SHUT THE SCHOOLS
I'm sick of reading about, or listening to people moan about school closures due to snow. The idea that you can keep things ticking along as usual is ludicrous.
I can only surmise that those who made this decision bowed to complaints from parents who simply do not appreciate the implications of attempting to have normal educational services when the weather is bad. After all, what other reason can there be?
If one more person mentions the words Dunkirk Spirit I will scream! What is so fantastic about battling to keep schools open anyway? So that what, working parents don't have to find somewhere else for their kids to go? Is that the biggest factor in this decision making process?
For crying out loud, it's a few days! It's not the end of the world. Can't people get over the inconvenience factor and either arrange someone else to mind the children or get out and play in the snow?
Okay, all this might sound a bit harsh. After all, I was only saying myself the other day what a pain in the backside all this bad weather was, but if the decision had been made to close all schools I wouldn't have had a problem, and neither would a load of other people.
SAH (stay at home) parents wouldn't have had to venture out. Some working parents would have taken a day off and stayed at home, and the rest would have begged and borrowed childcare favours from family and friends and journeyed to work on a lot less congested network of roads.
Those parents who lobby so hard to keep the schools open, to get the teachers to earn their money, would be the first to complain should their own child get smacked in the face with a snowball during the school day.
Think about what teachers are there for; are they appropriately paid teaching professionals, or over-paid nursery nurses? Should people who work in schools really have to risk their own safety and clog up the roads so that they can 'look after' other people's children?
There's always those quick to have a pop at teachers. "It's just because they want a lie in.." People sneer. Yes. That's it. Every last one of these well educated, highly qualified individuals prays for school closures.
They want schools to close knowing what the ramifications of this will be, and not because keeping them open is counter-productive and a risk to people's safety, but because they want a day in bed. Yes. They spend all this time marking and doing countless piles of paperwork, but all the time they are plotting to bring the country to a halt out of sheer idleness.
Plus it's worth mentioning that the decision to close schools is actually nothing to do with teachers anyway. The vast majority of the time it's down to the local authority, and in other cases it's down to the head teacher.
My journey to work on Friday morning was horrendous. I am so angry that I, plus thousands of other people were forced to travel unnecessarily. I sat for an hour and a half in traffic. I grew angrier and angrier with every minute that passed at whoever decided to keep schools open. I was actually risking my own safety, plus that of my children to get to work.
I skidded twice and nearly got ran off the road by some lunatic in a banana yellow transit van. Everyone I spoke to had a tale to tell of near catastrophe on the way to work.
Honestly, it's not just because I work in a school that I feel like this. I cannot imagine that there was any person on that road, waiting in that traffic, watching cars skid and slide and pirouette in an attempt to turn around, who was glad that schools were open. Surely everyone was wondering why the schools weren't shut in an attempt to alleviate this burden of traffic on these treacherous roads.
What would have happened if an ambulance needed to get past? It would have had no chance. Roads should be kept as clear as possible to allow emergency services to get through.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want it to snow. I need to get into work and do my job. But, should it snow, should the weather make it dangerous to get to work, then leaders of schools and other large organisations should respond appropriately.
You may well be incredibly inconvenienced if your kids can't go to school. You might lose work, money, a day's holiday, but don't blame the schools for closing. Blame the man upstairs for creating weather conditions that are not compatible with normal day to day British life.
Older/Newer
8 Comments
Leave a comment
Profile
Laura Yates - Brummie mum Laura Yates is a 27 year old mother of two from Kings Heath. She gives her take on family life in the city.
"Every last one of these well educated, highly qualified individuals prays for school closures. "
We do actually! I pray to as many gods as possible every night!
Dan decided to travel to Hounslow on Friday am, to get to junction 10 of the M40 before he called it a day and turned back, the weather was that horrendious!
He did go into the office though and I was amazed when he told me that their was very little snow in town where he works!
Roll on this afternoon and tonight so the chaos will start again with the next snow storm that we're getting!
Lisa
xx
Ps as a SAHM I go stir crazy not going out, even if it's just a trip to Sainsburies, but last week I couldn't risk it with Josh. Not fair on him, or me if I fell, which on Friday was a very real possibility. :-)
It doesn't matter how you word it closing schools due to an inch and a half of snow is nothing but laziness on the part of the teachers. It is not fair to expect mothers to pick up the pieces of teachers inability to manage a bad weather situation!!!
Are you kidding me?
Why should workers be expected to get to work through the snow but teachers not? Are they not workers too? Are they not doing a job? Why is it any harder for them to get to school than it is for someone to get to their office desk?
When I was at school it took a burst pipe and lack of heating to shut my school down. These days a couple of inches seems like an excuse to cry 'health and safety'.
My daughter's nursery only had to shut for one day - why is it any different to them when they are literally down the road from the school that shut most of the week?
And for working parents it's not a luxurious day off work. Or 4 days off as it has been. It's losing annual holiday, losing any money you've paid for after-school clubs and, if you work from home, having to stay up all night catching up.
Shame on you for suggesting schools should shut just to make others' journey into work a little easier.
Maybe we should shut down all the offices and stores so those workers don't have to make that journey either and the roads will be a damn sight clearer then.
I appreciate your comments, thanks for posting.
Can we get away from the idea that schools are businesses? They don’t provide a service, they don’t sell anything and the only thing they produce is (hopefully) well balanced individuals with a good standard of education. This will happen regardless of a few snow days.
The difference between your daughter’s nursery and schools is that the nursery is a business. People pay money to send small numbers of very young children there to be cared for. The sole purpose of the staff is to look after these children. The purpose of schools is to provide education. Teachers are not childcare providers.
Another difference between nurseries and schools is that schools have vast amounts of students travelling there, who are journeying from much further away, and are staffed by hundreds of people. The students are older, and in the case of secondary schools much older. When put into large groups they can be very challenging. Showing them a load of snow does not an eager bunch of learners make.
I suspect that the actual attendance rates at schools across the city on Friday would be circling 50%. Anything less than 75% and most of the lessons taught on that day would have to be re-taught for the benefit of the absent students upon their return.
What I am saying is, the actual educational benefits of forcing as many students into school on these days is negligible.
I absolutely stand by my opinion that only essential journeys should be embarked upon in such treacherous conditions. If you do an essential job, or feel it essential that you get to work, then fine. In my opinion keeping schools open and therefore flooding roads with (again in my opinion) non-essential traffic causes unnecessary danger to all road users.
How were emergency services supposed to negotiate such a huge volume of traffic?
Please bear in mind that I’m referring to Friday in particular; it seemed especially bizarre to decide to keep schools open on this day, when they’d been closed on previous days when the weather had not been as bad… I do feel it was right to close the schools on these previous days though.
As I said, it is not a case of the country grinding to a halt in a couple of inches of snow. These were weather conditions that we are just not used to and not equipped to deal with.
In my experience those who work in offices or stores rejoice in the school holidays when their journey times are reduced because the kids aren’t at school. Why is it any different when it snows?
Thanks again for the opportunity to debate this important issue.
whilst i agree that it was inconvenient the schools being closed all week, as i like several others are self employed an if i don't go to work i don't get paid, an had to have most the week of. But on the other hand me an my two daughters had fun playing in the snow an building snow men, which is priceless, an lets be fair its not like it snows all the time.
Its not fair to blame the closures on the teachers an schools, that's the governments fault that we are not equipted for such weather which is disgusting really, and so yes if we have an inch of snow our country comes to a stand still.
Lazy teachers, lazy parents, lazy England. OK, there is a small argument fighting the corner of the pathetic Health & Safety corner, but for Gods Sake we need to get a grip! It was snow, not bombs, and even those that the Germans dropped didn't ground our Public Transport to a halt, like the snow did that week!
What I would like to say is this. Why do you get treated like a bad parent (even a criminal) if you take your children out of school for a holiday during term time? Will the lost days of important curriculum activity be squeezed back into the calendar year.... of course it will be! So once again our education system spurn more interviewees for the Jeremy Kyle show, because the snow has interrupted the class literature class.
This country needs a kick up the backside, because i’m afraid the once Great British Public have lost there backbone. Me, I’ll just dust myself down and get on with my work. Don’t worry though, all my taxes will be paid to support the economics of the country. Lets face it, someone has to show willing.
Errm, hello? who do you think is doing all the extra work in the office when the schools shut down for 4 days in some places(it wasn't just Friday) and your colleagues have to take time off?
Sure it's nice to have a day off and play in the snow and take advantage of a family adventure in the rare weather, but 4 days and it has a knock on effect on industry.
It's a good job school's aren't businesses as they'd have gone belly up a long time ago!
Lord only knows how they manage it in other countries where snow really is an issue.