Emergency Closure

The Closure of one or all of our schools is a rare event. The last closure of the school due to snow was in January 1991, when we closed for two days, and prior to that in December 1981, when we closed for the last 2 days of term. It is important that we anticipate the possibility that the School will need to close due to adverse weather conditions. Although heavy snowfalls are less frequent today than in the past they do occur. Equally, the senior Boys’ School lies on the edge of the Flood Plain, and the surrounding roads can become impassable due to flood waters. These notes are to provide guidance for School staff and Families whose children attend one or more of our schools. In the notes that follow, the use of the word School could be just one of our school sites or more than one dependent upon the reasons for closure. Ultimately, however, it is for parents to decide if children should leave home for school in bad weather even if the school is to open. If you are not going to be home during the day your children should know where they should go if the school has to close.
The school will remain a place of safety for those children who arrive at school and have no way of going home or to another family home.
Many years we escape bad weather with little disruption but the recent events have reminded us to be prepared in case.

The main criteria for closing the School are:

The Health and Safety risk of

• Expecting staff and pupils to travel to School or stay at School.
• The inability of the School to function due to significant travel disruption.

Closing the School during Session Time

Closing the School once it is in session is more problematical than at any other time. The issue here is getting the pupils home and ensuring a parent/carer is there to receive them. It will be a judgement call in assessing the two areas of risk – keeping them in School and being certain they will be able to get home safely –especially if travelling by bus – or sending them home to a potentially empty residence. If the decision is the latter we will provide every opportunity for pupils to make contact with their parents/carers so that they are informed of our decision. In the case of younger children, we will make direct contact with their parents/carers. The more practical issue will be ensuring buses are available to take pupils home at an earlier than contracted time. Consequently, we will need to keep in constant contact with local weather reports so that an accurate and early assessment can be made. In addition, we will contact local radio stations to inform our parents of any decision to close.

Closing the School before Normal Session Time

Once again it is important to make an early announcement in order to minimise any potential travel risk. The School must be mindful that many staff travel a considerable distance to School each day and that many pupils live in small town and villages, where the roads can be very dangerous due to low levels of gritting and snow clearance. The Schools’ Executive Management Team will make an early assessment of any poor weather situation and inform local radio stations (Star FM, Swan FM and Radio Berkshire). We will try to leave a message on our answer machine facility on each of the three schools sites to inform callers of the situation. We will use the same channels of communication to inform staff and pupils/parents when the School will be re-opening.

Further procedures that may be introduced should closure become a regular threat

Whenever the school is closing or will not open for the day we will attempt to contact parents by means of volunteer parents who have agreed to relay the message to others on a contact list. For this system to operate we need to have prepared up-to-date information about telephone numbers and who we can contact if parents cannot be obtained. For the rest of this academic year (2004), these lists are now being prepared on a form by form basis. This process, assisted no doubt by informal spread of information, has worked well in the past both getting children home and preventing them arriving at a closed school.

Procedure for Staff

Each School Head will inform their Heads of Department/Section about the closure of the School on any particular day. Heads of Department/Section will take responsibility for the cascade of information with regards to School closure to their teaching and support colleagues. The Bursar will manage a similar cascade for the cascade of information for all other types of support staff. It is important that each contact person has up to date phone numbers for their list of staff to contact.