Are teachers lazy for closing schools??????

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:35

You wouldnt find a McDonalds or an Asda closing because of snow so why do schools close at the first snowflake????

Teachers must be the only people in the universe who use the excuse......."I cant get my car off the drive"

How do they get away with it??????

BirthdayGirl · 01/12/10 - 07:35

Never happened in my day.

Schools very rarely closed.

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:38

BirthdayGirl wrote: »

Never happened in my day.

Schools very rarely closed.

There was a distinct difference between the teachers then and the ones we have now.;)

BirthdayGirl · 01/12/10 - 07:39

dropout wrote: »

There was a distinct difference between the teachers then and the ones we have now.;)

Wimps. All of em!

Sentenza · 01/12/10 - 07:41

BirthdayGirl wrote: »

Never happened in my day.

Schools very rarely closed.

They shgut my school in I think it was 74-75 for 2 weeks when we had some bad snow and the heating froze up and the pipes burst.

kyresa · 01/12/10 - 07:45

I think, because these days, as soon as Little Johnny slips it would be "I'm going to sue the school" so the schools try and avoid that in the first place!

Psychosis · 01/12/10 - 07:46

Unlike McDonalds or Asda, where a thoroughly unskilled set of workers can be taken from the local catchment where people can often walk to work, and where they have moer workers than they need at any one time, teachers are a skilled workforce. That means that a lot of teachers commute an hour or more, through country lanes, to get to work. For some people it would be irresponsible to even try it.

Without enough teachers to supervise the children, I do believe it's not legal for the school to remain open, though I might be wrong. The school has a duty of care to the students and it's not supposed to remain open if it's at the cost of student safety.

fifilapew · 01/12/10 - 07:46

My mum and I were saying yesterday that the problem is that so many people drive nowadays and therefore work a lot further from home. Considering it took my dad over 6 hours ( I still don't know what time he fin ally made it home) to do a 45 min journey I don't blame the teachers for not coming in.

Edit. Psychosis beat me to it!

BirthdayGirl · 01/12/10 - 07:47

So why dont hospitals close then if doctors and nurses cant get in?

I love Ellie · 01/12/10 - 07:48

Sack them all!
They should be grateful they've got jobs.
Give their teaching jobs to the millions of unemployed (but not the benefit scroungers), or hard working East European teachers.

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:48

Psychosis wrote: »

Unlike McDonalds or Asda, where a thoroughly unskilled set of workers can be taken from the local catchment where people can often walk to work, and where they have moer workers than they need at any one time, teachers are a skilled workforce. That means that a lot of teachers commute an hour or more, through country lanes, to get to work. For some people it would be irresponsible to even try it.

Without enough teachers to supervise the children, I do believe it's not legal for the school to remain open, though I might be wrong. The school has a duty of care to the students and it's not supposed to remain open if it's at the cost of student safety.

I am not naive enough to believe that, sorry.

PinSarla · 01/12/10 - 07:49

Probably to do with safety, fine when there's an inch of snow but when there is over a foot like here it's not worth risking a school bus crashing or that! Plus I thought that it was the local authority who made the decision?

fifilapew · 01/12/10 - 07:49

BirthdayGirl wrote: »

So why dont hospitals close then if doctors and nurses cant get in?

I suppose like psychosis said schools have to have a certain amount of staff by law in order to look after the children, particularly in primary schools.

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:49

BirthdayGirl wrote: »

So why dont hospitals close then if doctors and nurses cant get in?

Exactly......

Espresso · 01/12/10 - 07:49

BirthdayGirl wrote: »

Never happened in my day.

Schools very rarely closed.

In my day I think they never closed because then, everyone lived within walking distance of the school. We had one teacher who cycled in from her house, but now, all schools have car parks.

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:50

fifilapew wrote: »

I suppose like psychosis said schools have to have a certain amount of staff by law in order to look after the children, particularly in primary schools.

Most of them dont even try to get in though.:)

BirthdayGirl · 01/12/10 - 07:50

fifilapew wrote: »

I suppose like psychosis said schools have to have a certain amount of staff by law in order to look after the children, particularly in primary schools.

But surely that applies to hospitals too. They must have to have a certain number of staff on duty at any one time

Spot · 01/12/10 - 07:52

kyresa wrote: »

I think, because these days, as soon as Little Johnny slips it would be "I'm going to sue the school" so the schools try and avoid that in the first place!

I was talking about this with someone in his forties, (my plumber actually) and he said that when he was at school, whenever it was icy, there was an area of the grounds that became very slippery and it was turned into a massive slide with people actually going earlier than usual to have a go sliding along it. Far from being deterred, the pupils wanted to get in to school more than they normally did!

Of-course there will always be occasions when travelling is genuinely not advisable, but now we see schools closing after quite modest falls of snow which cause only minor inconvenience to others. What on earth has happened to our society that we have got into the ridiculous situation where schools close when they could clearly open?

stud u like · 01/12/10 - 07:53

dropout wrote: »

You wouldnt find a McDonalds or an Asda closing because of snow so why do schools close at the first snowflake????

Teachers must be the only people in the universe who use the excuse......."I cant get my car off the drive"

How do they get away with it??????

I've seen Sainsburys close due to a titchy bit of snow. If I could walk there, they could have stayed open. I was bloody annoyed.

Spot · 01/12/10 - 07:54

Espresso wrote: »

In my day I think they never closed because then, everyone lived within walking distance of the school. We had one teacher who cycled in from her house, but now, all schools have car parks.

One of the teachers at my school travelled from Cambridge to Norwich every day on the train, keeping a bike at both ends for the journeys to and from the station. He never missed a day because of the weather.

stud u like · 01/12/10 - 07:54

In the 50's my Mum had walked to school and it was freezing. The outside toilets had iced over and so had the fish tank and the ink wells.

cpikey316_ · 01/12/10 - 07:55

Bus companies can refuse to run the school bus in heavy snow, so in some schools this can mean the majority of pupils will be at home. It's not always namby pamby teachers causing the school closure.

dropout · 01/12/10 - 07:55

stud u like wrote: »

I've seen Sainsburys close due to a titchy bit of snow. If I could walk there, they could have stayed open. I was bloody annoyed.

Ive never ever been in a Sainsburys. I always go to Asda.:D

[Deleted User] · 01/12/10 - 07:55

I work in a school and am off today - you do realise that its not up to teachers if the school closes but the Headteacher who has to follow H&S guidelines. Out of about 120 teachers (I am not one BTW) only about 10 or so live in the town all the rest have to travel and several main roads are closed around here so it wouldn't be possible to get enough teachers in to supervise the kids.

However, I suspect that thats not going to be a good enough reason for most as I think this is just another one of those teacher bashing threads where everyone starts by saying 'in my day...'

Elanor · 01/12/10 - 07:55

Hospitals often have nurses' apartments close by, and areas where overnight staff can sleep if necessary.

Anyway, it isn't teachers who make the decision to close the schools - it's the Heads in conjunction with local authorities and bus companies. Our college is forced to close if the bus companies refuse to run and the local authority tell us to close.

BirthdayGirl · 01/12/10 - 07:55

Spot wrote: »

One of the teachers at my school travelled from Cambridge to Norwich every day on the train, keeping a bike at both ends for the journeys to and from the station. He never missed a day because of the weather.

See. It can be done.

I think most teachers use it as an excuse if you ask me.

Everyone else seems to manage to get into their place of work (albeit with difficulty).

What makes teachers so special??

Hey there!

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Are teachers lazy for closing schools??????

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