[Closed] School closures why....

My sons school is closed due to the heating breaking down, so they had they had no choice, as its a special needs school it was a tough call but because they have some major work going to replace pipes what else can they do, some parents don't seem to get this and coplain to the press and local authority FFS, these things happen get over it I say.

Most kids, even nowadays, live reasonably close to school. Most teachers do not.

Just because this statement is true doesnt mean the kids will make it in.
I talking about my primary school in Lichfield in Staffordshire 99% of the kids lived within 1 mile of the school, but they still didnt come in.

Maybe less mothers worked and just fancied letting their kids have the day off. Maybe they couldnt be bother getting through the snow I dont know.

question is bruneep have you managed to get in for your sceond job as life too cushy for a firefighter with just one?

how can I when I'm stuck at home 😉

Just a quick question, I could almost defiantly make more money as a teacher in my current financial position, but there is a little devil sitting on my shoulder saying if I took that root I have failed in my profession (industrial design) and I don't want to look back when I'm old and feel unfulfilled.

Do many of you teachers have that feeling, as a few of my teaching friends appear to have gone into teaching as a "easy" choice?

That will leave a lot of cats stuck up trees.

ever seen a cat skeleton up a tree........

I thought that was because if the fire service was unavailable for such calls they brought the army in.

Erm, I remember in the bad winters in the early eighties, we had normal lessons cancelled and gert big lessons in the school hall, videos (really exciting then, hardly anyone had a video recorder) etc.

Seemed to work OK without closing the school down completley

The only time I ever had a forced day off school was teacher strikes
They never closed them for snow

To be fair, it's probably different snow these days

Erm, I remember in the bad winters in the early eighties, we had normal lessons cancelled and gert big lessons in the school hall, videos (really exciting then, hardly anyone had a video recorder) etc.

Perhaps the rules on staffing ratios have changed in the last thirty years?

snow = day off from capitalism. Enjoy it for ****'s sake!

It was -10 last night, -4 currently, nearly a foot of snow on the ground, teachers travel upto 30 miles here - and the school is open...
I have a nearly 8 mile trip up a icy (upto a foot thick of ice in places) road that has not been gritted tomorrow to get to work and 1000 feet up the hill. I expect to be walking/ski-ing/borrow the quad bike but I will be at work.
.
I think as a country we have all got into travelling long journeys to work, more of us travelling and the driving (skills and sense) and preparation is not there. It has really impressed me up here how life just carries on. Yes people are finding it tough, yes some people are not in work on time etc, but most are. People are 'hitching' a ride on the school land-rover or the farmers shuttling people around in landy's or tractors on the south lochside etc, but life goes on.

Erm, I remember in the bad winters in the early eighties, we had normal lessons cancelled and gert big lessons in the school hall, videos (really exciting then, hardly anyone had a video recorder) etc.

Seemed to work OK without closing the school down completley

Yeah that what I meant about doing drawing, it was dead exciting for us kids as we knew we werent doing real work. I imagine it was the same for you. But what videos were you watching ? We're you actually learning anything. I would imagine the educational content was minimal* and they might as well sent you home. Basically the school was acting like a big cresh, frankly if I was a teacher I would nt really see the point.

*although I do agree doing things out of the ordinary does have educational content what ever it is for kids, hence why you should be sent home to play in the snow even more !

ah, rules is rules eh Miketually?

believe it or not, rules can be bent [i]in extremis[/i] to make things work 🙄

Sku98 - while the educational value might be less, I think in hindsight its fair to say that the teachers and the system recognised that the kids needed to be looked after by someone, and it was their duty to look after the kids at school, rather than leaving parents up and down the country to take on the impact of last minute child care arrangements, resulting in staff not going to work, nurses phoning in unable to get to work because they had to look after their kids and the whole country grinding to a halt - the knock on effect of closing the schools is far wider than children not being able to follow the national curriculum for the day.

no school
no work
YEEEAAAAHHHHH!!!!!

Snow ball fight !!!!!!
😆

Exactly Stan!!!!!

Its Amazing how self employed people have the ability to carry out there work despite the Snow... 😉 How is that i wonder..lets think... 💡

Oh and My milk man must have a 4 b 4 milk float and snow chains on as he has never missed a bottle...he is self employed however....

Ah thats it ive got it "NO MONEY"

We all travel/commute far more than we did 20/30/40 years ago, unfortunately while the government/public likes our 'flexible' attitude, it forgets this when inconvienient truths come through - eg co2 use, travel distances etc.

I guess teachers are no different to the rest of us, there is no job-for-life and they commute further than they should because they can't take the risk of moving nearer work as it can easily 'disappear'.

And from a management point of view, you have to take the whole picture at the time - if you are below the legal/relevent levels than you have to reduce the service - irrelevent what may happen later.

This is the perfect opportunity for kids to learn some proper life skills.

All the parents who are off work should take their kids to the school and then act as teachers. They can teach them how to fight, rip off the dole, get into a car that's not theirs, identify a drug dealer down the pub, know when they've had enough (sorry this is the UK isn't it, never), how to spot a dodgy note and how to download and burn ripped videos.

Way better than them learning about media studies.

Someone mentioned above that many teachers live far away from their schools as a deliberate policy! I was a teacher and my first job was very close to where I lived. Walking distance. I had kids from my school living all around my house and it was pretty awful at times. Once the kids know where you live you have to deal with the agro that goes with it. I had a young family. It was crap for us all. After that first year I left that school and got a job 8 miles away. Our lives improved dramatically.

They have just closed my sons school in Redditch, will be closed tomorrow as well, no buses running due to having about 2" of snow in an hour, how the **** are we supposed to just drop everything and collect the kids asap from the school office. The snow has stopped there now as well 🙄

Why are schools closed when there's the first sign of snow? That's easy!

Headteachers, just like any other person, switch on their TVs in the morning only to be bombarded with frothy emotive comments from ligthweight overpaid journalists, who'll bang on all day about a problem that actually doesn't exist. Journalists whip everyone up into an uneccessary panic. Shame on them!

The headteacher, scared by the notion that members of staff may not be able to get to work without risk of death, injury, or hypothermia, playing by the litigation fearing (welcoming) local authority policy, he/she has to play uber safe. The school is closed and millions of pounds is wasted on people not getting to work because they have to look after their kids.

Solution: Sweep away the pathetic news reporting one finds on channels like News 24 and then sit down with the council bosses and suggest a different approach to litigation - as in the private sector, fight a case, don't roll over.

Local authorities are happy to payout council tax payer's money because there's plenty more where that came from!! If councils had to generate business and didn't have money coming to them come what may, they'd understand it's value and would therefore do everything they can to hang on to the stuff.

Mark - Resident Grumpy

Someone mentioned above that many teachers live far away from their schools as a deliberate policy! I was a teacher and my first job was very close to where I lived. Walking distance. I had kids from my school living all around my house and it was pretty awful at times. Once the kids know where you live you have to deal with the agro that goes with it. I had a young family. It was crap for us all. After that first year I left that school and got a job 8 miles away. Our lives improved dramatically.

Just wait until the STW'ers find out where you live.............

Don't blame teachers or the head, blame councils!!

[i]Its Amazing how self employed people have the ability to carry out there work despite the Snow... [/i]

The ones here didn't, they all came back after five minutes carrying their tools having abandoned their van.

[i]Don't blame teachers or the head, blame councils!! [/i]

Blame Council's insurance companies, bloody private sector.

Schools are closed by the local authority - NOT by teachers!!

Parents don't like it when the cheap child minding service is withdrawn. I think schools are closed when safety of the pupils may be compromised and NOT because teachers can't get to work.

[i]"They have just closed my sons school in Redditch, will be closed tomorrow as well, no buses running due to having about 2" of snow in an hour, how the **** are we supposed to just drop everything and collect the kids asap from the school office."[/i] - exactly one of the reasons to close the school!!!

Really just comes down to baby sitting hassle though doesn't it?? Not a lot of mention of missed education so far!

Schools are closed by the local authority - NOT by teachers!

So eldest son academy school is open, but youngest primary school is closed? They are less 1 mile apart. Same local authority.

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bruneep - Member

why are you bothered bruneep

Why? Because when I wanted to take my kids off school for a couple of days, we were threatened with legal action as it was unauthorised absence. The Truant officer or whatever PC title they have now would be coming round to visit us to tell us the error of our ways.

Yet they can close the school at the drop of a snow flake and stick DVD's on for the kids to watch the last week of term.
Posted 1 hour ago # Report-Post

That would only happen if your kids had triggered a level where they have x unauthorised absences and you had used up "holidays". Are your kids sickly or are you shit at writing absence notes?

bruneep - Member

Schools are closed by the local authority - NOT by teachers!

So eldest son academy school is open, but youngest primary school is closed? They are less 1 mile apart. Same local authority.

No bin man for 3 weeks, no postman for a week, no milk man for a week - all because of snow. Slag them off instead!!

Are academies not controlled by the business that has invested in it rather than the authority?

Scottish academies are local authority run = Secondary school

Schools are closed by the local authority - NOT by teachers!!

Sorry, that's incorrect, it's the head teacher's decision.

[i]Are academies not controlled by the business that has invested in it rather than the authority?[/i]

Which is quite often a church and since snow can be considered an act of god, it's their fault!

Headteachers can only close a school with the approval of the local authority. Here in the Borders all schools were closed to pupils today by the local authority while staff were expected to attend.

ah, rules is rules eh Miketually?

believe it or not, rules can be bent in extremis to make things work

Chile protection/safety rules?

Schools are closed by the local authority - NOT by teachers!!

[b][i]My wife had to make the decision this morning it really is quite complex:

You have to decide by 6.30am as you have to let the school buss companies know whether to do the pick ups or not.

You have to have an eye on the Weather forecast - not just if the pupils can get in safely in the morning but the likelyhood of getting them home safely in the evening.

You have to guess how many teachers and support staff will make it (more than you think - they are not all slackers) into work and how many children. Then you work out if this is a safe ratio of pupils to teachers.

Then you make a judgement call on how likely it is that the pupils at home will be home alone and potentially unsafe.

Then you check if the heating is working.

Then you make the decision.

My wife is not the head of the school but she makes the decision jointly with the facilities manager (caretaker) as she is normally the first person to arrive on the premises each day.

My Wife is the ---------

Catering Manager!! (Not - I repeat NOT a Dinner Lady). [/i][/b]

Headteachers can only close a school with the approval of the local authority.

Simply not true! (I should know, my wife is a headteacher)

Tails said

Just a quick question, I could almost defiantly make more money as a teacher in my current financial position, but there is a little devil sitting on my shoulder saying if I took that root I have failed in my profession (industrial design) and I don't want to look back when I'm old and feel unfulfilled.

Do many of you teachers have that feeling, as a few of my teaching friends appear to have gone into teaching as a "easy" choice?

It's not that easy. For example, if you want to teach English you need to know when to use the word "route" rather than "root"

And I expect if you'd not made a typo on "definatly", you'd have got that wrong too - it's "definitely"

BTW - that wasn't gratuitous - my wife's a teacher and as usual she set out at 7.15 today for her "easy" job. She'll probably be home as usual at around 6 p.m. and have tea before doing an hour or two of marking/planning.

Do many of you teachers have that feeling, as a few of my teaching friends appear to have gone into teaching as a "easy" choice?

I know what you mean I spent years wanting and training to do science research, when i finally got my dream job i hated and 4 years later trained as a teacher sometimes i feel i somehow took an easy choice but never when actually in the classroom. its also a much harder job both mentally and in terms of hours worked.

They certainly err way too far on the side of caution round here - nothing to do with the caretaker not wanting to clean up after 150 pairs of wet wellington boots have stomped through the doors of course - and it is the caretaker who calls it in at our local school as he lives on site.

As for teaching profession - from what I've seen, way harder than most people imagine.

rightplacerighttime, you certainly don't want to look at me for a shining example of English, especially on this forum. I am aware of a teachers day, my father was a head teacher and he often even worked marking papers on sunday. I do think for many it is chosen as a easy choice as my knowledge of design is far greater than that which is taught at A level, which is a shame as a lot of the information could easily be conveyed at that level.

Thats a fair point aa, I won't pretend to feel inspired, fulfilled and mentally challenged every day, but is it not frustrating/easy teaching the same topics every year.

ah, rules is rules eh Miketually?

believe it or not, rules can be bent in extremis to make things work

Anyway, another problem for schools might be what to do with the kids if their parents can't come and get them in the evening. All sorts of reasons for closing besides "there's a bit of snow on the ground".

Does annoy me that I know a few people who work within a few miles of where they live, and they really do seem to think that if they can't drive then they can't get into work. Bit sad really.

Just pi$$es me off hearing people running teachers down, even if subconsciously.

if I took that root [teaching] I have failed in my profession (industrial design) and I don't want to look back when I'm old and feel unfulfilled.

My wife also started out in another job, but then went back to college and did a further degree in teaching. She then worked for 9 years in a pretty rough area of London (Camberwell) before moving out into the countryside to live with me. Even so she's put in another 7 years at other schools. This year her school (and more specifically her class) had the 4th highest SATs scores and the highest value added score in Dorset. She has made quite a difference to countless kids lives.

In her spare time she's had 2 kids.

Why would she feel unfulfilled?

It's not about the job you do. It's about what difference you make in the job you do.

my knowledge of design is far greater than that which is taught at A level, which is a shame as a lot of the information could easily be conveyed at that level

Conveyed and assessed? In 360 hours? (And not many places get the 360 hours per A level - we get 270 hours per A level.)