FFS!

I'd be sent a letter if I took my kids out of school, yet they can close it a drop of a snow flake.

We have had snow since about the 17th Dec, kids off for 2 weeks holiday + another today. The staff can't get to work.

🙄

The staff can't get to work.

clue in that last statement?

apparently there is more to consider than you think, the short answer is most teachers are lazy overpaid sods. 😆

What would you do if your littleun was hurt at school/on the way home or worse due to adverse weather?

I live 1/2 an hour from work but about 600ft higher – hence we have loads of snow and work has little, think about the distance and direction that the staff come in from. Some of ours travel in from 40-50 miles away

The rest of the local authority workers manage to get in & open their buildings – it's just teachers that have inane fear of it 😉

The school I work in is Oldham, I've been told there has been 9 inches of snow overnight. I can't speak for other schools, but how can you have a school full of children if the staff may not be able to get there?

Our school is shut due to a lack of man power to make the site safe for 1200 people between snowfall and -5 ground frosts. Possibly catering supplies are held up depending on where they travel from, when 70% of people on site use the canteen you can't send children to school and possibly not have enough food to feed them?

Schools are very rarely on main roads, so access roads generally are not safe enough for the volumes of traffic to safely enter and exit without the risk of accident and half asleep kids walking out into the roads.

If anything happened to your childrens safety, or they went a day unfed I'm sure you would not be happy about that either.

To reassure you, I am actually working from home planning lessons!

I did this one a few weeks back.
The problem seems to be teachers living too far away from work. I now assume this is the reason for problems on the roads throughout winter, people depending on a commute.

Staff wont make the effort IMHO.

"sorry there will be no fire service today as bruneep cant get to work"

Hmmm I can't see me getting away with that

I'd walk to work if I have to.

sour grapes!

school is not a life and death place, fighting fire is

I think they have this recurring nightmare about being stuck in the school with the kids 😀

school is not a life and death place, fighting fire is

The local leisure centre & library always manges to get in & open

I find giving the excuse that you live too far from work very annoying. That just makes you unreliable.

A serious case of sour grapes from people who don't have a clue!

Local authorities will cancel non-essential jobs to make best use of the reduced numbers of staff they have who are able to come in. In dire circumstances (84/85 winter) police etc used 4wd's to get essential staff to work down here.

Unfortunately high class sizes and the physical size of classrooms means that after a certain number of staff drop out of skool due to bad weather there is just no way of safely looking after your loved ones, let alone teaching them anything!

The local leisure centre & library always manges to get in & open

again, completely different situations from schools, why are people on here so simple-minded?

again, completely different situations from schools

go on then – why is it harder for school staff to get in?

The local leisure centre & library always manges to get in & open

…and most of the staff there probably live quite close by. No way I would put up with minimum wage 30 miles away from home for very long! You may find that the dinner ladies live within walking distance of your kids' school, the caretaker and classroom assistants nearby too. The headteacher may live miles and miles away as those sort of jobs do not just pop up on your dorrstep. Usually the case that the more specialised the job/profession, the further away the staff might live.

There was a headmaster on the local news last night who was asked why they'd closed the school

He gave a wry smile & said he'd rather not comment

Then the situation is simply not acceptable. The day closures could ammount to weeks over winter.
And yes you are going to get Daily Maul type grief from the punters when they get the Spanish Inquisition for taking a child out of school for one day, when the real threat to our childrens education is snow.
Surely it has to be addressed.

"sorry there will be no fire service today as bruneep cant get to work"

That will leave a lot of cats stuck up trees.

go on then – why is it harder for school staff to get in?

School, you have 1000 kids turn up, normally there is 100 staff to look after them, however, of the 100, if there is a risk that a significant number won't make it in then the school can't operate, it's better, when you are talking about the safety of young people to not take that risk.

Library, so what if only 2 out of 5 staff turn up, they can open if they want to.

Leisure Centre, maybe the swimming pool will be closed but the table tennis open if only a proportion of the staff turn up, or maybe they will close at lunchtime, at least they don't have a 1000 kids to get home in the middle of the day when the weather has got worse.

You need X staff to open a school. If only 90% of X staff turn up, you can't open. If X staff turn up, but not until later in the morning, you can't open. The decison has to be made before 6:30am, so parents can make alternative arrangements.

We're open.

I guess the ride in was better Mike?

I thought you must be closed as mine is still in bed & hasn't stirred yet, I'll start making a noise – see if that annoys her

That will leave a lot of cats stuck up trees.

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

I think the key point most people dont get is that someone has to decide if he/he thinks enough people will get in, if the school is open and not enough people get in they will be in trouble. If little jimmy slips over and breaks a leg when he gets to school and the school doesnt have enough staff (even if the accident was entirely little jimmy's fault and couldnt have been prevented) that person will be in serious trouble. If the kids have to be sent home and one gets run over or goes missing (to build a snowman), things get much worse for the person. If some kids and staff cannot get home and have to stay in the school the staff will kill that person.

I guess the ride in was better Mike?

Loads better. A full day of proper traffic cleared some of the ice yesterday and the off road bits had a nice layer of snow on top so much faster than yesterday.

I thought you must be closed as mine is still in bed & hasn't stirred yet, I'll start making a noise – see if that annoys her

tell her to get her arse in 😉

If schools are closed there is less people traveling, so less congestion on roads. Going to work during school holidays is much easier than going when they are not.

tell her to get her arse in

she's moving now – so I guess she has a lesson 🙂

Parents need to realise schools are not there to look after your kids for you for the day while you go off to work. Schools are there to provide a safe environment for kids to learn. Therefore if its not safe they close. Parents only moan as this then disrupts their lives and they have to take a day off work to look after their own kids.

I thought the main reason was if almost all / the majority of the kids didnt get in it was pointless ?

I remember turning up to school in the 80's and all the teachers had got in but half the pupils hadnt.

We sat around drawing pictures for a bit and were sent home around 10am – 10:30am as it pointless us being there.

The teachers could nt teach any lessons as they'd have to repeat it the next day for the rest of kids.

I thought the main reason was if almost all / the majority of the kids didnt get in it was pointless ?

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

All most all the kids are within walking distance, its the teachers in their huge rural houses that won't make the effort.

Ok, so can someone explain why my sons school (private) was the only school in the area to open on the last day of term last year, when all the state schools were shut?
Same roads etc.

Well we closed ours this morning, not enough staff able to make it in to give us the normal safe staff to pupil ratios. We buy in the gritting of playground service from LA highways dept and they have run out, and don't anticipate getting us any this week. The town was gridlocked all morning but is looking to clear now. Staff who do come in from out of town run the risk of crashing on the way, and maybe getting stuck here tonight. Oh and playing in the snow is fun.

Because the parents are paying and would therefore feel that they had a right to complain? Got to keep your customer happy…

miketually – Premier Member

I thought the main reason was if almost all / the majority of the kids didnt get in it was pointless ?

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

Posted 2 minutes ago # Report-Post
bruneep – Member
All most all the kids are within walking distance, its the teachers in their huge rural houses that won't make the effort.

neither of these staements are true. especially so of secondary schools.

Unfortunately parents are not a teacher's customers. People keep churning out useless kids who are simply a drain on society and someone has to turn them into something useful like call centre workers or grit spreaders (both requiring a string of NVQ's even though a trained ape could handle the job). Teacher's provide a social service not a baby sitting service plus you suckers need us to look after your kids (kids not ids although I may have been right first time) while you save up for your new plasma tele and jumbo bags of wotsits.

I got in today, half an hours drive turned into a 1 1/2 hour dance with death. School closed. Closed tomorrow too. Get in!

So the kids can have snowball fights, go sledging and build snowmen of course.

Not to mention fall through the ice on frozen lakes, to keep the firefighters busy.

I used to be a teacher so I can see this from both sides.

On the one hand the comment about the staff to kids ratio is valid… should something like a fire happen and that ratio be incorrect you're going to have a serious litigation problem but on the other hand the reason the teachers can't get in is because of the extended travel times and there's no way you'd live in your catchment area.

That said… in the office today are the people who are interested… slackers will use any excuse to have the day off to sit on their arses!