28 January 2026
Dear parent carers,
With further weather warnings still in place for later this week, and the prospect of a stormy winter still to come, we have been reviewing our processes for both partial closures, such as was necessary yesterday morning, but also for the possibility that worsening weather conditions during a school day could force an early closure after all of the children and staff are already on site.
In the event of such a closure, we can only allow children to leave school to make their own way home before 3:30pm if we have prior consent from parents. If you would like to give this consent, please complete this MS Form, linked here: Consent Form
As you can imagine, when making a closure decision due to adverse weather we consider current weather conditions, the Met office forecasts, Met office weather warnings, Environment Agency flood alerts and Highways road closure notifications as well as information from Somerset School Transport. We would expect to give parents a minimum of 30 minutes notice of our intention to close early. All children would return to their form groups, and their tutor would allow those with prior consent to then safely leave site.
Children without prior consent would be taken care of in school until the usual 3:30pm finish time.
If you prefer not to give prior consent, and we are forced to close early, we will attempt to telephone you after the closure time to discuss arrangements. Please note that we would make every effort to contact you but are unlikely to have any capacity to answer the telephone to incoming calls. Please also note that we will not be able to use messages sent to your child’s mobile phone as evidence of parental consent.
In the event of an early closure, staff will also be needing to leave site safely and in a timely manner. We therefore do not revert to a remote learning arrangement for the remainder of that school day.
If your child uses a Somerset School Transport service and that service is affected by adverse weather, Somerset Council contacts those parents directly.
We hope that there is no further need for partial closures or early closures. However, managing the unexpected exit of 1,300 children from school must be planned carefully if it is to be undertaken in a safe and orderly manner, so thank you for giving this your consideration and completing the consent form if you feel able. Please do contact us on info@mwa.clf.uk with any queries or concerns.
With thanks, as always, for your continuing support.
Mrs H Jones
Principal
