Will remote schooling make ‘snow days’ a thing of the past?

Grabbing his sledge from the shed, Will Gore heads out for fun on the hills

We pulled on boots and gloves, hats and scarves, and trooped off (Getty)

Last week’s snow caused my children great joy – for the most part. For 24 hours they had kept an eye on the weather forecast, glad to see the dark cloud and double flake symbol remaining stubbornly in place on Sunday’s chart. Sure enough, the snow came almost exactly to timetable, light specks falling at a little before 10am.

I thought for a while that we might get only a dusting. But by a quarter to 11, the flakes were falling fast and fat.

“It’s so beautiful!” whispered my son, who barely remembered our last big snow. “Like thousands of feathers.” He and I ventured outside, laughing as the snow blew into our mouths and settled on our jackets. The pond we built during the first Covid lockdown was frozen over and we wondered if the frogs that had made their home in it were alright.

On the road in front of our house, the occasional car drove slowly by; the rapidly tumbling snow was settling on the tarmac, even though the surface had been gritted. The lane that runs behind our back garden is steep and never visited by the council’s salt trucks. There, all was pristine and silent.

Later in the morning, we watched from inside as snow fell on snow. We opened presents from my parents that should have been given and received on Christmas Day, had a gathering been possible, but that had ultimately been sent on when it became clear our children didn’t have the patience to wait until Easter – or whenever a reunion might be. The wintry scene outside the window made us believe a second Christmas had really come.

Eventually the clouds turned a lighter shade of grey and the whirling feathers ceased to descend. A clamour grew to get the sledge out of the shed and onto the nearest hill. My wife and I were nervous, anxious that there might be too many people with the same idea in the same place. But the kids’ excitement was overwhelming – infectious, you might say. We pulled on boots and gloves, hats and scarves, and trooped off.

In the event, our concern was largely misplaced. True, there were others out tobogganing too, but we could maintain appropriate distances easily. With a view across the town, we could see other groups sledging on hills on the far side of the valley, little dots having that rare thing: fun. And it was fun, despite our wariness. All of us had turns, even my son, who was worried about falling out of the sledge and whose first run ended in a hedge. His sister persuaded him to try again and they went down together, shrieking with delight.

All of it felt good; and surprisingly normal in the midst of the worldly horrors that beset and constraint us

At one side of the field somebody had constructed a giant of a snowman – ten feet high and with carrots in the middle of both his face and his lower parts. “That must be his tummy button,” my son noted gravely, as I raised an eyebrow.

There could be no ambiguity about the busty snow woman I found in the next field along, after I left the rest of the family to their sledging for a quick tramp about. It reminded me of the statue of Alison Lapper by Marc Quinn that once adorned the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, although the snow version had rather less artistic integrity.

Still, all of it felt good; and surprisingly normal in the midst of the worldly horrors that beset and constraint us. To watch our children and others play happily outside; to see beauty all around; even to snigger at a snowman with a vegetable for a penis. At long last, this awful January had produced a truly happy day.

Back at home, the children remained excited. “Do you think it’ll be a ‘snow day’ tomorrow?” they wondered. I was perplexed, reminding them that they were both home-schooling and that their teachers would be videocalling from their own houses, so nobody had to worry about getting anywhere.

“But surely they won’t expect us to do any work, will they?” My daughter’s outrage was quite genuine, and yet the answer could not be bent to her will. “So, will we ever have snow days again?” she asked. And to that one, I could only shrug.

The children sledged again on Monday, when home-school was done. But by Tuesday, the snow was melting fast, and had turned to slush by mid-afternoon, exposing sludgy mud and occasional bits of rubbish beneath. I mourned the passing of the snow’s beauty and I pondered my daughter’s question. Snow days will come again.