Snow is a cause of immense havoc in the life of a BRGS student. Inevitably, school often likes to close easily as BRGS likes to take advantage of the fact it is built on a hill and plays the ‘icy hills are dangerous card’.
In the 2017/18 school year we got almost a full week off! With Tuesday off, then Wednesday deciding we should go in, only for it to be a half day (one teacher was quoted saying “It won't be a snow day. Stop looking out of the window. In the 14 years I have taught here it has only been a half snow day twice.” then denied she had ever said this the next lesson) and then BRGS kindly gave us the rest of the week off.
Recently, SLT have become more stubborn to giving into the snow (in Mr Porteous' own words when being asked why school wasn't closed in what could have been the British equivalent of a blizzard, “we need to be more resilient!”) by lunchtime however, when the whole valley has frozen over, students will be sent home, often on foot as all the buses stop running.
On one rare instance the 19/20 school year didn't have any snow days at all, a strong reason why we need to do more to prevent climate change.
Students who live a far way from school often dread half snow days as they then can't get home via bus as they kindly decide to cancel the bus service without telling students, and then have to wait up to 5 hours for a lift as parents can't get over the tops, whilst listening to the SLT staff who remain at school talk about sailing for the whole afternoon.