Are school officials scared of compensation culture, or were there really so many problems with snow today?

Question

Mr Sceptic - another point. But if all schools closed then it does make the playing field more level across the board.

I think this country is fussy beyond sanity.

Answer 1

If there were logical reasons for closing schools I would accept them but Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland, Russia and Alaska have far worse snow and ice conditions but their schools do not close. Also they seem to have solved their problem of driving in ice and snow.

The government's policies on Education must bear full responsibility. They close some local schools and insist on transferring kids from one area to another to create a 'balance in opportunity'.

Local kids at local schools should be able to walk to school. If you dispute this then look at the same kids when the school is closed. What do they do? They frolic in the snow, slide down snow covered hills and have snowball fights. It's NOT the kids welfare concerns that close schools; it is fear of the compensation culture engendered in the Nanny State. Must not take the chance of some child slipping in the playground.

Children learn and grow by accepting the normal exposure to risks that we all do every day. Health and Safety has gone to ridiculous extremes and the plethora of rules and regulations means school kids are denied trips to the seaside, countryside, adventure camps and out of school sports clubs in case they may be 'injured'.

Teachers and adults will not leave themselves open to possible compensation claims.

Answer 2

When I was at school we had more 'snow days' off than nowadays.

Essentially there are 3 reasons:
1) Amount of people there to supervise kids: staff (teachers, care workers etc') rarely live on the school's doorstep, for obvious reasons (parents knocking on doors all hours etc'). If transport links mean it could take 3 hours to drive a few miles to work, there is a risk of the school being full of kids (due to catchment areas, the opposite is true- they all live walking distance and jump out of bed on a snowy morning), slippery and under-supervised. With the best intentions in the world, the staff can't get in if trains, roads and buses are snowed in.
2) Boilers in schools are usually c--p. C'mon- they can't clean/heat hospitals so what chance have schools got of a new boiler? There is a law about children and the cold.
3) Kids, confined spaces, ice, concrete ... not to mention all the mums in their 4x4s outside the gate. I worked during a snowy time in 2003, when in a school of 675 kids, we had 5 broken bones just outside the gate, plus 7 'prangs' (thank goodness just cars and fences/each other- not kids). Staff (teachers- not traffic cops) tried their best but they were slipping over too- it was a shambles. Whether or not LEAs are scared of being sued, it was a terrible rate of accidents- due to the 'daily jam' modern schools have at their gates, combined with ice. This is all down to design when the school was built - before all the cars we have today (so, the design was OK at the time)- nowadays you have slippery, often sloped, bottlenecks rammed with people carriers and excited, slip-sliding kids. 30 years ago you just had the kids!

Schools should shut when it is safe/practical to do so- NOT en masse as they did in Birmingham. It just disrupts things for kids, parents and teachers alike ... fair enough if it is an emergency, but blanket-closing all of them is excessive.

Answer 3

I know that the Chief Education Officer in Birmingham came in for a lot of criticism when he ordered all schools in the city to close today and tomorrow - but if you consider that that move probably took many tens of thousands of cars off the city's streets today, it begins to make sense in the overall view of public safety in the city.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

a bit of cold weather and the boilers seem to pack up? i dont know if i believe this to be honest, they should make schools have the boiler i have...never lets me down.
i think its a case of a little snow and everyone worries. when i was at school and it snowed, we would have to wear our coats and wellies! a little snow and the uk is fretting! (i wouldn't mind but i didnt see any here)