Unexpected School Closure

There are occasions where the school needs to close unexpectedly. This may be due to bad weather, heating failure, a power failure or other reasons. We will only close the school in the best interests of student and staff safety, following Department for Education guidance.

In some situations the school may close partially. In this situation priority would be given to teach Years 11 and 13, followed by Year 10 and 12.

CLOSURE OUTSIDE OF THE SCHOOL DAY

If the decision to close is outside of the school day, we will use the following means of communications to parents:

• A pop-up message on the home page of the school website
• An email out to all parents
• Updates on the school's social media accounts. If you use social media, please be sure that you are set up to receive notifications from us
• The local Radio Stations will be informed. The details for our local radio stations are as follows:

Heart (Thames Valley) VHF/FM 102.6/97.4/102.9/103.

BBC Radio Oxford – VHF/FM 95.2

FM 107.9 – VHF/FM 107.9

Witney Radio – FM 99.9

OCC School closures

Particularly during the winter months when bad weather is forecast, it is important to ensure you look out for these messages.

Please do not ring the school.

If it is not published on our website and the school’s Twitter account that the school is closed, your child should come in to school as usual.

CLOSURE DURING THE SCHOOL DAY

In certain circumstances, such as water outage, snow or heating failure, it is necessary to carry out an Emergency School Closure during the school day. These are rare, but when they do occur, they cause significant challenge. The school will always issue a general closure notification via our website, social media, and will also send an email to all parents and carers. This ensures all families receive consistent, timely information on a school closure.

Parents and carers can give permission in advance for their child to leave. This would mean that, once we have announced that the school has to close, we can allow students with permission to leave, without gaining specific permission again.  Please click here to find out more.

As the safety of our students is paramount, parents will be contacted for their decision for those students where permission has not been given in advance.

ARRANGEMENTS FOR STUDENT WORK

Should the school need to close unexpectedly due to weather or other situations, a message will be sent from the Heads of Years explaining how work will continue.

• On the first day of closure due to extreme weather students in KS3 will be expected to complete the appropriate subject award activities for the subjects they would have that day.
• Students in KS4 and KS5 should revise for the subjects they would have that day using class and online materials.
• Year 12 students should also consider working on their EPQs.

If a class teacher would like their class to do something different, they will contact them via e-mail and explain what work they would like them to do. Students should give any completed work to their teacher when they next see them in school.  

_{Updated: February 2026}