It snowed! Brum shuts down!

With an alacrity unknown elsewhere in the Universe, the school system goes into freefall in a sympathy action with the snowfall. Shut the schools, they screech. Let's add to the economic woes by causing more days off work. Educate by example. Show the children how you can really mess up an economy.

As with last year, Birmingham City Council along with my local council, Solihull "Metropolitan" Borough Council, have decided all schools will shut today, Tuesday. They will help the country lose over £1 BILLION pounds in lost production just today.

I can quite easily walk to school right now. In fact better than yesterday. However, the perceived wisdom, or insanity actually, is that it is unsafe to go to school. It is, on the other hand perfectly safe for children to be let out of school to wander the streets "having fun".

Yesterday lunchtime I was alerted to the fact that children were "being let go early" by a neighbour's child knocking on the door. We were not told formally by the school. I decided not to break with my routine and our son was picked up normally. Had he been in lessons? No, he had been watching a film, because there were only three of them left. I really feel the education establishment should get a grip and realise that snow is not a blanket problem. Our school is not a village school. I can readily understand that if a school is cut off by drifting snow, it would be ridiculous to attempt to push on regardless. But this is just hands up we can't cope stuff.

To the education chiefs of Birmingham and Solihull et al. You really are the least likely to get us out of this economic mess. We need people with brains in their heads not in their........!!!