Don’t blame headteachers for school closures in snow (From Gazette)

Don’t blame headteachers for school closures in snow

11:25am Wednesday 8th February 2012 in Letters

I am heartily sick and tired of the criticism in the Gazette levelled at Essex schools closing during spells of bad weather.

Headteachers are forced to make decisions regarding the safety of pupils, staff and parents, together with local communities, with very little notice when the winter weather is at its worst. The decision to close a school is always the last resort.

We live in an age of increasing litigation, indeed some organisations positively encourage one to claim for injury/accident.

Other factors are often a key reason to close a school. Some buildings are Victorian and heating systems become vulnerable in severe conditions. Staff no longer live in the immediate vicinity of a school, travelling in some cases many miles to their workplace.

Car parks for staff can be treacherous if the caretakers are unable to clear them in time for the working day, thus forcing staff to park on local roads, which inevitably upsets local residents – they just can’t win can they?

The secondary schools criticised (Gazette, February 7) are not local catchment schools, but have a pupil base from all over the town and beyond, the site dealing with many hundreds of children each day.

Their safety is paramount.

It is ridiculous to suggest working parents need to take a day off work to supervise secondary school pupils.

It seems acceptable to damn schools for being over-cautious, but when incidents occur the barrage of abuse is enormous.

Why is it so prevalent nowadays to put our children at the bottom of the list? They are the doctors, nurses, carers etc of the future and we should all place the care and safety of them firmly First.

My youngest child was delivered to her primary school after a dreadful journey to find that, yet again, the road where the school is located had not been gritted and resembled Richmond Ice Rink – extremely dangerous when more than 200 pupils are arriving in a time slot of 15 minutes.

Residents and school staff do their best, but are not equipped with anything other than a wheelbarrow and a shovel. Upon speaking to Essex County Council, yet again, we are told this road is not a priority – well, it is for me!

Tuesday’s Gazette Comment was full of tired old generalisations. Was it deliberately designed to irritate and anger headteachers?

Shame on you.

Lesley Gladwell
Wormingford

...While accepting driving conditions on Sunday were difficult, I was slightly surprised and disappointed by the decision of Network Colchester to cancel all services that day.

If First Buses was able to run a good service, why was this not possible for Network Colchester? This is, after all, a public service supported by Essex County Council.

When I inquired by telephone on Monday, I was told by the manager his drivers had refused to take out their buses.

In addition, the company failed to alter the electronic boards, so passengers were left waiting for a bus which was scheduled to arrive but which had been cancelled.

Verdict: Could have done better.

Edward Ross
Hamilton Road
Colchester