Dogs in school playground

[Bulldogchewingahornet]

Can someone help me write an email to our safeguarding lead at the primary School my child goes to. I'm close to going to the LEA about this as I don't know what more to do.

I've spoken to the school numerous times about people bringing dogs into the school playground. I would say every 5th person has a dog, but most of them are very sweet dogs, old or just generally nice breeds that aren't know for being aggressive or dangerous.
But there have been others. One parent was bringing a young out of control doberman in for a while but she muzzled it and eventually stopped bringing it. It was strange because she drove to the school, took the dog into the playground and drove home (as far as I know) with it, which is what I have noticed a lot of parents doing, so it seems that the dog isn't even getting a walk.
Another parent brought an XL Bully in (before the ban) I complained about that.
Another parent has been bringing a huge Rottweiler in and unmuzzled - I have even seen her letting her 8 year old daughter walk it on the way home from school which is madness. She clearly has no concept of how powerful her dog is.
Today the same woman who brought the XL Bully in, now has a young doberman with clipped ears and tail (which I think is illegal)
I'm so sick of it. It's not safe to have so many dogs in a noisy playground, a child will be seriously bitten and hurt at some point.
I am mainly bothered about the dogs with the known aggressive temperaments as they are so powerful and if they decide to snap, they could kill someone. There is a reason these dogs are kept for security purposes. We only have to look at the statistics over the last couple of years and the breeds that were involved to know the risks.
I would appreciate some help putting an email together to the safe guarding lead to highlight the risks and put a good case for banning dogs in the playground or perhaps someone has some alternative suggestions I can put forward about a change in policy that only lets certain size dogs in or breeds.

Just go absolutely go to the LEA!
appalling!!!

Ask to see the risk assessment for dogs on school property. I’d expect the head’s dog to have been temperament tested by Pets as Therapy or similar and there is some demonstrable benefit to having a calm well behaved dog in school to help with emotional dysregulation etc. They should also have thought about the hygiene aspects and the dog should be appropriately parasite treated regularly. There is no benefit and considerable risk to having multiple, unknown dogs on school premises when there are also a lot of people around. The comment about tying them up outside presumably means the head thinks parents would still bring the dog and leave them unsupervised whilst collecting children, but they just need to be told not to bring them at all and if tying them up becomes a problem you get the dog warden to make a few very visible visits at kicking out time. The school will absolutely have their arse handed to them when a child is bitten on their premises.

You'd need to make a complaint to the school before you can take it further.

Get a big group of parents together and complain as a group, it will mean more and harder to separate people out.

If they do, it's a shit school, in which case best to know now and move.

The school doesn't even keep your kid safe on the playground.

LEAs haven't existed since 2009.

Dog in the Playground by Alan Ahlberg

No dogs are allowed in our school
grounds. i can't believe that they are at yours!

Really? Do you know who is responsible now?

This is similar to another post a while ago about dogs in the playground. The poster unfortunately didn’t listen to the right people and I don’t think got the outcome they really needed. You say go to the LA, but I’m not sure who you’d go to as there’s no hierarchy as such. Schools have a school improvement partner (who wouldn’t deal with this) and then the school gets services from them e.g. personnel and finance. It’s the governors that decide policy like this but you need to go to them under the right policy incase this turns into a formal complaint.

You need to speak to the head and if there is no joy then make a formal complaint and follow the process through. If you remain polite and professional then the head shouldn’t have an issue. A head will have more of an issue if you go firing off emails to the LA who will probably just pass it back to the head to deal with. (And knowing LA it’s likely to bounce around for a bit!)

I would focus on this as more of a health and safety issue than safeguarding - e.g. dog mess even if picked up. You could ask whether this has formed part of the health and safety walk around which should be done termly by the head and the H&S governor, is there a risk assessment for the head’s dog?

Keep it polite and professional and it will be fine.

What kind of school is it? Most are run by academy trusts now rather than local authorities.

As far as I understand it, it's a state primary school. It's not an Academy.

For school grounds?
It depends on what type of school it is.
But going through the school complaint policy would be the 1st and right step. That would include escalation to governors at the appropriate point. A local authority won't get involved in dog in playground as it is locally determined by a school.

Definitely approve of therapy dogs and very happy for her to have her dog at school. I can completely understand how it would benefit some children..it's lovely. But yes, the dogs in the playground is a very separate issue. I feel like it's only a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt. It's also the sheer volume of dogs currently - it's quite unbelievable how many there are in the school grounds at one time.

My DD was at a mainstream primary before moving to an SC unit within a different mainstream primary, both schools banned ALL dogs from the playground and reminders of the ban were always worded around some DC have a fear of dogs rather than the potential dangers so I'd consider adding this element to your email

Op, type your concerns into chat gpt and ask it to write an email.