Schools must prepare better for snow, says education chairman, as 800 close today Many schools have now been closed for the fifth day running as much of Britain remains in the grip of icy conditions. Around 5,000 have shut their doors at some point, leaving families with a mounting childcare bill. Mr Stuart said small businesses particularly suffer when parents have to stay home to look after their children. "Everything begins with school," he said. The call comes from the school and then it has the knock-on impact that leads to the closure of a business as well, and if it can be avoided it must be avoided and everything must be done. However, the MP said all UK businesses and institutions, such as airports, need to be better at dealing with the impact of extreme weather. "The culture issue is not one confined to schools," he said. "A bit of snow in this country and we think "ah, disruption must come." Well, perhaps it shouldn't come and we need to do more to resist it. Whether that's anticipating more effectively at Heathrow, making sure they have the equipment there, making sure we have a culture throughout society that we can't afford, particularly not now, we can't afford either educationally or economically to have needless disruption. On Monday, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, insisted reforms had been introduced by the Government to enable heads to keep schools open. Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said Britain does need to have a better culture of dealing with bad weather, but insisted schools are trying their best to keep their doors open. "I would say to those parents, "I understand your frustration, but please bear in mind that that decision is not one that the head has made lightly, and it's one that they have to consider the situation on the ground in the school,"" he told the BBC. There may be reasons that maybe those individual parents have not seen that have lead to the decision to close the school, but they can be assured we don't make those decisions lightly.