.
Bored with newspapers full of budget details, criticisms and political wrangling, I looked for something else to have a whinge about. I didn’t have to search for long.
A mischievous five-year old schoolboy climbed a 20 ft tree in the playground during the morning break and refused to come down.
But instead of helping him, teachers at the primary school in Melksham, Wiltshire, followed health and safety guidelines and retreated into the school building to ‘observe from a distance’ so that the child would not get ‘distracted and fall’.
Suppose he had not been distracted and still fallen was my first thought?
Forty-five minutes later, a passer-by saw the boy’s predicament and helped him down. You’d have thought that someone in the school would have thanked her for her actions. But no, she was reported to the police for trespass!
The Headteacher later confirmed that the school’s policy prevents staff going to the aid of children who have climbed trees and said, ‘The safety of our pupils is our priority ...’ It doesn’t seem like it to me!
Wiltshire Council then wrote to the rescuer: ‘You may well have acted initially out of concern for the safety of the child but any such concerns should have been raised with a member of staff.’ ‘You subsequently behaved in a verbally aggressive manner to a member of staff.’
There is no word from the parents of this active child, but if he were mine, I think I would become extremely aggressive to staff members who hid behind utterly stupid health and safety rules and did nothing to help a child who might well have fallen out of the tree and hurt himself.
Sometimes, it seems to me that commonsense eludes some people!
.
Bored with newspapers full of budget details, criticisms and political wrangling, I looked for something else to have a whinge about. I didn’t have to search for long.
A mischievous five-year old schoolboy climbed a 20 ft tree in the playground during the morning break and refused to come down.
But instead of helping him, teachers at the primary school in Melksham, Wiltshire, followed health and safety guidelines and retreated into the school building to ‘observe from a distance’ so that the child would not get ‘distracted and fall’.
Suppose he had not been distracted and still fallen was my first thought?
Forty-five minutes later, a passer-by saw the boy’s predicament and helped him down. You’d have thought that someone in the school would have thanked her for her actions. But no, she was reported to the police for trespass!
The Headteacher later confirmed that the school’s policy prevents staff going to the aid of children who have climbed trees and said, ‘The safety of our pupils is our priority ...’ It doesn’t seem like it to me!
Wiltshire Council then wrote to the rescuer: ‘You may well have acted initially out of concern for the safety of the child but any such concerns should have been raised with a member of staff.’ ‘You subsequently behaved in a verbally aggressive manner to a member of staff.’
There is no word from the parents of this active child, but if he were mine, I think I would become extremely aggressive to staff members who hid behind utterly stupid health and safety rules and did nothing to help a child who might well have fallen out of the tree and hurt himself.
Sometimes, it seems to me that commonsense eludes some people!
.
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