Schools Closing

[jd_1984]

Three parents have had to leave our office due to their child's school closing due to the snow.
Us "non" parents are now holding the fort until 5.30pm.

Is that fair? What choice do they have I suppose, but its bloomin busy today and our workforce has nearly halved!!

[Ann]

Gosh it says in that link from em that 10, 000 hoseholds in S Wales have powercuts! Poor things, we can only hope that they keep warm ..........

[jd_1984]

ummmm - my employers are great if I ever need to dash out due to the little one, even though he is not mine. They understand he is part of our household/family. They are able to negotiate my hours when he does go to school so I can share the school runs.

[gness]

I loved when my daughter's school in England closed and we could go out with the sledge. It did puzzle me though because in Canada the snow came by Oct/Nov, lasted til March/April and could be measured in feet. My son's school never closed.

[New Judge]

This is part of a far wider phenomenon.

For every person who is afforded “child friendly” conditions at work there is at least one other poor sod who has to endure “non-child-friendly” conditions. Parents usually get the pick of the peak holiday periods to take the leave; many of them have their hours adjusted to accommodate their children; they often need to disappear at short notice leaving their colleagues to pick up the pieces. If you are at work during “half-term” you are lucky to be able to conduct any business as so many people take the same week off.

On the topic of snow, schools seem to close far too readily at the first sign of a snowflake. A school near me announced yesterday its decision to close today. It is a primary school and most of the pupils live within a mile or so of its gates. It did not begin to snow here until an hour or so ago (which aligned - for once - with the weather forecast) and the roads and pavements are still perfectly useable. I was at school in the fierce winter of 1963. It first snowed on Boxing Day and did not thaw until late March. But I do not recall my school closing at all. Yes, we were sent home a little early now and then when the weather was at its worst, but never were we told not to attend. I think we were made of sterner stuff!

[craft1948]

I had to get to school by bus and walking during the winter of 1963, and I had my left leg in plaster and was on walking sticks!!

[FredPuli43]

Ridiculous. I did wonder on another thread how Canada coped. The answer came yesterday, from a British friend who's been living in Ontario for twenty years. It is that she has never known a school there close. What's more, in her small town, most of the children walk to school. The temperature there yesterday was between minus 10 and minus 17 Celsius and, of course, there was snow which was deep by British standards. The lucky ones are those who have to travel in from outlying areas by bus, because, in the worst Canadian weather, the buses sometimes can't run. However, the teachers, who do drive in, always turn up. She said earlier that children are expected to go outside at playtime if the temperature is above minus 20.

Can you imagine anything like here? Our parents don't seem to like children walking to school at all; in this village they drive children as old as 11 there, though they live only a mile away; never mind in below zero temperatures

[roslyn251254]

Some schools have to close because of the icy pathways round the school - many have too much space to be gritted and too few staff to do it. Then someone slips and compo claim immediately. It's all health and safety. Don't think there would have been any compo claims in 1962/63 snow1

[cazzz1975]

The whole canada argument is repetitive,

the difference between canada and here is that because they have snow for a lot of the year they have adapted their infrastructure to deal with it, we rarely have significant snow and so we are not used to dealing with it long term

[ummmm]

My kids walk to and from school, it's over 2 miles away.

[New Judge]

"Don't think there would have been any compo claims in 1962/63 snow"

No there would not, roslyn. And thereby hangs the tale. In 1963 people were responsible for taking care of themselves and had to take extra care in snow and ice. The notion that it is somebody else's fault if you fall over in the snow is preposterous.

[FredPuli43]

cazzz, comparing Canada is only partly not comparing like with like. We get schools shutting in Britain when it's not a question of roads being unusable because the snow has proved overwhelming.

[jno]

Parents usually get the pick of the peak holiday periods to take the leave

NJ - depends what you mean by the pick. When in non-parent mode I was only too delighted to take my holidays outside the school holiday times and get them at half the price parents had to pay.

[jd_1984]

jno - the "in term" holidays will be missed when the little guy goes to school.
We are planning to marry in Feb 2015 abroad so I dont know how that is going to pan out with the school as he will be out for 10 days. We may have to re-look at the provisional plans

[emmie]

i remember all too well doing our regular sports day in bad weather, come rain, snow or whatever, out we would go, it's not as though we were dressed for it either, no button up warm track suits, but usually shorts and t shirts, its no wonder i don't care for the cold..

[FredPuli43]

That rings a bell, em. In hockey term, if the grass pitches (no artificial back then) were unplayable, we went on a four mile run over frozen fields and the Gog Magog Hills. If they weren't, we soon discovered that it's a mistake to put 'frozen' hands under a hot tap to warm them (it's agony). Without that, I can still remember feeling tendons pulling in cold hands (gloves were for wimps, and , naturally, discouraged). Best days of your life? There were times....