No touch policy at school?

My son’s secondary school had to do this when couples were repeatedly draping themselves all over each other all the time.

There were even rumours of them sexually touching each other while they were watching films as part of one of their classes.

The couples (and their parents) were told, but they’d just say “there isn’t a rule against it” so the teachers had to bring in the rule so they could sort it out.

Sadly, yes. In many ways.

@WhenYouSayNothingAtAllYou haven’t been in a primary recently have you?

no… I left teaching a couple of years ago…

has it got that bad?

You haven’t been in a primary recently have you?

I can see both sides of this. Yes it is sad, and play, touch and even mucking about is all part of growing up and development. However , too many kids (primary and secondary) push it too far, lines get blurred, bullying, sexual assault, fighting etc. It is hard to police and supervise them at all times and make a judgement call whether a hug is a hug or something else or if play fighting will turn to real fighting and so on.

DD’s class had a touching ban in y6 because of the boys. They were always all over each other, pushing, shoving, jumping on each other, tackling etc. Not necessarily an issue , but every day one of them would go home crying (despite doing it 2 minutes before), or some form of injury, or an actual fight started and parents complained.Keep my child (who started the pile on /wrestling/whatever) game safe!!Then they complained about the no touching rule. 🤷‍♀️

Honestly teenagers can be a bloody nightmare.

they know about consent and autonomy.

but quite a few of them do not bloody care and while they won’t go around beating anyone up, they’ll bully others as much as they can under the guise of “just a bit of banter” and “it was just a joke”.

small kids in primary are generally not capable of doing a lot of physical or emotional damage to each other,

teen boys (and it is usually boys although I’ve seen girls do it) can really hurt people both physically and emotionally and believe me they know about consent and autonomy and they do not care.

it is far more important to them to be one of the lads and to join in the physical jostling and play fighting that many teen boys do and that so frequently gets out of hand.

two year 11 lads play fighting in a corridor scares the shit out of small year 7s. Often they are adult male size and strength and it really does create an unpleasant environment.

some of these lads will also be taking or dealing drugs, stealing, carrying knives and committing other offences outside school. It’s bloody hard to educate these lads about consent and autonomy - getting them to stop breaking the law would be a bloody good start.

Our school has that rule but it's only enforced if it's an issue. Girls hugging first day back fine, hugs for an upset friend fine, boys high fiving fine. Boy smacks girl on ass they'd come down on them like a ton of bricks. It works at that school because it's dealt with with common sense.

As soon as someone else, maybe in authority, or of a different sex, put you under pressure to accept this when you didn't want it (or the other way round) it would be a problem.

There's nothing wrong with school being a place where appropriate relationships and respectful behaviours are expected and enforced.

Perfectly reasonable rule. How often do you touch your colleagues at work? Do you scuffle with them in the corridor? These rules are necessary because accusations and counter accusations are made in the current climate following ‘me too’.
And girls really don’t need to do each others hair in school.
They can hug and scuffle as much as they like outside school.

We had the same rule at Borstal.
Well, it was more 'No Tongues' if I remember the Governor right.

But that’s a real misunderstanding of what safeguarding is. A ‘no touch’ rule is not actual safeguarding, it just makes it easier to punish people by not differentiating between normal human contact and genuine assault. I can understand why schools bring it in, but it’s unhealthy, goes against all human instincts and does nothing to educate kids about consent or autonomy.

My son’s old high school has this rule. It is strictly enforced to the point where on sports day you are not allowed to shake hands or put your arm around your mate to congratulate them on their win. If you do touch someone you are sent straight to the reflection room to write a statement about the incident. Bonkers

Usually this rule gets made to prevent an existing problem like rough play in the corridor that gets passed off as banter or ‘just a bit of fun’.

What about if someone is crying because their pet died or their boyfriend dumped them at school or their parents have just split up? Or their granny died Sounds awful.

I remember girls hugging their friends when they were crying. Relationship break ups. Parents divorcing. Pet died etc.

We used to have the six inch rule at school, only enforced when needed. I doubt a couple of friends will be in trouble for a platonic hug.

I can see why it makes sense at senior schools. It’s the age plus crowd control. Teachers have to deal with scuffles, play fights, real fights, couples making out at school, non-consensual touching etc. I imagine it’s easier and much more time-efficient to enforce a blanket, unambiguous ‘no touching’ rule than have to deal with the ‘but that’s not fair Miss’ nuances. In practice, I’m sure no one is going to be disciplined for putting their arm around a friend who’s upset or unavoidably brushing against someone in a busy corridor.

They brought that rule into my grammar school in 1979, after the deputy head caught two of the sixth formers snogging in the cricket pavilion.

It proved impossible to police 😊

Our school does have this rule. And a what's 'private ' poster . Showing images of things from their phones to their bodies.

If the parenting was so successful schools wouldn't feel the need to introduce the rules

Well, quite. This was my point when you argued with me. The parenting is shit. The kids don't know how to behave and won't be told when they do wrong. They argue and assert their rights.

The rule is relatively new and seems unusual based on the past. Doesn't mean it's not necessary as a final resort to keep more people safe.

We don’t have this rule. We have “common sense”. It is totally fine for boys to high five each other in the playground of course! So of course we don’t stop them doing it.

Was it a knee jerk reaction to Everyone’s Invited or Covid?

My son’s school’s corridors are too over crowded to make this workable.