School closures are snow joke

Mips

Why do people always assume that Teachers live right next door to the Schools they work in?!

My child is more important than my job - I am happy she is off school today because it is Icy, it is extremely cold and I don't want her getting herself in any danger.

And Teacher getting the flak for this is ridiculous.

pulliptears

Dippychick wrote: »

Why do people always assume that Teachers live right next door to the Schools they work in?!
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I think 20 years ago most of them did, or at least live in the vicinity. Times have changed, people commute further now than they used to.

When I was a kid my junior school always used to close because the boiler was so unreliable. Had some great times due to that.

People dont consider there are a myriad of reasons why schools have to close, yes you have the ice/suing aspect but then add on boiler failure, power failures and even the smaller schools who's school meals are delivered not cooked on site and cant be delivered.

Yes, OP is a prat.

dizziblonde

As a teacher (I'm not skiving, I'm a supply so I've got the ability to make the call that I'm not prepared to drive in the conditions today without inconveniencing people) thank you to those who defended us against the wind-up merchant.

Most teachers these days live a fair trek away from the school - sometimes through choice, sometimes through the fact that we could never afford to live in the catchments of the schools we teach in (I had this at one school I worked at - I'd have loved to live there but short of a lottery win - never going to happen). It means that although it looks like a nice quick walk around the corner for the kids to get to school - I had a ten mile trip down winding country lanes to do to get to that school, I never didn't make it in but drove it in hideously dense fog on a couple of occasions and was near tears by the time I got there!

The other reason I'm willing to bet a lot of the schools are closed is the lawsuits angle. Kids are kids and they like to do things like skid around on the ice - however tightly they're supervised, however much the head stands out on the playground from 8am ushering all the early-comers into the building (my old boss has done this before) and trying to minimize the risk - if you're an 8 year old boy and there's a nice patch of ice on the path on the way to the school door... you're going to aren't you? Kids fall over as well - some of the lunatic things we all pulled in our childhoods (our party trick was sledging down one hill, over a road, and down another headfirst into a fence) testify to the fact that sometimes accidents happen... but these days you can't have an accident - you have to have blame and a claim. While I know every school caretaker does their best to grit paths and the like around school - schools these days have often been expanded and are so higgledy-piggledy in their layout, with exterior classrooms and a million and one different exit doors - that it's nigh on impossible to grit everywhere - and again, it only takes one slip for a lawsuit, and that's something that schools can ill-afford really.

There's also the issue around here that councils are running out of grit, haven't had promised deliveries made and as such are refusing to refill grit boxes etc- I don't think the caretakers even have the salt available to do this.

When I started teaching schools were always on priority gritting routes so once I got out of my own estate there was never really a problem getting there, even if I had to park on the path rather than risk an ungritted playground - for some reason this doesn't seem to have been happening the last two years, and that's making it hard to get to these places as well - schools by their nature are often out of the way on housing estate roads - the sort that if they haven't been gritted are an utter nightmare to get to. I don't know why the change has happened - but as someone who goes to a range of random schools - it's been quite noticeable.

There's also at least two schools round here closed simply because of boiler failures. While I know another school that worked through a heating failure back in October by hiring commercial fan heaters etc - it's a bit toooooooo cold to do that as a stopgap in this weather (and it was flipping cold teaching back then)!

Heads make the call to close the school, they cascade it down through the staff - it's not the teachers wanting a day off - every teacher I know who's stuck at home today is using it for admin and planning work, so they are working - just the non-contact stuff. There are some heads today that I know personally who don't make closure decisions lightly (I do know a few schools that do close at the drop of a hat) who've closed today - which makes me appreciate just how bad the weather is.

Dorastar

Sadly the old saying "you can't please everyone all the time" comes to mind but having a mindless go at teachers just sums up why a lot of teachers are disheartened and fed up with causing all the ills of society.

Yes I am a teacher, and no I'm not skiving or hanging my head in shame for being a professional or laughing at the plight of hard working parents.

My school is a 10 minute drive from my house (5.2 miles) and yesterday I walked 2 miles, caught a bus and walked another mile in 6 inches of snow to get there as school was open. It took me 2 and 1/4 hours to get there and I am one of the nearest teachers to the building! Every single one of our teachers struggled into school with the majority making it by lunchtime. We left as soon as the children did at hometime and one teacher did not get home till 9.15 last night!!!!!

Today school is closed for the safety of the children and the staff. I have already re-done timetables for this week and next to take snow issues into account, dug out my car and got dh digging the road so we can hopefully make it off our estate by tomorrow, marked one set of books and done planning for next week - then if it's alright with OP I might just make a snowman with my own children who I am looking after because their school is closed.

happywarmgun

chris_n_tj wrote: »

But if you think the free schooling your children recive isnt good enough then do some thing about it, ie pay for private schooling. You are lucky enough to have a choice, many countries dont they have to pay, full stop.
Chris n TJ

Sorry to go all heavy and philosophical - but can I just pick you up on the 'Free' schooling bit.

As with everything it aint free. It costs a fortune and the taxpayer (you and I) pays for it.

I wish everyone in the UK could be a little more American in their mindset in just this one trait - the realisation that public services have associated costs!

Apologies to jump off topic - just one of my bugbears.

chris_n_tj

happywarmgun wrote: »

Sorry to go all heavy and philosophical - but can I just pick you up on the 'Free' schooling bit.

As with everything it aint free. It costs a fortune and the taxpayer (you and I) pays for it.

I wish everyone in the UK could be a little more American in their mindset in just this one trait - the realisation that public services have associated costs!

Apologies to jump off topic - just one of my bugbears.

Point taken xx But i was trying to just make a point regarding the shoot the teacher thread as started by OP

anguk

Unfortunately some working parents see school and teachers as little more than free childminders. They complain when the school has to close because they've got the inconvenience of either finding another childminder or even have to take the day off work themselves.

If you're a working parent you have to be prepared for things like this and have an alternative plan, just the same as if your child is ill and can't go to school. We've had plenty of warning that the snow was coming, so have had plenty of time to make alternative arrangements incase schools were closed.

My daughter's school is closed today for the first time despite having snow for the last 3 weeks. All of the teachers live a car journey away and we live in a semi-rural area, also many of the pupils come from surrounding villages and rely on the school bus. I'm actually surprised the school hasn't been closed before now.

loopy_lass

oh for the joys of free babysiting...... unless teachers are snowed in

SUESMITH_2

the school i work in is closed today, first time ever its closed it's doors.

we went back on monday to find we had a burst pipe and no heating, we worked through that with everyone wearing coats and an average temp round school of 8c. By tuesday we had the heating fixed but had lots of snow, it took some people 3 hours to get to work but all bar 2 staff we made it in - one of those 2 slid off the road into a wall the other one sat for 2 hours not moving before giving up.

we then had the gas main outside fracture so possibly no heating again, we got through that and then more snow. we had meetings every hour for the head to let us know what was happening and at lunch the head decided for the health and safety of pupils and staff to close today - we worked through to the end of the day because we have a duty of care and couldnt risk closing the school and having pupils with nowhere to go. we worked to the end of the school day, made sure every child was able to get home and then left ourselves.

please, please do not call me and my collegues lazy or skivers because we are not!

FatAndy

I’ve just had the opportunity to read the responses (mainly from teachers, funny that) and would like to respond as follows:

1) I realise that the weather has been extremely bad in some parts of country but it hasn’t been here. We had one snow shower yesterday which lasted about an hour. There was at best 2cm of snow which pretty much began thawing as soon as the snow stopped. The temperature hasn’t dropped below freezing since Monday and there’s virtually no wind so no wind chill factor to consider. This morning we’ve had blue skies and bright sunshine. Where there was still snow on the ground it was slushy rather than icy. I assume the ice the school was referring to was compacted snow. All the main roads in the area are clear and I’ve heard of no reports of disruption to public transport. If we’d had 15-20cm of snow and sub-zero temperatures then fair enough but we haven’t.

2) When my wife arrived at the school at 8.45 this morning there was the usual procession of parents and children heading for the school gates. When they arrived they were met a teacher who told them the school was closed. When my wife asked why she was told it was because it was too dangerous to get there. By this point of course she along with lots of other parents and kids had already safely arrived there! Bearing in mind that no attempt was made to warn parents of the closure and that all the roads in the area were clear I’d imagine that the majority of the kids arrived safely at the school only to be turned away because it was too dangerous for them to get there! Could a teacher please explain the logic behind this because it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

3) Apparently the teacher’s car park at the school was pretty much full as usual. I don’t know where the teachers live, other than the one that lives just around the corner from me, but it seems that the majority of them got there without difficulty. Not surprising really given that the roads in the surrounding area are all clear. I would also point out that whilst there are parts of the country (e.g. South East England) where teachers might have no option to commute to work due a lack of affordable housing but that isn’t the case in Conwy county. If any of the teachers live any great distance away it’s through choice rather than necessity.

4) Regarding the compensation culture. As I said in the opening post once the kids are safely indoors then keep them there. I suspect that it there’s heavy rain they’re kept inside during breaks so why not simply apply the same principle if it’s icy. This is what’s referred to as ‘using a bit of common sense”.

5) Teachers are not ‘free child-minders’. I pay huge sums of money in income and council tax to pay their wages. I can’t understand in this particular case why, given that the majority of the teachers and the majority of the kids had safely arrived at the school, the teachers weren’t allowed to get on with the job they’ve been paid for. As this is a primary school I can’t imagine there’s a huge amount of marking to be done. They had a ‘teacher training day’ on Monday so the kids have only been back in one day so how much work could they have done?

6) We weren’t forecast any bad weather and haven’t really had any. If we’d woken up this morning and seen lots of snow, or if the school had informed that local radio station that they were closed (as lots of others did) then we could have made other arrangements. But there wasn’t and they didn’t.

7) There was no mention of any problems with the boiler etc. Can’t imagine there’d be burst pipes seeing as how the temperature didn’t appear to drop below zero last night.