Schools close as snow hits region
Wednesday 6th January 2010, 10:26AM GMT.
An image from the Will It Rain Today website showing the snowfall across thee country at 10am today
Shropshire and Mid Wales awoke to white-out conditions today as Arctic weather continued to batter the region leading to the closure of more than 150 schools.
About 70 schools throughout Shropshire have been forced to close, while more than 100 across Powys also shut their doors giving thousands of schoolchildren the day off.
Gritting trucks and snow ploughs were out in force to clear main roads as commuters struggled to make their way into work following fresh snowfall overnight.
Many had to contend with icy estate and minor roads which had been left untreated due to limited supplies.
Bob Ellis, head of environmental maintenance at Shropshire Council, said it had ordered 20 per cent more grit to cope with the bad weather.
“We have 28 gritters fitted with snow ploughs that have been out on the county’s roads,” he said.
“They have been out throughout the night clearing major roads and making sure they are passable.”
A Telford & Wrekin Council spokesman said: “We have had nine gritters out and they can all be fitted with snow ploughs.”
A Powys County Council spokesman said it was working hard to clear the roads and had deployed 36 gritters in total but admitted its grit stocks were running low.
Police have warned motorists not to travel unless absolutely necessary. They also warned people not to stray onto frozen water courses. The big chill also put a strain on ambulance services with West Midlands Ambulance Service urging people to think carefully before calling them after they reported a 70 per cent increase in calls.
By Tom Johannsen
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why is it when i was younger it never snowed hard so that the school were closed or if it did , it was a weekend and gone by monday. nice to see
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Here we go again … why are so many schools closed with a bit of snow about? We never had this problem when I lived in Germany! OK they expect it a bit more but this snow was expected so why don’t people make plans in advance ‘in case’ the forecasters are right?
Anyway, at least the country coming to halt won’t be caused by leaves on the roads and rails lol!!!! ;)
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I would just like to send out a “Well done and thank you” message to all the gritters etc for doing a fine job. All the roads on my commute were clear even though I use relatively minor roads.
The road outside my house is never gritted and is a good challenge to drive but it gave me an idea of what the rest of the roads would be like had it not been for the gritters.
But with all these cleared roads I do wonder why people can’t make it to school?
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Hilary, that’s because the Germans are famous for their efficiency. Here in the UK us Brits are famous for inefficiency and laziness.
Roads are fine, weathers fine…… so there was a bit of snow! So what…. go to work and get on with your lives.
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Great picture by the way….. do Ellie and Julia Gratton get a TV crew and photographers when the clean the wheels? Exciting stuff wooohoooo lol
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i live in codsall and agree with schools being closed today for safety reasons im glad i didnt have to risk trying to get my 4yr to school, gritters havnt been by us so roads are bad plus we have been able to have a brill day in snow im happy not to go to work and school im not risking having a accident to just because!!!!!!!!!!! and i have prepared for snow and im not lazy!!!!!
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yep Louise, why not close all the shops, factories etc, etc for “safety”.
It’s a good job the rest of the country doesn’t work on school teachers mentality.
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What’s wrong brian2, worried that you might have to look after your own kids for a day rather than sending them off to school for the teachers to look after them? People who work in shops here all live in town and can walk there, yet the teachers at the local school often commute from further afield, such as up in the Welsh hills where it’d be lethal to commute from.
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I set off from Oxfordshire in over a foot of snow this morning. Shropshire had barely more than a light dusting by comparison.
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typical chaos over nothing.
this is’nt snow,its more like outdoor dandruf compared to weather conditions the rest the world can function normaly in.
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With the liability of ANY accidnents being on the Headteachers is it any wonder that playgrounds like icerinks and slippery surfaces cause Schools to close. In the majority of cases many teachers cannot get in- although we all try and many make it.
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Actually Brian 2, its not the teachers who decide to close a school, its the governers.And yes a lot of it is health and safety,some primary schools have over 400 pupils, imagine all those wet shoes creating wet, slippy floors, and slippy icy playgrounds where children might fall over and hurt themselves and then parents start complaining. And then you have to take into account if school staff can get to work,( how many teachers do you know that live within walking distance of their school?) not just teachers but teaching assistants, kitchen staff, office staff etc.And then theres secondary schools where pupils have to travel in by car or bus and again the school staff who don’t live locally. So I’m suggesting the decision to close isn’t taken lightly. Anyway I’ve had a brill day building a snowman!
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Since you ask Brian2, many of us think that it would be an excellent idea to close shops and factories for the odd day.
We used to have a day like that. It was called Sunday. What’s so important that we (including shop workers and factory workers) can’t all have a day off once in a while?
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On the German theme, I currently have my German Pal staying with me amd she can believe that the media is obsessed with our ‘adverse’ condition.
She’s had no problem driving on untreated roads which has been very helpful as its too bad to cycle to the pub.
She was stunned when we got to the Burway at Church Stretton today to find it closed due to a few flakes of snow.
Just what has this once great country come to? This never happened when Margaret Thatcher was PM!!
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Louise why don’t we all just stay indoors and wrap our selves in cotton wool?
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My son, Peregrine, taught in a school in Saskatchewan, Canada. Winter temperatures were regularly down to -40C with vast amounts of snow and ice. In the four years that Peregrine taught at the school, it never closed once, save for normal school holidays.
I have noticed that none of the schools in Telford have closed due to the weather. Once again it’s all the yokels out in the sticks who give up at the first opportunity. Lazy, lazy, lazy. Perhaps the authorities were right when they announced plans to close these rural schools?
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Are the unemployed allowed a day off if it snows?
What I mean is can you miss you signing day because it snowed nd still get the dole?
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Before drawing comparisons with other countries and then remarking how useless we are at dealing with snow, think it through first.
In several other countries, winter snow is the norm. It falls and it stays, year in year out, so governments and local authorities invest in infrastructure and plant to keep things running. In addition to that, in some places it’s a legal requirement to fit snow tyres in winter and to keep snow chains in the boot.
Back home, over the last umpteen years, we’ve experienced the odd day or two of adverse snowy weather. On that basis, it makes no sense to spend tens of millions of pounds just on the off chance that a once-in-a-thirty-year cold snap might happen. Letting the country grind to a halt for 48 hours is sounder economic reasoning.
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Lucy W said:
…Just what has this once great country come to? This never happened when Margaret Thatcher was PM!!…
My recollection is that the schools might well have been closed because snow was falling though the unrepaired roofs due to Tory cuts in essential public jobs and services…
How quickly people forget!
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Andy, Ali, Chris.
Get off your backside and actually do something useful. I used to drive 140 miles daily, through barren countryside in the early eighties when we had real snow and ice. You really must try living life to the full, not giving up and crying off. I don’t have any kids but went to school in the bad winter of 1963 without any days off, walking through snow up to my waist and guess what….the teachers made it too!
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“imagine all those wet shoes creating wet, slippy floors,”
Ali, are you for real???? all those wet floors every time it rains….oh no! close the schools for 200 days a year…..really???
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Here we go again.
Teachers. Get your act together and get to work, you know ‘work’ the thing you are paid vast sums of money to do occasionally? Although with all the holidays (12 weeks or so) every weekend off, and those strange PD days?? that you can’t possibly take in the holidays you can be forgiven for forgetting you do have a job. There is nothing ‘bad’ with the roads of this fine county. Most schools do everything in their power to prevent parents parking within a mile of the school, so parents have to walk, bike or use public transport to get their kids to school, whatever the weather. You lazy bunch get to start at a nice comfortable 9.00am and have your own reserved parking spaces, so the least you can do is get out of bed and make an effort.
Bah!!
Also we have some of the largest rock salt mines in Europe, the one outside Chester is huge, all we need is to spread it about a bit, it can’t be that difficult surely? it aint rocket science after all. Still it’s nice to see all the BMW and AUDI rep-mobiles going nowhere.
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We live in very different times now.
The decision to close a school is taken usually by the head teacher, probably in consultation with other members of the school’s senior management team and the chair of governors. Headteachers are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. Any head will endeavour to open their school, but not under any circumstances.
I am not someone who appreciates some of the mad health and safety things we see day to day, but having gone for a short walk to the shop this morning and seen five cars smash into pavements and one into the back of a parked car – I think that asking our children to walk to school, with people still driving on un-gritted roads, is just daft.Every lesson counts, but so does every limb.
The key issue is the safety of the pupils, which can be affected by different factors:
1. Can they get to school? In the case of secondary schools in particular, children may have to travel many miles. If transport is impossible, they cannot get there.
2. Can they get home? It might be fine in the morning, but if severe weather is expected to prevent a return journey, the school may decide to close.
3. Is the site safe? Adjacent schools may take different views on the slippery conditions if, say, one has a very sloping site.
4. Can the staff get there? Often they live a considerable distance from where they work – although whether or not staffing levels are adequate is also a matter for local discretion, other than with very young children, for whom there are legal requirements.
Interesting to note also that if a school opens and only a third of its pupils struggle in, then the school is later criticised by OFSTED for truancy and absenteeism for the other 66%.
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Some rather potty contributions on this subject.
School were closed up and down the UK , however many were open.
Teachers I do think get it in the neck for the closures but let us be honest the teacher has not got any authority to close the school as employees they do as the head instructs so blame should be put at the feet of the head and other bodies who jointly made the decision. What should happen is all staff who fail to attend due to the weather are not paid.
The head teachers association stated that we close mainly due to the risk of being sued by parents what we should now look at how many schools have been sued, for what reasons , and were they sucessful. Then we need to look at is this a myth that schools are sued on a regular basis by parents etc or a bunch of people behaving like cowards who die a thousand deaths thinking what could happen but actualy never does.
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Brian2 I was up ready to go work on Wednesday – in a school – when I was informed it wasn’t opening. As for the wet floors : snow coats shoes more than rain and when it melts it makes more puddles on the floor than rain. And I do get off my backside and live life to the full I’m out in all weathers either walking the dogs or fell running
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with a days light snow tomorrow and an horrendous dump of snow forcast for tuesday night/ wednesday i suspect many schools will be closed for a further week. the best thing the exam boards can do is to cancel all examinations nationwide from monday onwards.
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Ali, the funny thing is that even when I was at school we were wearing wet shoes and wellies and we also walked to school in those days, no closures though, have you not heard of a mop and bucket and maybe a cleaner or two?
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