Trinity Beats The Big Freeze (From Croydon Guardian)

Trinity Beats The Big Freeze

8:34am Tuesday 12th January 2010 in

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by Community Correspondent James Connor

Whilst thousands of pupils enjoyed their ‘snow day’ away from school, hardy pupils braved the adverse weather conditions to reach the warmth of their classroom.

Trinity School in Shirley was one of only a handful of schools in the county to remain open throughout the big freeze.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning hundreds of the school's parents and pupils tried to log onto the school website in anticipation of the school being closed. However, after consultations with other schools and Croydon Council, a decision was quickly made by Deputy Headmaster Joe McKee, to open the school to minimise “disruption to the pupils’ education”.

Mr McKee said: "Our first concern when we have severe weather is always with the safety of pupils and staff. In addition, we have to think about the disruption to the pupils' education if whole days are lost.

"We always try to avoid closing the school if we possibly can and fortunately, during this most recent bad weather the roads and public transport have been working well enough to allow the vast majority of pupils and staff to travel to and from Trinity safely.

"We have, however, been flexible with parents and boys who have longer or more hazardous journeys home.”

Hundreds of pupils managed to reach the school in time for their first lessons. However, as snow began to fall heavily on Wednesday afternoon, a decision was swiftly made to allow boys to leave at lunchtime to ensure they got home safely before conditions deteriorated further.