Aibu to think an adult should have been available in the playground?

[Onionbhajisandwich]

My 9 year old son suffered a buckle fracture yesterday at school when he was jumped on by a much bigger child. My son was left on the floor, crying and left to take himself to first aid without any adult checking on him or attending to him. AIBU to be really angry about this?? Not one member of staff checked if he was ok until he got himself to first aid. What’s people’s thoughts?? I don’t think IABU but the school staff seem to think that it’s acceptable for a child with a fractured wrist to not be attended to by an adult straight away. For context - his wrist and hand swelled straight away and he was in a lot of pain so it was obvious that there was an injury!

Unacceptable. I would be asking for a meeting with the Head as to why there were no adults on scene and how they intend on keeping children safe in the playground moving forwards. Also ask for a copy of the complaints policy and safeguarding policy

Is it a big playground and they just hadn’t spotted him? Or did his friends tell the staff and nobody came over?

Is it a big playground and they just hadn’t spotted him? Or did his friends tell the staff and nobody came over?

There must have been an adult (or more) on Playground Duty - is it a large playground? They will not be able to notice everything that happens at all times and reply on the children to let them know if there is a problem if they don’t see it happening.

Are you saying that no one was supervising the playground? His friends didn't alert anyone?

There should be adults supervising, this is a safe guarding concern.

It might not have been obvious if they were dealing with other things. Someone would have noticed eventually, but the usual thing is another child tells a teacher immediately! All schools have teachers on duty, but they don’t see everything and wouldn’t be aware if child is not crying/making themself known/ another child alerts them. There are strict supervision ratios, but that doesn’t mean they’d notice. Would you notice this happen if you’d been attending a younger child at a local park?

Write email. Copy in governors too. They will keep the head accountable!

Ask for a meeting. Then follow that up too with email.

Back in the day my friend attempted to carry me down the playing field with a broken leg. Not a good idea but I guess it seemed the more logical thing to a ten year old than going to get help at the time. With hundred of kids swarming about it is quite likely things do not get picked up as soon as it happens.

By all means ask for a meeting with the school to check what happened especially with regard to the child that injured him. But the most likely explanation is that an adult was on duty (potentially more than one) but they were unable to see him because they were dealing with something else, the playground is large, he wasn’t in their direct line of sight, the noise level was too high and/or he was too far to be heard crying. So the reliance would have been on other kids to get someone, and they’re not always going to do that in a sensible or timely way because they’re just kids. That’s just how it is in a playground. I don’t think there’s a legal ratio or anything they need to follow beyond school nursery age. So I know it’s a shock and he’s hurt, which really isn’t nice, but I don’t think the school did anything wrong.