YAKUB QURESHI
A COUNCIL boss has called on teachers to make up lessons lost during the Big Freeze by opening at weekends.
Sir Richard Leese suggested primary and secondary schools could run Saturday and Sunday sessions to make up for lost time.
The Manchester council leader last week slammed city schools for failing open during the Arctic freeze, arguing staff in other council departments had managed to attend work despite blizzard condition.
Now, Sir Richard, an ex-maths teacher, has called upon headteachers to ensure children make up missed subjects.
Writing on his blog on Tuesday, the council leader said: “Why can't schools open up on a few weekends so that the pupils can get the lessons they've missed?”
His message on the council's website attracted angry reaction from teachers, who furiously deny the snow had been an excuse to extend their holiday break.
Harry Spooner, from Manchester teaching union NASUWT, said headteachers only concern had been the safety of students and staff during Manchester's worst winter for 30 years.
He said: “How can Sir Richard expect children and staff to get to school when fully grown men in modern bin trucks can't even get up and down our streets.”
Another teacher wrote wrote: “You've lost my vote big time. Now I know why you're not still in teaching.”
But the council leader said he was simply pointing out that other departments – including waste refuge collectors – had worked irregular hours to cope with the weather problems.
Speaking to the MEN, he said: “The context of the discussion was that bin collectors had rescheduled their collections for the weekend.
“I wasn't stating an opinion but merely asking a question about what schools could do to make up for lost time. Some pupils have missed four days of education. I do believe headteachers should be thinking about how to make this up. A lot of our pupils can ill-afford to to miss out on this crucial time.”
His comments have fuelled resentment from teachers and follow a leaked memo to Labour councillors last week, in which he labelled many closures around the city 'unnecessary'.
Almost all of Manchester's 169 primary and secondary schools were closed on Tuesday last week, when the record snowfall began.
The MEN carried a number of stories of teachers joining forces with local residents and parents to battle deep snow, frozen pipes and broken boilers to re-open their buildings.
However, schools in a number of areas were unable to open until this week. All schools in Manchester are now back to normal.
Concerns about missing lessons were heightened because many secondary school students were beginning early tests for GCSE and A-level.
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I work Monday to Friday, I have no choice because I have a mortgage to pay and while the children being off school was frustrating, I managed. When am I supposed to have quality time with them if they have to go to school at the weekend? They also have to spend time with their dad who decided he wanted to start a family with someone else, so I have precious little time with them as it is. The provision for extra tutoring for those coming up to exams....well maybe but it should be voluntary, but primary school children? What I would like someone to explain to me - is why day after day this pathetic excuse for a council leader receives nothing but negative comments via this website, but is still in post? I will put money on him remaining in post after the next election too. Please, please get rid of him, he is ruining a city that I used to be very proud of.
Did the bin men work for free at the weekends? I suspect not.
hahahaha! oh sir richard! why are you still here! do the decent thing that you originally promised over a year ago and stand down.
continuing on like this and coming out with idiotic comments just makes you look even more stupid than we already think you are!
Mr Leese,stop meddling please...This has now become an ongoing public display of mistrust,on your part,in the Teaching Community's ability to do the right thing by their pupils.We,as parents,know and trust our local teachers implicitly,and I suggest you do the same.
I was at a function a couple of weeks ago which Dickie attended. He was pointed out to me and I said in a voice which he could not but have overheard "oh yes, isn't he the one who promised he'd resign if the congestion charge got rejected?"
What an honourable man, and so in touch with the electorate...
and im still waiting for the MEN to finially report on how much leese says one thing and then goes and does the complete opposite.
its time they stopped supporting and protecting this man and started a campaign to get him out of office!
to do so would be the greatest thing this paper will have ever done for every single person in manchester!
This is a joke, safety was the main issue why schools closed. Over a school year the amount of work lost will be made up by the schools I have no doubt.
As for the bins being rescheduled we are still waiting for ours to be done
Let the schools do what is best for the kids
Facebook group started
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=248052806145#/group.php?gid=248052806145
And will Mr Leease also be working at weekends and open the Coucil up and make them earn their wages etc for once.
Weekends and holidays are FAMILY TIME NOT learning time;why doesn't Leese realise that?
the councils are to blame for it anyways not clearing ice/snow from footpaths and roads, this guy is an idiot get rid!!!!
Here's Leese once again completely out of tune and step with the people of this once fine city.
Leese meddles again! How unusual...not! I'd stick to sorting out a shoddy job you and your council are doing, and stop sticking your nose in where it's not wanted.
This man needs to learn to live in the real world!! If he and concentrated more on what the council were doing to get the roads gritted and getting people moving his time would have been better spent.
Come back down to earth Leese.
could the MEN change the current poll.
instead can we have the question...
Should richard leese quit?
and the binmen will be working weekends as well to catch up? I THINK NOT.
Sir Richard is safe in his seat because he was re-elected last year and has three more years to serve in his Crumpsall seat. I doubt though that many Labour candidates for this years' Council seats will be putting their leader's face on their election leaflets!!
Strange how i just clicked no on the poll for this article and the percentage for yes went up 1%. Is something dodgy going on here MEN ? !!!.
No school is going to dictate any member of my family's weekend agenda.
Why are teachers special cases. Non of them have to make up the lost time by taking annual leave. I missed one day last week and had to take a days leave (fair enough I accept that), teachers don't. How ironic it is too, you try taking a kid out of school for a holiday and teh education authorities and head teachers hold a bloddy inquest, yet last week they can't be bothered to turn in! I am sick and tired of these highly paid public enmployees. Other public sector staff get crtitised yet these lot seem immune.
You cannot get kids in the schools in a normal week so what chance have you got over weekends after a friday night out on the lash,once again the people in charge are well out of touch how young people behave in this day and age.you only have to walk past a few youngsters on the corners to find that quite a lot of them are of school age bottles of white lightening in hand.
Are children not entitled to days off then? We're all aware of child labour in the thrid world but here's a council boss suggesting the children of Manchester should do a 7 day week? Why does this man continue to sit in his throne and who keeps him there?
At our school we actually spread the hours out unevenly over the week, more hours on Monday = less hours on Friday, so when the pupils are flagging by the end of the week (same as adults at work), they get a really short day, and they need it. To suggest them giving up some weekend mornings of catching up on valuable teenage sleep, and it's been scientifically proven they need more sleep in their early teens, is unacceptable and potentially harmful to their wellbeing.
For an ex-teacher he seems to have completely forgotten the needs of teens, and as for getting toddlers up and out to school at the weekend, well that's just cruel.
@ Jay B, oldham ...
I second your suggestion to change the poll to ask readers whether they feel Leese should quit. I'm sure the results would be very interesting.
What I find fascinating about Leese over the recent period is his willingness to comment and criticise - which, I concede, is a talent that many of us here are (over) familiar with. Yet, how many people actually saw Leese out and about *doing something* to help in the last few weeks? Anyone?
Perhaps I'm unfamiliar with his actual physical contributions to help clear snow pavements etc, but it does beg the question: what is leadership in the face of adversity?
If you apply to the council to have an outdoor event, some bod with a clipboard will come round and tell you why you can't have it. If you have to go up a ladder outside your own home they say you need somebody to hold it who has training.
Meanwhile the city centre pavements were like and ice rink and they won't grit it. So no worries for you so slide all over the place.
A mate of mine's wife works with a bloke in the south and he slipped on the ice on the path into work and broke his neck. His employer didn't clear the ice as if they touched it they would be negligible if somebody slipped, so they did't and Carl has a broken neck.
Silly.
I don't live in the area, only work in Salford so I have no direct experience of Mr Leese but my goodness, this man is certainly not out to win any popularity contests is he? I know politicians have difficult choices to make that aren't popular but from the stories I have read on here, he has an uncanny ability to always find just the wrong thing to say and manges to displease most of the people, most of the time!
Ace Riley: Maybe you let your kids out on a Friday night on the lash-but I and the majority don't. Therefore letting kids go to school at the weekends should not really be a problem.