Schools and severe weather: Frequently asked questions
- Is DCSF encouraging headteachers to take unnecessary risks with
pupil safety?
No. DCSF wants headteachers, who are very good at managing risk, to continue making sensible decisions. It wants parents to feel reassured that schools will stay open where risks of less supervision, late journeys home, or minor bumps are less than the disruption to pupil learning; and that they will only close where there are serious risks. - Could pupils get stuck at school?
It's unlikely. Even if it happens, as long as schools can keep parents informed, pupils getting home late is unlikely to cause more than minor inconvenience. - What if school staff can't get to work?
It is recognised that headteachers might have fewer staff to supervise pupils on days of bad weather. Schools should plan for how, if they have fewer staff available in the short term, they will continue to supervise pupils and deliver as much of the curriculum as possible. - What if traffic organisations recommend only essential
travel?
In the Department's view, essential travel includes pupils going to school to keep learning, and school staff going to work. DCSF is confident that headteachers and parents will support this. - Is the Department telling local authorities (LAs) not to issue
LA-wide closure advice?
The Department recommends delegating as far as possible any advice on whether an individual school stays open in bad weather. It is clear that the LA makes the judgement on the day about delegating any advice or decision to schools. LAs may however take decisions with respect to community and voluntary controlled schools if they wish to adopt a consistent approach across an area; it is hoped that they would only use their powers in this respect in exceptional circumstances which would on a case-by-case basis justify the closure of almost all schools in the area. LAs do not have the power to oblige foundation or voluntary-aided schools or academies to close, but may come to an agreement with the governing bodies of those schools that they will follow LA advice in the event of the blanket closure of community and voluntary-controlled schools. - Should schools and LAs take decisions in advance, based on Met
Office advice, or wait and see conditions in the morning?
When considering the point at which to make a decision about closure, schools and LAs will want to balance the benefits of an early decision (parents having time to plan childcare, avoiding wasted journeys) against the risk of closing schools and finding next day that there is no problem. If forecasts make it very likely that a school will not be able to open the next day then a decision the previous afternoon may be appropriate. - If our school is open, but some pupils cannot get into school
because of severe disruption to school buses, public transport or parents being
unwilling to risk driving on icy roads, do we have to record those pupils as
'absent'?
If the school is open, then if some of a school's pupils whose home is not within walking distance of the school get to school by transport that is provided by the school or a local education authority, and that transport is not available because of adverse weather conditions, then if the school stays open, those pupils should be marked using code Y (Forced and Partial Closure). Code Y does not count as absence in the statistics. All other children should be expected to attend and should be recorded as present/absent as normal. It is down to headteachers to make professional and common-sense judgements about marking children as authorized or unauthorised absences during very severe weather. If a school which remained opened is satisfied that the reason a child could not get to school was because of the adverse weather then that absence should be authorised; if a school judges the child could have made it to school, than that absence should be unauthorised. The data do not enable DCSF to alter the formula in any way that would isolate the absences due to inclement weather, or even for the days concerned. The only available data is for total numbers of absences for each term and particular days (or even weeks) cannot be isolated. This does mean that the absence percentage for a school that stays open may be higher than if it had closed if significant numbers of pupils are unable to attend. However, the main focus is on persistent absence (which is defined as missing 20 per cent or more of possible sessions). It is unlikely that persistent absence would be significantly affected by short periods of adverse weather. Moreover when looking at attendance, Ofsted inspectors look at trends over time. When looking at registers, if there appear to be specific days or periods of time when there is high absence inspectors will discuss with the school the reasons for it. Similarly the National Strategies will take account of such circumstances in their support and challenge work on persistent absence with LAs and schools.
Last updated: 17 February 2009
