Wednesday, 23 January 2013

A snowy day....

It was a difficult day in school today. The snow around the school wasn't particularly bad this morning, but did get worse towards the end of the day. It became clear early on that the snow had hit pockets of Swansea and beyond. Whilst some pupils and staff found it relatively easy to get in, others found it more difficult.

When making a decision about whether to open the school, the most important consideration is that of health and safety. This is where we have to evaluate the impact of snow on the school, it's surroundings and also whether we can provide adequate staff coverage. Every effort is made to ensure the final decision is communicated to all concerned as soon as possible but because of the complexity of this, it sometimes takes a little while.

The pupils that did manage to attend school today had a normal timetable (and some great snowball fights) as we attempted to operate as normal. We will always try to stay open as long as it it safe to do so. Learning time is important!

Once again, yet another aspect of school life demonstrated how important technology is as we ensured that the messages about the school were communicated to all concerned. The school website (bishopgore.net) had a banner headline stating the the school was open and we used our Twitter account (@bishopgore) to give regular updates. This seemed to work well.

Finally, thank you to the pupils who attended and who responded in such a positive way and to the staff who, in many cases, had to struggle through significant snowfall to get in to school.



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