schools opening when it has snowed!

pollypenny

johnnyl wrote: »

quite scary really because she's my wife

.

Strange. Having initially assumed by the name, that Melly was a woman, I was pretty certain that he asserted his masculinity. :cool:

silvercar

johnnyl wrote: »

there is a common theme, I dont like hypocrites and it just so happens that I find them in abundance in that community.

Isnt it ironic that many on this thread justifying disturbing my childs education because of a bit of snow are happy to lambast me if I take my kids out on holiday. Isnt it funny that the same people are happy to go on strike and disturb my childs education but I have to put up with sanctimony and patronisation if I remove mychild from the education system for a small amount of time. Hypocrisy....nobody likes it. Dont be a hypocrite if you dont want challenging on it.

If you take your children out in term time, they are missing what is being taught to the rest of the class; if the school is closed due to snow, the other children won't have been taught anything in your children's absence.

lostinrates

mrcow wrote: »

Surely you can understand the issues?

If you're living in an area that has 4-5 months of heavy snow/winter, then it makes sense to heavily invest in a infastructure geared towards clearing it/coping with it for that extended period of time.

In the UK, we get heavy snow perhaps once every couple of years for a week or two. It makes no economic sense to invest in such an infastructure.

If the government started increasing taxes to pay for such things, there would quite rightly be an outcry.

This seems to be changing (again) the weather. We have (in the south) had significant snow, enough to cause disruption, for the last four years at least.

When I lived in Milan I was surprised, but impressed, to learn it was law to drive with snow chains in this weather of you take your car on the road. It seems a comparitively minor expense to keep industry going and children educated to have an investment like this with a car purchase, and to have plans in place to keep the majority of children , ( it will never safely be all of them) able to go in (whether that's car pooling in suitably fitted vehicles rather than buses.

Snow is huge fun, and I hope children ARE getting maximum enjoyment from it, that's important too. But education, and approach to life might not be life and death, but it can be the difference between life and existance, success or not.

I think brummiebabe's posts are excellent.

flipper_72

johnnyl wrote: »

and you still miss the point

It has affected schools DISPOROPORTIONATELY

as in SOME banks will suffer SOME hairdressers will struggle, some of the 5000 chemical plants will suffer but nowhere will there be an example of 20% of 1 industry being shut. Only schools. Noone else will have that level of being shut, nobody.

Been reading the thread but not commenting, my DD school is closed again today as the roads leading to it are too dangerous (bottom of a hill, narrow streets, no gritting) I'm having to find childcare to come to work.

Anyway main reason for posting is to point out the enormous spelling mistake above - maybe johnnyl had too many "snow days" when at school to learn to spell or use a dictionary (or even spell checker).
Disproportionately

gregg1

brummiebabe wrote: »

I can't justify that......if that'd been my children then they would have done it....providing they weren't with Grandparents who has no access to Internet!!! I'm quite clear with my children though about the importance of their education.......

Fair enough, you would have made your kids do the work, so would I. They had until Sunday evening to complete the work so the excuse of being at Grandparents would not be relevant.

However, if the teachers are still doing their job (my OH was available online for any help the students needed and was marking, she did her full day's work), then it is the parents in this case who were failing in THEIR duty of ensuring their kids kept up with the work they had been set. What is the betting it was the very parents who were quick to blame the teachers for disrupting their kids' education.

daisiegg

johnnyl wrote: »

when I asked why 20% of schools were shut but not 20% of other businesses the sole legitimate argument against that was that other businesses could withstand SOME staff not showing up however if a few teachers did not show up they could not open. It was a legal requirement.

This was the only valid point made against the question that I made and once the thing it relies on is an untruth then the whole argument falls down.

I may have been one of the first to mention the 'legal requirement' thing and for that I apologise - believe me when I say I wasn't deliberately telling lies, I was honestly repeating what I believed to be the truth. Our head has mentioned staff to pupil ratios etc. So I am sorry for saying something that turned out to not be true!

I can only imagine it must be to do with the insurance-required Risk Assessment (as someone else mentioned), or perhaps school policy, or perhaps Local Education Authority policy/rules - even if it is not a blanket law. There is some sort of rule about staff to pupil ratios (surely there must be - otherwise you could have one adult to 1000 kids and any idiot can see that is a bad idea!) but if it is not a law, it must be to do with insurance, or OFSTED, or the LEA....so sorry for saying it was law. I do still believe it is something that heads have to consider, though.

I am curious now, so the next time I find myself in a position to chat to a member of our Senior Leadership Team, I will definitely ask them to explain.

Anyway, I too have made use of the ignore button, and will be trying my best not to get het up about what some ignorant person says on the internet anymore!

daisiegg

gregg1 wrote: »

Fair enough, you would have made your kids do the work, so would I. They had until Sunday evening to complete the work so the excuse of being at Grandparents would not be relevant.

However, if the teachers are still doing their job (my OH was available online for any help the students needed and was marking, she did her full day's work), then it is the parents in this case who were failing in THEIR duty of ensuring their kids kept up with the work they had been set. What is the betting it was the very parents who were quick to blame the teachers for disrupting their kids' education.

Ditto - yesterday I sent a message to my GCSE class detailing what we would have done in our lesson and asking them to do it (it was something they could easily have done at home), and requesting that they sent me a quick message back to confirm that they were doing it....out of 27 pupils I had no responses.

I also spent the day marking and planning, and it was easy to see that most staff were working at home as emails were being sent back and forth and being responded to immediately.

*ETA* - feel like I must justify myself before anyone demands as to why I am on here in the middle of the day - I only work part time and Tuesday is my day off. That said, I have been marking since 8am

scooby088

I guess if parents didn't choose the local school with a decent report or the school 5 miles away with an excellent ofsted report then we wouldn't have the debate about getting into school.

balletshoes

scooby088 wrote: »

I guess if parents didn't choose the local school with a decent report or the school 5 miles away with an excellent ofsted report then we wouldn't have the debate about getting into school.

oh I think we would - because its the teachers not being able to get to school in sufficient numbers to staff the school which is a factor in closing the school.

I do agree with a previous poster - the parents attitudes need to change. Now again, obviously there are exceptions, as have been discussed here, but generally speaking, the way it should go is, if the school is open, the kids go to school.

scooby088

balletshoes wrote: »

oh I think we would - because its the teachers not being able to get to school in sufficient numbers to staff the school which is a factor in closing the school.

I do agree with a previous poster - the parents attitudes need to change. Now again, obviously there are exceptions, as have been discussed here, but generally speaking, the way it should go is, if the school is open, the kids go to school.

Every teacher from my DD school made it in, granted it's a primary but every teacher was told by the head they had to be in.

Yesterday was an INSET day, but the school was open as normal this morning.