Snow, School Closures and Childcare Problems

Emergency childcare is essential to many working parents, and Tinies Childcare offer an invaluable Emergency Childcare service to help cope with those stressful times when your provider lets you down.

Snow affects us all

But when a situation affects the country as a whole, that's when the real difficulties set in. 'Emergency' childcarers get stuck just the same as everyone else. It's a tricky dilemma and this week has seen thousands of parents simply having to take a day off sick or as paid holiday to stay at home with their children.

I was really enraged to hear a headmaster quote on television that parents were simply put out by school closures because it meant they had lost a 'free babysitter'! If that's how he views education I'm extremely glad he's not my children's head teacher!

School closures

The recent school closures caused an inordinate amount of disruption to the country, with industry feeling the impact and although the majority of these closures were necessary for the safety of children, parents and staff, there were plenty of head teachers who could have opened their doors and didn't. (I bet he was one of them).

My children's school closed on Friday at 10:30am and was open as normal on Monday, yet the neighbouring school, one mile down the road decided to close. What are we supposed to make of that? It makes absolutely no sense and even seems quite arbitrary to me.

Snow new thing

As it's snowed now for the last six consecutive winters, it's fairly safe to conclude that we are going to experience severe weather like this in winters to come. That being the case surely there has to be a better way of dealing with it year-in year-out, with perhaps a penalty, or warning of some kind for schools that close unnecessarily?

In the meantime, in all our other times of crisis, thank goodness we have Tinies out there to help us in our hour of need!

Jayne, Working Mum and Freelance Editor