School Closures
Snow Closure Procedure
School closure in the event of serious snowfall
In the event of this happening I would like to make parents aware of the following:
If a heavy snowfall occurs during the night, a decision to close for the day will be made as soon as possible and I would aim to have reached that decision by 7am.
Once that decision has been taken we will post the outcome on the school’s website and social media. We will also be notifying the local commercial radio stations.
In taking this decision I have to weigh up a number of factors which include the safety of students and staff travelling to and from the school as well as our ability to clear the paths around the school. Clearly the first of these is heavily dependent on the treatment of the public road surfaces and the distances a number of teaching staff in particular have to travel each morning. The latter is dependent on the depth of snow and whether our site team feel confident that they can clear the paths sufficiently to ensure the safety of those on site.
If a heavy snowfall occurs during the day, it may be prudent to close the school early in order to ensure that students can reach their homes safely. If we take this decision we will e-mail you and post the decision to close on the website. Once this has been done we will ask students to text parents to make them aware and/or arrange their collection. I would ask that if parents believe that we should be making this decision that they contact the school in the first instance and not their children. If you are contacted directly by your son/daughter in these circumstances before we have made and announced a decision requesting collection from school, please make them aware that you are awaiting a decision by the school and that they need to wait until told by a teacher that the decision to close early has been taken.
The sole exception to the above applies to students who are taking external examinations.
We will do everything we can to ensure that these can be sat as planned and students should make their way to school providing it is considered safe to do so.