Can I get into trouble if I keep ds at home in the snow?

[FlightAttendant]

As some of you will know from my thread the other day, our school has a policy of never closing.

Yesterday I kept ds at home as I was ill so couldn't walk, and the car wasn't safe to use.

We are further from school than many of the other kids.

Got a parentmail message last night stating, helpfully, the fact that the HT does not consider that she will have to close the school despite worse weather being forecast all weekend.

There was zero other information and no advice as to what to do if you can't make it.

We had attendance issues last year (ds was genuinely ill a lot, but this year has had one day off prior to yesterday so much better)

She hates me
She thinks I am an unscrupulous parent who is too soft

all this considered, are we going to be in trouble if we can't make it to school? We are up a steep hill about a mile and a half away from school, and definitely not risking car on monday unless substantial thawing has occurred which it isn't going to. It's still snowing and very deep already.

Can't find any guidelines for parents on the LA website...I just don't want to fall foul of her all over again.

Btw I believe there was ONE other primary school open in this city yesterday, apart from ours.

Any thoughts gratefully accepted, thankyou

Plus I have ds2 who needs the buggy and so if we DO walk, it's going to be really difficult and possibly just too hard to get there. Obv i will try my best.

This is quite amusing, they have now updated their website for possibly the first time in several years, with the message that they are going to be open yesterday It wasn;t there yesterday evening let alone in time to help anyone...

I dont think any absences will be deemed unauthorised because of the snow, but I would phone to explain why you cant make the journey on Monday to make sure. We have awful snow here at the moment ( and forecast to get worse) but next week looks clear, so hopefully it will soon be a distant memory!!

If you can't get there because you physically can't get there then surely they can't do anything

but today is sat, by Monday the roads might be fine

Thankyou,

I hope you're right. the roads are dangerous even main ones, today, but our drive is very steep and have dug car out twice and don't think I can do it again!!

Will ring them again of course...I'm not even sure they accepted my excuse yesterday, they are very funny about taking any time off.

Unless of course you want to take the kids on a 10 day skiing holiday in which case they will actually fight your corner with the LEA

I had a letter home from my primary school head teacher - it ran to a page and three quarters of A4!

Head actually stated that at any time we could keep our dc off school if we felt at all that the trip to school was dangerous, but off course those same dc were not to be out sledging if this was the case.

Head also put in letter that uniform was unimportant and the dc being warm and dry was far more sensible - but no jeans as they are not cold weather clothing.

Hope this helps,

thanks Ivykaty, your head sounds nice

I think ours is terrified of giving even the slightest indication that taking a day off in exceptional circumstances is OK.

I would question the sledging bit - surely if they are sledging in the field next door, yet school is a long way down a busy road and it isn't safe to drive...that would be Ok?

I think as parents it's important we take sensible decisions on behalf of our children but the trouble is with our school, they don't accept that parents can know best. Ever

We have authorised any absences due to worries over coming in because of the snow ( we had to close yesterday but have been open the rest of the week). We too are hoping to be open on Monday (although it is still snowing so we can't guarantee it!) but if any parent thinks it too dangerous to attempt to come in then that is their decision and we wouldn't disagree.