Headteacher’s blog March 2nd 2018

It’s a tricky decision for head teachers deciding whether or not to keep a school open in bad weather. Early morning is a stressful time: trying to get to school earlier to assess roads and site, communicating with staff to work out how many can reasonably get in and estimating likely attendance rates. Thursday was marginal but things worked out well with just over 50% attendance and at least one class teacher (and support staff) in every year group from Reception to Y6 and fantastic Nursery Officers in Nursery. Some teachers reported that they got some really good focused time with children working on personal targets: it certainly wasn’t a wasted day! I am very grateful to those staff that were able to get in (and fully understand that others couldn’t). Some were very local but others had long walks or showed initiative and commitment by staying with friends locally overnight. Thank you for the very positive feedback that we have had from parents. I can’t guarantee that we will never close but you know that if we do, it will be a last resort.

One last thought about this: we were one of only a handful of schools (less than 10 out of 300 in Leeds) that remained open. It is worth noting that one of the reasons we were able to stay open is that so many others closed so the roads were almost deserted. If all schools had tried to stay open it may have been very different.