Work being carried out at the Neale-Wade Community College which is closed for health and safety reasons.

A SCHOOL has defended its controversial decision to close during the big freeze - even though all other classrooms in Fenland remained open.

Work being carried out at the Neale-Wade Community College which is closed for health and safety reasons.

Neale-Wade Community College was one of only 12 schools in Cambridgeshire to shut on Monday (February 6) after considering “health and safety, transport and related issues extremely carefully”.

Staff said they took the decision so they could focus “on doing everything on site to enable the College to open on Tuesday” but came in for sharp criticism from parents who branded the decision “terrible”.

On the school’s blog, one user called Steve wrote: “I am curious why one school in the town is closed but that the rest are open.

“It will cost me a day’s wages as I now have to take the day off when I could easily have gone to work over 30 miles away.

Work being carried out at the Neale-Wade Community College which is closed for health and safety reasons.

“If I can do it why can’t they? The world’s gone mad and what kind of example does this show to the next adult generation?”

And Teresa Maguire asked on the Principal’s blog: “Why on earth is the school closed? What are the health & safety reasons?

“We’ve had it drummed into us that this is such an important year for year 11 students and they shouldn’t miss any time at school, so why does the school have to be closed when the conditions are not that bad?”

And David added: “Students would be far safer in school in this weather than at home, playing and throwing snowballs, getting soaked and freezing cold.”

Work being carried out at the Neale-Wade Community College which is closed for health and safety reasons.

However some of the 42 comments made online by 3.30pm on Monday were supportive.

Janet Todd said: “I can understand the difficult decision,” whereas Einstein said: “Each school has to make its own decision based on its circumstances.

“I drove by today and saw a snow plough clearing masses of snow and grit being put down. It looked like the school was working flat out to make it safe for its pupils.”

Winston said the school was “between a rock and a hard place”, adding: “I assume that the other schools in March are open because they are much smaller and don’t have 1,700 pupils,” he said.

Responding to the comments on the internet page, the school said: “We do appreciate them all and will use them to help inform future decisions.

“We still do our best always to allow as many comments as possible on the blog allowing everyone to express their valued opinions.”