by not getting in?

Most teachers don't have annual leave do they? But ancillary staff might?

Feenie · 08/02/2009 14:00

Gagarin, I've never heard of a dependant's leave policy. Are you in a state school?
As far as I am aware, the amount of days you are allowed off for poorly/snowbound toddlers correlates exactly to how patient (or not) your headteacher is!

Peachy · 08/02/2009 14:19

Doesn't emergency leave apply to teachers though? That's carers leave and it is employment law.

A childcare emergency will get you reasonable unaid leave; a snowday would be that.

Jampot · 08/02/2009 14:30

i dont work at a school so cant comment on that side of it. However, I really did wonder why our schools were closed last week. It appears that others did too. www.solihull.gov.uk

Surely if you can get to work then you should? There's always something to do at work

Snowandsnow · 08/02/2009 14:37

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

ABetaDad · 08/02/2009 14:39

Frankly, I know for a fact that some of the teachers in my kids school were putting pressure on the head to shut the school at the first sign of snow last week.

As a result, the school was shut for far longer than other schools around it.

Parents were very unimpressed and an apology was issued.

I do think some teachers are taking advantage. Fair enough if some are blocked in with snow but a lot live close and I do not see why my kids should miss a day at school when there are teachers within easy walking distance and the head actually lives on site!

Snowandsnow · 08/02/2009 14:50

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Mumwhensdinnerready · 08/02/2009 15:08

My kids schools were both open, much to their disgust. (Mine too actually as it's two years since the sledges were last used).

To be honest I think a sledging day does no harm to the children. However most adults who take the day off work have to use up annual leave. Teachers don't.
My suggestion is this , if a school is closed for snow they should open on the next scheduled teacher training day for the children and take the training day in the school holidays.

..ducks snowballs from teachers...

Littlefish · 08/02/2009 15:14

I work in a school with 7 teachers. 2 live locally, but the rest of us live between 20 - 30 miles away. On the first closure day the LEA declared a blanket closure of all schools in the county (at 6.45am) ie. just before anyone had left for school. On the second closure day, 4 out of 7 teachers managed to get it, but it wasn't enough to be able to open the school safely. The other three teachers set off, but due to the condition of the roads, were unable to get to school safely.

There is no suggestion that any of us will have to take it as unpaid leave.

Original poster

mumto2andnomore · 08/02/2009 15:27

Thanks.
Im a teacher and my school was closed on Thursday.All of the teachers drive to work so didnt have to go in.We will still be paid.

The majority of the TAs walk to work and were told that if they didnt go in they wouldnt be paid.So they all went in and just tidied up etc. If they had children they had to take them into school too.

As we as teachers get paid a lot more than them, they work so hard and do lots of extra hours without being paid-discos, fetes, staying after school etc I think they should have been allowed to stay at home.

OP posts:

SueW · 08/02/2009 15:31

I work in a school. Ours was open on Thursday if parents really needed to leave their children but we told them as they turned up that they were welcome to take them home. Most did. We had very few staff in, not enough (nursery/primary) for the right ratios if we got too many children in and not enough to teach proper classes (seniors). The school buses probably bring in about 50% of our pupils and they had been cancelled. I think lots of parents who would normally drive their children in heard this and therefore didn't even attempt the journey.

All the support staff were in - groundstaff (who did a fab job of clearing the snow and digging out parents whose cars got stuck), maintenance, secretaries, admin, catering.

I think pretty much all the pupils had been collected by lunch time.

Jampot · 08/02/2009 16:41

mumto2andnomore - thats outrageous.

memoo · 08/02/2009 17:08

I'm a TA and couldn't agree with you more Mumto2

Hulababy · 08/02/2009 17:29

I am now working as a TA and was unable to get in to school on Tuesday. School remained open on skeletal staff and parents were advised to keep children at home if they could.

On Thursday I did get in - albeit a little late and very scarily; there is no way we really should have been out in a car on many of those roads that day; my car was sideways a lot fo the time. I was sent home after about an hour. School remained open with same policy as above.

A a TA I have no idea if I will be paid for Tuesday or part of Thursday. School was open but I wasn't there. Fab eh? Hmmm.

Headteacher also wasn't in on the Thursday. Bet heads get paid regardless though.

nooonit · 08/02/2009 17:35

Have been reading all the snow and school closure threads this last week with interest.

I'm a teacher (school closed on Tues) and my DD1's school was closed Mon, Tues and Thurs.

I think headteachers in authorities where blanket decisions weren't made had to make very difficult decisions last week. Heads who closed schools and then found that the impact of snow was very little were in trouble, as were heads who kept schools open as great amounts of snow continued to fall! Whatever decisions were made, parents complained, as in most areas of education, such as homework, there is no way you can please everyone all the time.

I also don't think you can compare education to general sector jobs - unlike shops, or offices if the weather does turn bad we can't just lock the doors and go home. Health and safety regulations demand certain ratios to keep all our children safe.

And Mumto2 - agree with you 100%-I would be furious if the support staff I work with had been treated like that!

And yes mumwhensdinnerready, please duck a snow ball from me - I don't see why I should work an unpaid day in my holidays because of a decision I have no control over!

Peachy · 08/02/2009 18:00

I agree Noo. but I have to confess to being a little when one of our schools opened and the other didn't- given they are run by different heads but next door and share a campus / caretaker etc.

The Juniors who went in (optional day- we made our two go in as we had to go shopping and live close enough we can collect very quickly) were rewarded by the Head with a choc ice, I think ds1 said it was 45 / 250.

gagarin · 08/02/2009 18:39

but noonit - lots of other folk who couldn't get to work because of the snow had to take a day's annual leave. They had no control over the snow either! And you got an extra day off in term time for free.

clam · 08/02/2009 19:43

How many more times, dinnerready. INSET DAYS ALREADY COME OUT OF TEACHERS' HOLIDAYS!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'd love to hear the complaints from parents who've pre-booked holidays to run into INSET days when they realise it's become a school day and their child will be slapped with an 'unauthorised absence' notice!

memoo · 08/02/2009 20:00

Imagine having to take a days leave to look after your own!!! what is the world coming too dinnerready.

We teaching staff should of course risk our lifes driving through really dangerous weather so that you don't have to care for your own child!

And as a TA who also had to look after my own children, I didn't have the luxury of having paid leave. I just don't get paid

nooonit · 08/02/2009 20:47

Fair enough - how about us teachers give up a week of our summer holidays and go into school unpaid to prepare for the new year? Oh hang on - we do that already!

The snow was so bad here on Tues when my school was closed that many other businesses didn't open either but you don't hear of factories where employees were sent home being slated for lack of productivity.

I'll probably be slated for this, but the parents at school who were put out that we were closed on Tues were mainly the same ones who whisk off on holidays in term time!

Funny how education suddenly matters when school being closed makes hard work for them!

We were lucky - DH is a stay at home Dad so DD1 being off didn't make any difference to us child care wise. But if I'd had to ask my Head for a day off to look after DD1 when school was open there's no way I'd have expected him to pay me.

We were also lucky that in battling to and from school the rest of the week - including an hour to do a 10 min journey on Mon night and very nearly having to walk the 5 miles home on Thurs night that we were all safe and well.

The way it's putting it down at the moment let's hope we are all safe tomorrow as well.

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