The Death of the Snow Day

As Hurricane Eunice makes her way across the United Kingdom, bringing with her winds exceeding 90mph, red warnings have been put in place to ensure that people remain safe and sound. One of the first things to be announced was the closing of schools. However, with online learning now being a norm after the Coronavirus Pandemic, allowing lessons to go on almost as normal, can we kiss goodbye to the good old-fashioned closure day? Are Snow Days now a thing of the past? The team at Loop reflect on this from the safety of their own homes on such a day.

I think that the best closure day was one of the snow days during a day on junior school where my family and I went outside and mad a giant snowball and through it against our house and it just stuck there on the side of our house for the entire day, it was hilarious, I do think that days like this will happen due to temperature changes recently during winter.

If the majority of schools chose to opt for online learning, I definitely believe snow days will be no longer, since resources will continue to become more and more accessible for children at home. I think it’s a shame that it is likely that in the future, kids won’t be able to explore winter conditions such as snow, and have a mini-break from school as one day wouldn’t be detrimental

With climate change it’s likely that the intensity of weather, such as the storm today, will become more common meaning days out of school will be normalised. That doesn’t mean however that these ‘weather days’ or ‘snow days’ will return to their original fun-filled state as the growth of accessibility and online learning resources over the pandemic continue to be prevalent.

The emergence of online learning during the pandemic has made it increasingly easier for us to learn wherever and whenever, ultimately causing the death of snow days. The fact that it is now so easy to just start an online lesson, makes its upsetting that the children of the future won't be able to experience the same euphoric feelings we had when you woke up and saw snow outside, and were told by your mum while eating a bowl of cereal that you had a snow day, but with the opportunity of more extreme weather in the future due to climate change, it will be better for peoples learning, to be able to continue with their learning at home.

Snow Days used to be a rare phenomenon resulting in a surprise day off from school brimming with delight for children. Although the ‘snow’ part is just as rare, the fun day is now lost altogether. Since the pandemic, home learning has been fairly successfully generated and refined across the nation making remote learning as accessible and practical as ever. This technological advancement has however killed off the snow day, killed off that rare and random peek of fun in the school year and only fuels the working-to-death-without-rest mindset society has us gripped in.

I miss the excitement I used to get with knowing that when it snowed overnight, I’d be able to have the day off school and go sledding with my friends, play in the snow, build a snowman. Although our childhood enabled us to do that, I feel sorry for the younger children who now can only do online learning and will never get to experience snow days that we had. It brings a nostalgia to think back on all the good memories I had, specifically at Victoria Country Park with my friends where we’d push each other down the big hills and laugh as we watched each other fall off the sledges.