Some of my earliest memories of snow days as a teacher were when the pipes of my rented accommodation froze and I had to walk to friends’ houses to bathe - and take in a rented video while I was there. Such occasions were great for staff bonding, recharging batteries and catching up on the odd bit of marking. I considered them well spent and I returned to school refreshed.

Fast forward to the beginning of March 2018.

The arrival of Storm Emma and the “Beast from the East” last week gave thousands of pupils and teachers snow days off. The only cascade going on is on all the regional news programmes full of children cascading down white hillsides. For them, nothing has changed. Some even have the blessing of their headteachers and instructions (a little tongue-in-cheek) to complete a checklist of snow-based activities, some with their parents.

For teachers, these mornings are anxious. They hang on the internet or by the TV to see whether the conditions will allow them to set forth on their usual journey. For some, hovering at the door, car keys in hand, it’s a relief to hear the “school closed” announcement: the best icy roads are the ones not taken.

Poetic license 

When the snowy weather is not so immediately forthcoming, but the forecast for later is threatening, indecision lingers. As TS Eliot so aptly puts it in The Hollow Men:

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the Shadow. 

It’s a very difficult grey area for senior leaders, who are criticised by working parents who have to make alternative arrangements if they do close the school, or are criticised by others for keeping the school open and leaving staff and pupils to find their way in, perhaps at personal risk.

Understandably, headteachers don’t want to jump the gun. I remember clearly one occasion in the 1980s when our headteacher, receiving a forecast of imminent heavy snow, shut the school at lunchtime, giving his grateful staff the afternoon off. Tesco was nice and empty as I and a colleague stocked up on food. No snow fell and there was much hilarity - until the next morning, when a world of white stuff, many inches thick, indicated that, though a little premature, our headteacher’s decision had been the right one.

A couple of years later, there was a thick covering on the ground but no announcement of closure, so dutifully I set off with colleagues in one car - only to arrive at the school gates to be waved away again by a smiling deputy headteacher. Luckily the snow was quite wet and not so difficult to get through, but it would have been good to have been saved the journey.

Some staff make very long and arduous journeys through the snow to find the school open and then more or less immediately closed, as few children turn up and the weather is taking a turn for the worse. It’s considered best for the safety of all to send everyone home.

Snow and school leaders 

This year the “shadow” was cast over Thursday morning, with dire forecasts of heavy snow and high winds. Some of our staff were already badly affected and unable to get in. For others, the snow held off until three o’clock. Students who came in were taught via a skeleton timetable. Parents were encouraged not to send their children in if it would be impossible for them to get home. This was the best compromise.

By next morning, the snow had set into icy patches, which permitted no opening of most schools. Snow and high winds had done their worst, but the deciding factor was the ice on roads and pavements. Everyone could stay at home. I could catch up on my marking, research my lessons on John Keats by watching Bright Star (a birthday present from my husband) and keep warm and safe.

No doubt there will be critics who, by some mathematical formula, will calculate incalculable damage to children’s education. But in England snow storms on this scale happen rarely. They are fun, beautiful - and treacherous. They remind us that there are always factors outside our control, which cannot be measured - and decisions have to be made that are only perfect if all turns out well in the end. And I am left trying to put into practice the Keatsian idea of negative capability in recognising the coexistence of all possibilities and the important discomfort of doubt. 

Yvonne Williams is head of English in a school in the south of England

Want to keep up with the latest education news and opinion? Follow Tes on Twitter and like Tes on Facebook