Bexhill heads defend closure

The decision to shut Bexhill High and tell 1,600 pupils to stay at home was made by principal Mike Conn at 7am on Tuesday morning.

The school was open on Monday because there was sufficient staff cover to cope with the amount of youngsters in attendance but even so they were allowed to go home from 2.30pm that afternoon as heavy snow continued to fall.

"We had to change the curriculum because I only had a third of the staff in on Monday - but we managed to get through the day," said Mr Conn.

Weather conditions deteriorated steadily throughout the evening and he decided to close on Tuesday with an announcement on the website at 7.15am.

Mr Conn commented: "The decision was made at 7am. I drove from Hastings to here and the conditions were extremely icy - and that was in the warmest part of our area - but large numbers of staff were unable to travel because of ice surrounding the areas where they live."

Bexhill High was therefore closed for all of Tuesday and opened for business as usual on Wednesday morning.

Mr Conn added: "My reputation is sound on this - I do not close the school - but it would have been tremendously difficult to open the school with so few adults to supervise children. The reason staff couldn't get in was simply that they were stranded.

"You have to make a decision, and you are stuck with that decision, and you have to live with it.

"As it happened the weather improved tremendously. I could have opened at 10am but there still would have been limited travel.

"As it is we lost a day - which is a day too many for me - but I have to operate the school safely and effectively and with a sufficient adult to youngster ratio. I could not guarantee safe adult supervision in the school to justify it being open.

"Some people had struggled in, but I couldn't guarantee the right number so the decision needed to be taken."

St Richard's Catholic College meanwhile shut early on Monday but was open to students the next morning.

Acting Principal Doreen Cronin said: "Unfortunately, St Richard's Catholic College had to close on Monday due to the adverse weather conditions which meant public transport was badly affected (no trains or buses) and a large number of staff and pupils were unable to travel.

"Forty local staff came in for half a day to be available should children turn up and to answer telephones queries.

"Tuesday, we were able to re-open as public transport informed me at 6.00am that they would be running services.

"Over 650 pupils and staff (1016 pupils on roll) were able to get in with the remainder experiencing public transport difficulties in the Hastings, Eastbourne and Polegate areas.

"We began the day with Mass for the whole school community bar Year 10 who had speakers in their PSE lessons. All lessons were then able to continue as normal. The pupils looked tired but as Max Winchester commented, "We were out sledging etc all day yesterday."