It is very rare that severe weather or another emergency situation will affect our ability to operate as a school, and any decision that is made to close the school will be based on the best information that we have available to us. However, in extreme circumstances, it may be necessary to close the school to some or all year groups in order to safeguard students and staff. Reasons for taking this decision may be due to student safety on the school site or the inability of parents, students or staff to access the school site.

In these circumstances, the school may take one of the following decisions:

A decision to close the school before students attend morning registration

We will aim to give you as much notice as possible and will email and send a push notification to you. Any school closure will appear on the school website as soon as a decision has been made.

If we decide that it is impossible to safeguard all students on site, we may decide to only open for some year groups. In the future, this may be prudent when students in Year 11 are working towards taking their external examinations.

Please do not ring the school to ask if we are open.

If there is no closure message on the school website, then we are open as normal.

A decision to close the school during the school day

If weather conditions deteriorate during the school day and there is a need for early closure, we will send you an email and push notification and will also place this information on the NS website.

Students will be asked to initially return to their Form Rooms where their Form Tutor will safely supervise the dismissal of students from the site.

Those students whose parents have completed the consent form giving permission for them to be allowed to leave the site and make their own way home will be allowed to leave first. The Form Tutor will supervise this.

If you have not provided permission, then we will allow students to use mobile phones to make arrangements to be picked up as soon as is possible from the school site or from a pre-arranged meeting point. The Form Tutor will seek confirmation of the arrangements with you and, when confirmed with the Form Tutor, students will be allowed to leave the site.

We understand that not all students will have a mobile phone so, if this is the case, they will be able to use the school's phone via student services to contact you.

We ask that you discuss potential arrangements with your child in advance, to ensure that they can safely return home or to an alternative safe venue until you can collect them, in the event of an emergency closure. 

Any students who cannot get home safely, or in the event you cannot be contacted, will be supervised in school until contact can be made and they can be collected.

We will always make every effort to remain open to our students and we will only close if appraisal of health and safety factors dictate that closure is the most appropriate option.