About the cold and snow

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JaneEyre
Posts: 4843
Joined: Sun May 09, 2010 1:04 pm

About the cold and snow

Post by JaneEyre »

Heavy snow is forecast. If you see someone sleeping rough anywhere please call the rough sleeper team on 0800 970 2304. If we do get heavy snow, it is important that people aren't stuck outside in the cold.
Thank you :D

I hope your children are enjoying the beautiful view, building snowmen and doing snowballs! :wink:
It is so many years we did not have this amount of snow! :D
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by Amber »

Hmm. One of mine trying to get to a university interview - as if that weren't stressful enough without the fact that all the roads are closed. Shameful imho the way the entire infrastructure grinds to a halt every time we get anything outside 'grey, mild, dull'. Just look at this for a spectacular waste of money - this time related to leaves. Whoever decided leaves should fall off the trees? I am sure they must have stayed on them when I was young as the trains somehow managed to keep going...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=werCrjPpQfY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by Amber »

DS is delighted this morning as his school appears to be the only one in the county remaining open. Gone off with a real spring in his step, and a renewed passion for learning. Not.

Is it me or is this school closure thing new too? Our area has experienced a thaw overnight and roads are perfectly passable now. And yet the whole county will now grind to a halt with the knock-on effect of mass school closures meaning that parents have to stay home to look after children and thus not being available for work across the entire employment sector. The lost productivity is probably into billions.

Sorry, personal bugbear this. :evil:
loobylou
Posts: 2032
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 5:04 pm

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by loobylou »

Amber wrote:DS is delighted this morning as his school appears to be the only one in the county remaining open. Gone off with a real spring in his step, and a renewed passion for learning. Not.

Is it me or is this school closure thing new too? Our area has experienced a thaw overnight and roads are perfectly passable now. And yet the whole county will now grind to a halt with the knock-on effect of mass school closures meaning that parents have to stay home to look after children and thus not being available for work across the entire employment sector. The lost productivity is probably into billions.

Sorry, personal bugbear this. :evil:
I think the school closure thing is partly because teachers often can't afford to live in the area that their school is in (at least that's true of our part of N London) and so teachers are travelling very long distances to come in. Dh's school usually closes in the snow even though all the children can walk (virtually no one lives more than 2 miles away) because there are virtually no teachers living within 20-30 minutes' drive of the school - and many much further.
Yesterday snow was predicted all day today so, even if they had managed to get in, there was the risk that they would have to be sent home partway through the day in order to allow everyone to get home.
I think in my day, even in an expensive part of Bucks, most of my teachers lived roughly in the catchment area.
piggys
Posts: 1636
Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:29 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by piggys »

Amber wrote:Hmm. One of mine trying to get to a university interview - as if that weren't stressful enough without the fact that all the roads are closed. Shameful imho the way the entire infrastructure grinds to a halt every time we get anything outside 'grey, mild, dull'. Just look at this for a spectacular waste of money - this time related to leaves. Whoever decided leaves should fall off the trees? I am sure they must have stayed on them when I was young as the trains somehow managed to keep going...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=werCrjPpQfY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
In your day Thatcher hadn't sold everything off and privatised it.

What is Chunkymark saying?
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by Amber »

loobylou wrote:I think the school closure thing is partly because teachers often can't afford to live in the area that their school is in (at least that's true of our part of N London) and so teachers are travelling very long distances to come in. Dh's school usually closes in the snow even though all the children can walk (virtually no one lives more than 2 miles away) because there are virtually no teachers living within 20-30 minutes' drive of the school - and many much further.
Yesterday snow was predicted all day today so, even if they had managed to get in, there was the risk that they would have to be sent home partway through the day in order to allow everyone to get home.
Sure; but as it transpires here today I am sitting looking at the water dripping off the trees and the birds pecking raisins and apples I have put on the green grass for them. The roads are fine. We have become so risk-averse that instead of waiting and watching we are taking notice of apocalyptic weather forecasts and assuming worst-case scenarios before there is any actual evidence that we need to. The reasons given here for keeping children off school are for primary age that they can't be kept safe in the playground (!) and for others that the classrooms must be at least 18°C all day. Both of which strike me as utterly spurious reasons to shut down an entire county or series of counties, I am sorry.
piggys wrote:In your day Thatcher hadn't sold everything off and privatised it.
Indeed.
kenyancowgirl
Posts: 6738
Joined: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:59 pm

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by kenyancowgirl »

DS1 is in Y12 and today is the first day the school has closed in all that time. The decision was made last night following Birmingham Councils decision to close (as far as I can see) all of their schools - we have had it pretty bad here - we're not far from Chipping Norton which had 11 inches and Kingham had 17, I think. The main roads are clear but village roads are lethal and the teperature dropped to -5C last night so it is ice that is the problem.

Having written a few cars off in the ice round here, I was pleased they made the early call. It is, of course, less of an issue when you have to work but have secondary school kids - apart from Y7, most of them should be able to manage a day on their own - the issue is where the parent knows that there is a chance they will go off to work and the weather will turn meaning they cant get back to their child and I suspect heads are aware of this too. Round here a lot of our teachers travel in about 40 odd minutes from outlying areas too so I guess the Head has a concern for their safety too.

But, as I said, unprecedented really as it is the first time in 6 years!
loobylou
Posts: 2032
Joined: Thu Nov 27, 2014 5:04 pm

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by loobylou »

Amber wrote:
loobylou wrote:I think the school closure thing is partly because teachers often can't afford to live in the area that their school is in (at least that's true of our part of N London) and so teachers are travelling very long distances to come in. Dh's school usually closes in the snow even though all the children can walk (virtually no one lives more than 2 miles away) because there are virtually no teachers living within 20-30 minutes' drive of the school - and many much further.
Yesterday snow was predicted all day today so, even if they had managed to get in, there was the risk that they would have to be sent home partway through the day in order to allow everyone to get home.
Sure; but as it transpires here today I am sitting looking at the water dripping off the trees and the birds pecking raisins and apples I have put on the green grass for them. The roads are fine. We have become so risk-averse that instead of waiting and watching we are taking notice of apocalyptic weather forecasts and assuming worst-case scenarios before there is any actual evidence that we need to. The reasons given here for keeping children off school are for primary age that they can't be kept safe in the playground (!) and for others that the classrooms must be at least 18°C all day. Both of which strike me as utterly spurious reasons to shut down an entire county or series of counties, I am sorry.
Yes I totally agree with this; we don't have any visible grass but the main roads are totally clear. It would have been better to wait till this morning and decide then (and most schools near us could have opened today). But then there would probably have been hordes of unhappy parents frustrated at the lack of time to make childcare decisions (even in secondary school I know parents who won't leave their children alone in the day) so the schools probably feel they can't win.
Yamin151
Posts: 2405
Joined: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:30 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by Yamin151 »

kenyancowgirl wrote:DS1 is in Y12 and today is the first day the school has closed in all that time. The decision was made last night following Birmingham Councils decision to close (as far as I can see) all of their schools - we have had it pretty bad here - we're not far from Chipping Norton which had 11 inches and Kingham had 17, I think. The main roads are clear but village roads are lethal and the teperature dropped to -5C last night so it is ice that is the problem.

Having written a few cars off in the ice round here, I was pleased they made the early call. It is, of course, less of an issue when you have to work but have secondary school kids - apart from Y7, most of them should be able to manage a day on their own - the issue is where the parent knows that there is a chance they will go off to work and the weather will turn meaning they cant get back to their child and I suspect heads are aware of this too. Round here a lot of our teachers travel in about 40 odd minutes from outlying areas too so I guess the Head has a concern for their safety too.

But, as I said, unprecedented really as it is the first time in 6 years!
Yes, Thing 2 delighted to benefit from a snow day, whilst his brother gets no such luck as an online school never closes unless the internet goes down!!

Of course, as probably already mentioned, schools do close more easily now in many places because
1. Teachers don't live locally
2. Many kids (esp GS) don't live locally - and if the bus companies serve several schools they tend to suspend the service so schools don't have much choice really

And as for the country grinding to a halt, I expect they have looked at this and the money needed to keep everything running 'as normal' when we get serious snow fall like this - what? Once every 7 years? - is not really worth it. Imagine being told we have to have half the dustbin collections but hey, we have 15 shiny snowploughs lined up for the year 2024!
Amber
Posts: 8058
Joined: Thu Sep 24, 2009 11:59 am

Re: About the cold and snow

Post by Amber »

Yamin151 wrote:hey, we have 15 shiny snowploughs lined up for the year 2024!
Well here we have the best of all worlds. The link is to a local news article - not only is the story mildly amusing (unless you are the owner of one of the 3 cars), the snappy headline also illustrates local online journalism at its snappiest... :?
http://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/ne ... les-904059" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

ETA this:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/soci ... 1211140734" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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