School bans ALL physical contact

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The parents haven't been informed by the school of this rule, but the kids have been told they will get a warning for the first transgression and then a detention is it happens again. No physical contact at all permitted. How are they going to enforce it and is this the case is any other school (from a quick Google I found that a school in Essex has done this) and AIBU to think it's ridiculous? I have 2 DCs in this school so it will affect them.

It’s nothing like less than a quarter of their waking hours. A school day is generally 6.5 hours a day- if that’s less than a quarter of their waking hours your kids must be awake over 26 hours a day… even worked out over a week it doesn’t add up.

Of course not, no one would support it, but @BorrowedThyme thinks that because she has authority over childten she’s as free to be as draconian as she likes, and parents should fall in line with her authoritarian and harmful crap because “school rules”

It is not wrong. If you have any contact at all with children and cant see that this is a perfectly reasonable, and common school rule, then THAT is very worrying

I think she’s adding in the school holidays which is also disingenuous in the context

If they can't keep their hands, dicks and toxic thoughts to themselves, then yes, life would be much better for all women and girls if men and boys were under permanent permanent permanent house arrest.

Oh Bingo; I’m a woman who has a strong opinion that challenges yours: must be hysteria, that old womb going haywire again.

As an outsider it seems a really weird thing to do, though I recognise that inappropriate physical contact and sexual harassment is a big problem in schools. However, both of those things should already be banned, so I’m not sure how banning high-fives will help.

My daughter’s class shake hands with the teacher at the start and end of the day. It’s actually a nice ritual and allows the teachers to know who is on site and who has left for the day.

OK.

What happened if a student falls over or is poorly and needs assistance? Isn’t another student allowed to step in and help? this is especially unhelpful if there isn’t a member of staff around to administer the help needed

And it’s not hysterical to strongly appose my (or any) child’s school being run like a prison. Apposing measures like this couldn’t be more important.

Schools are instruments of civil society, parents are voters. Your contempt for civil society shines through. But then the marketisation/de-democratisation of the UK has been a work in progress for the past 40 years, and making schools unanswerable to any local mandate (through academisation) has been a big part of this so I expect you are fully captured.

Wow that's truly tragic.

Sadly, I think this is the natural outcome of the society we have been creating.

Are the governors muslim or the area a muslim one? It happened in Birmingham once and it turned out to be a governors trying to stop girls being homeschooled / sent to private Islamic schools that weren’t great.

😢😢😢

no, you have a strong opinion that is "affected by or driving irrational and wildly uncontrolled emotion" the definition of hysterical

You honestly think that going 7 hours without physical contact is "degrading" "dehumanising" going to damage someone's physical and mental health?

That is hysterical

We have this rule in my school (SEND).

Most of them are very sensory and like to hug and touch people.

Unfortunately there has been some physical violence and SA and false claims of both.

So we took the no hands on approach.

At first we were quite strict on it (police and SS were involved so we had to be) and then once they understood the rules a bit better we would just focus on the couple that needed to not touch/be touched and over look certain things.

If someone gives someone a quick hug and a pat on the back, we’d look the other way.
But if someone gives someone a hug that we think is for inappropriate reasons we will just say “no hands on” and then they stop.

Even if we hadn’t had negative associations with it (like violence, bullying or SA) it is still a good idea and some people don’t like to be touched.

We find our guys often think that complete strangers want to hug and hold hands etc and so it’s good for teaching them to ask for consent and have boundaries too.

I do think most kids need to touch each other and it’s sad and unfair if it a proper ban but it’s most likely similar to my school where accusations have been made so have to be careful but they won’t be too hot on it.

If educators or education managers, cannot discern and convey what is appropriate human contact, what consent means, and when it is required, they are not fit to be in post.

More lazy, weak, unthinking leadership.

totally fine to hug a colleague.

If they want to be hugged. Several threads on MN have had OPs asking how do they tell colleagues they don’t like/want to be touched or hugged by said colleagues. Plenty of people of various ages don’t like being touched without their consent and in many workplaces unwanted touching could mean a report to HR.

Interesting to see the variety of responses.

I'm going to email the head of year to ask for the actual policy and why it hasn't been circulated to the parents and what the actual punishments are and how they are going to police it.

My DD who's 13 is very playful, and probably plays tag at breaktime, does those weird hand games like high fiving, so according to the rules this might get her into trouble now? How depressing.
Might my DS who's 14 at the same school, not be allowed to give her a hug if she is upset (not that she would want him to at school!!), or a friend pick her up if she's hurt etc. Need to know how they are going to police this.

No need for hugging or holding hands in school.

They can't help a friend who has fallen down? Or touch a person who is distressed? Giving a detention for congratulating a friend with a high five is just absurd.

If claims of "playfighting" are a problem, surely you just ban all playfighting?

@Chippy4me my comment above not in response to yours - different circumstances and clearly a process in place around supporting your young people's developing understanding.

I think mandating humans, children no less at a critical stage in development . to spend half their waking hours for 36 weeks a year in an institution that bans all physical touch is dehumanising and harmful to physical and mental health, yes. That’s not hysterical. the central importance/ function/ value of physical touch is underscored by social and medical science.

@BorrowedThyme it just seems so clunky as to be unworkable anyway. Kids bump into each other, pass things to each other touching hands, brush fluff or whatever off each other, nudge each other, pat each others shoulders to get attention in a noisy room, lean close to whisper etc, who has the time to police all that?!

The assaults that happen would still be against the rules if this particular rule didn’t exist- if there weren’t rules against it it wouldn’t be called assault- yet it still happens. A clunky, hard to police and implement ban on touching will not stop assault or physical bullying, or for that matter fighting, from happening.