Comments

  • SP13SP13 ✭✭✭
    That's madness
  • Thought you were going to mention Dalglish being Liverpool manager, or even him being in football still image
  • Crikey, that's ridiculous!

  • I thought Conkers in the title - it's exactly the same.

    Good grief, lets wrap everyone up in cotton wool and not allow them to do anything that might incur anything as severe a a scratch!

    Oh dang, we need to ban paper due to the high incidence of paper cuts.

    Infantalising I say to thee.

    I agree - totally and utterly stupid.

  • biker-mouse wrote (see)

    I thought Conkers in the title - it's exactly the same.

    Good grief, lets wrap everyone up in cotton wool and not allow them to do anything that might incur anything as severe a a scratch!

    Oh dang, we need to ban paper due to the high incidence of paper cuts.

    Infantalising I say to thee.

    I agree - totally and utterly stupid.

    Spotted a quick flaw in that argument........................ban paper & what are we going to write our written risk assessments on??????????????
  • Paper to only be used for written risk asessments. Due to the high risk of cuts, kevlar gloves must be worn. Pens and pencils could be potentially used as offensive weapons and must not be used under any circumstances. A blunt crayon is permitted.
  • Surely schools are a paper free environment now, it's all done on computers init.
  • close - chalk boards!

    So long as the are the modern light ones.

  • Thought they were called white boards now.
  • Chalk !!

    Too much dust, a hazard to your health, another claim just waiting

  • Just WHO are these H&S idiots who make up all of this shit and then try to impose it on all of us.. why does no one intercept these rules and stop them coming into force..?#

  • I suppose the defence would be that had little Owen and Bryn injured themselves, their parents could have taken the school to the cleaners. But as no harm was done why dismiss a teacher who is clearly engaged with his pupils?  Very wrong, unless we're not getting the whole story (there is a mention of his disciplinary record at the end of the article.  But lets not let fact get in the way of a good story image)
  • Schools are so defensive when it comes to outdoor activities.  When I went to school we did all sorts of outdoor activities including skiing and sledging during winter.

    In those days if a pupil was injured, a teacher would accompany you to A&E, now they ring the parent and tell you that something has happened and that your child needs attention.  They can be in agony for ages waiting for someone to collect.

  • As Chair of Govs at a primary school and hence involved in hiring and firing of staff, I can only say that there must be more to it than the details published.  It would be unlikely that he would be dismissed and disciplined in this way on the back of just one incident.

    Yep, I agree that H + S are ridiculous and completely OTT in most cases and while I and many teachers would agree with your sentiments, Gaz, the law wouldn't.  If a teacher took action to protect the wellbeing of a child that was against the statutory "guidelines" (contradiction in itself, statutory means legal requirement, guidelines mean just a suggestion"), the law would ignore the wellbeing of the child and simply concentrate on the fact that something that was not supposed to happen, did.

    That said, no teacher would leave a child in agony, if the parents can't be contacted or aren't available to collect, if more serious than the usual D + V, then an ambulance would be called and the child taken to hospital.   I also work in primary schools and I've sat with children, awaiting parents when a child has been ill - no child is ever left alone (well, not in the schools with which I'm involved) when they've complained of being ill or injured. 

    But, as in most cases, the law is frequently an ass.

  • Jeepers wrote (see)
    ........... while I and many teachers would agree with your sentiments, Gaz, the law wouldn't.  
    Which in particular Jeepers would the law not like ?
  • It does seem OTT if those are all the relevant facts.  

     Those type of sledges can get up some frightening speeds on a steep hill though - it's not like sitting on a £10 plastic job and personally I wouldn't be letting my kids use one on the admittedly pretty long and steep hill they use for sledging.     Bit unlikely the school had a hill like that on their grounds though.  

    Even if it was dangerous though I'd have thought a formal warning would have been enough - but as BDB implies we don't know if this was a first offence or not.   

    As for schools not allowing "risky" activities now - I'm not so sure.   Primary schools do cycle training on roads now - in my day it was on the playground.   I've been in schools where they practice fencing in PE (secondary admittedly).   My eldest daughter went abseiling and went sailing dinghys with guides before she was in Secondary school.   There probably are examples where H&S is taken too far but not sure it's quite a limiting as is sometimes made out and you do need rules and procedures to protect kids as there are adults (and I've worked with some while working with kids) who adopt a rather fingers crossed approach to safety.   

  • There are so many instructions issued that come under the "child protection" arena - too many to list individually.

    An example, a few years ago, in playtime, a 5yr old girl fell in the playground, cut her knee and needed medical attention.  She was wearing tights and so the tights had to be removed in order to attend to the cut, clean and dress it.  I wasn't allowed to do this on my own (I'm female) - there had to be another (female) adult in the room with me to ensure that I didn't do anything inappropriate.  The quickest and most sensible thing would have been to have sorted it out myself, no fuss and sent the child back into the playground as it was messy rather than serious.  Instead, I had to find another member of staff to be in the same room as me, so while I had to sort that out (whilst not leaving the child alone either - so I couldn't just leave her in the medical room, walk to the staffroom and ask for someone and as it was playtime, most members of staff were not around), the child was growing increasingly distressed.

    It took far longer (and IMHO, made the whole situation far worse) to get someone to be in the room with me, but had I not done so, then if the girl had complained to her parents and they had made a complaint to the school, the school would not have been able to defend me as my action would have been in contradiction of the instructions issued by the local council. 

  • Deadstar wrote (see)
    Thought they were called white boards now.
    You racist!
  • I worked at an LEA outdoor education centre and our risk assessment for sledging didn't require any protective equipment other than waterproof clothing. There are issues here but nowhere near as many as he was charged with.
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