Council attacked for closing schools
Friday 6th February 2009, 12:04PM GMT.
Education bosses in Powys have come under fire after deciding to close the schools – despite no snow falling.
Powys County Council took a decision on Wednesday afternoon, following a forecast of heavy snow, that all schools would shut yesterday.
However, hardly any snow fell and the council has now come under fire for taking the decision so early – 28 schools remained closed today.
Sue Callery, a mother-of-three, of Llanfair Caereinion, said: “I think the decision to close schools should be made by the heads and teaching staff. I’m a working mum and it’s been difficult juggling everything.
“My children attend the high school and primary school in Llanfair Caereinion and the staff have always said that if they can open the school then the school will open. However, that decision was out of their control yesterday, despite there being no snow.”
Councillor Alan Crowe, of Welshpool Town Council, said he believed the council had “jumped the gun”.
However, the county council said it took an early decision to help parents and guardians plan for children being off school.
- Three schools were closed in Shropshire today: Clee Hill Primary School; Newcastle Primary School, Newcastle on Clun, and Brown Clee Primary School, Ditton Priors.
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someone should really give serious consideration to the education children are missing.a childrens charter,guaranteeing a certain num of days at school irrespective of days missed for weather.time missed iv,e read in countless letters from teachers all over the country in various evening and daily papers saying that time missed can be made up,when what they fail to say is these lessons must be rushed through ,no time for full explanations in shorter times. either that then very generous times must be given for teaching very little.at least a week of flexi time should be added at the end of terms to cater for these lost days with teachers forced to be on stand by.after all without children no matter how clever teachers think they are they would be out of a job.this is not to mention the inconvenience of their parents who if they are working would have to have exceptional employers to accomadate their possible absences
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I have three young children, all under 10 yrs old. My childcare could not have been arranged without an extra member of staff being brought in at my usual provision centre. This was not possible at such short notice. I had to take yet another days leave because of snow. Earlier in the week, snow had fallen, I woke up on the 5th Feb. to no snow at all (after having been informed by Powys County Council that all schools will close on this day because of heavy snow). Why hadn’t the Schools been allowed to make the decision in the morning, as usual, when they could actually see what the weather conditions were really like? This has cost me another days leave – I am not happy!
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