No Business Like Snow Business

Well, what a day.

Bristol's worst, or best, snow in somewhere between 10 and 350 years has taken the city by storm.

Today's whiteout began for me while still dark with the gleeful sound of a younger member of the Trym clan announcing, text message in hand, that school was cancelled and that the buses weren't running.

This second piece of information had me scurrying to the computer for confirmation from First Bus that the three centimetres of snow that had fallen overnight had in fact resulted in the total collapse of the public transport system of England's fifth city.

Unfortunately, the only information I could find on the First web site was a piece of PR on the recently unveiled fleet of new buses (which increase by at least 46 the number of places in the city where I can be secretly filmed under the guise of making me feel safer) and information on how to get to Cabot Circus by bus - a journey that those familiar with this blog would know that I would only take if the one marked "Death Leap Over the Avon Gorge" were already fully booked.

First's strange silence on the subject of whether it would be running a service today was broken in the early evening with this item, announcing that "On Thursday afternoon, the majority of services were running normally" - a fact that all but the visually impaired could have confirmed by looking out of their windows at the numerous buses running normally along the slushy streets.

The uncertainty in the morning on the state of the buses lead me to some considerable inner debate, only fully appreciated by those of us fortunate enought to be self-employed, as to whether to embark on a one-hour walk to my usual place of work (the car being used by another member of the Trymites) or to "work from home."

Five hours later, and having wrestled control of the car from its former user, I made the short journey to Redland. And what a happy sight greeted me on the way. With the majority of adults (teachers excepted) firmly ensconced in their places of work, the city had been taken over by several thousand of its bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youth, who were gleefully turning every available patch of public space into a winter wonderland of snowmen, snow furniture and ludicrously over the top snowball fights, of the type long banned by the kind of people who put secret cameras into buses.

I was amused to note that more than a couple of the ten thousand snowballs thrown managed to hit the numerous First buses now scurrying pele mele around the city. Oh the irony.

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Colston's Girls' Most Popular School for North Bristol Families

Colston's Girls' School has topped a poll of schools that local families would choose if they were not successful in their application for Redland Green School.

The poll took place over the last month here on the Trym Tales site and when asked, "If not Redland Green, which school will you choose?", 25% of participants stated a preference for Colston's Girls', the independent school on Cheltenham Road which plans on converting to an academy this September.

Two of Bristol's other would-be academies came joint second in the poll, with 16% of the votes cast in favour of Cathedral School and an equal number for Portway School. Whereas the former two are independent schools already, Portway is set to follow the route of the majority of academies as the new trustees attempt to turn around a historically poor-performing school. Oasis Trust are the proposed charity aiming to take on Portway, a move which local parents appear to welcome if the poll results are at all representative. More on the planned change to Portway School here.

With families in Westbury on Trym effectively excluded from the new school following the change in the Redland Green School catchment area this year, the poll results indicate a swing away from the independent schools historically favoured by families in the Westbury on Trym area, with Redland High School for Girls, Bristol Grammar, Red Maids and Badminton School receiving no more than two votes each. This is anecdotal evidence, perhaps, of the popularity of the academy model among local parents at the expense of the traditional independent sector.

Full results, which may not be representative of local opinion as a whole, are reproduced below.

If Not Redland Green, Which School Will You Choose?

Henbury	3 (12%)
Portway	4 (16%)
Colston's Girls	6 (25%)
Bristol Grammar	2 (8%)
QEH	3 (12%)
Colston's	3 (12%)
Cathedral School	4 (16%)
St Katherine's	1 (4%)
Gordano	3 (12%)
Red Maids	2 (8%)
Badminton	2 (8%)
Redland High School for Girls	1 (4%)
St Ursula's	2 (8%)
Other	4 (16%)

The poll was conducted over 28 days in March and April. 40 votes were cast by 24 voters (multiple choices were permitted). St Mary Redcliffe School and St Bede's Catholic College remain very popular with local families but were not included in the poll as their admissions policies do not make them viable choices for all children.

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Torwood House Misses a Tick

I was mildly amused yesterday by an advert I saw on the screen at the Vue Cinema at Cribbs Causeway.

The ad, from the £1,425 per term independent Torwood House School in Redland, declared that the school was "committed to your childs individual development."

Perhaps the school does not feel that apostrophes are an important part of child development any more.

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