A first time for everything ...


I think today is the first time in my life I'm aware of a school trip being cancelled because the weather was too hot. Certainly the first time since we've lived in Cumbria.

My children were due to climb Skiddaw mountain today, but their teachers looked at the risk assessment and decided that today's weather is just too warm to make this a good idea for year 7 children. (That's the first form, e.g. 11 and 12 year olds, for people of my generation and older who don't have a direct connection with educational language as it is used today.)

I can't blame the teachers or the school, it is exceptionally warm today in Cumbria and there really would have been some risk of heat exhaustion on the mountain. If a few children became ill in consequence, in today's Health and Safety climate the school would never hear the end of it. But I'm sure my parents' generation of the family, which included several teachers, would fall about laughing. Perhaps somewhere they are.

The forecast is milder tomorrow and the school is hoping to try again.

Comments

Jim said…
I can see why the elf and safety police would have insisted that a trip of that sort was cancelled for 1st year kids (I refuse to use todays term, as even when i was at secondary school it was 1st year to 5th year, followed by 6th form.

Though it does make me laugh how quick they are to close schools these days in bad weather, it only a matter of time before they close as its too hot :)
5:43 pm
Chris Whiteside said…
That's exactly the point I was making

Four months ago a high proportion of the schools in Cumbria were closed because of snow, in most cases this was justified but I think one or two were a bit too quick to give up. Now we have trips cancelled because of heat.
12:05 am
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