my son was injured by teacher at school - advice needed

[mrcerec]

Hi

A dad here

Yesterday my 12 year old son was playing football in the playground of his prep school. The music teaching assistant (22 yrs old) joined in the game without being invited. At close range he blasted the ball at my son (with no malicious intent) and succeeded in causing him to fall over and (as we later found out) tear a ligament. He then proceeded to tell my son that he was exaggerating his injury and left him to make his own way to matron. We spent 3 hours at a&e last night - a severe sprain and 4 weeks of no sport. I told the head this morning who basically poo-pooed the whole thing, despite a photograph of my son's extremely swollen ankle.

My questions are

1. Am I right to be cross about this.

1. What would you do - particularly when faced by the school's in difference

1. Would this happen in the state system?

TIA

Mrcerec

oh pipe down you class warriors.he said matron lets all have a go at him.

some quite legitimate points raised

inadequate care after injury,nonchalant head teacher
Hours in A&E with painful injury
parents have right to expect to be taken seriously
painful injury minimised by staff

so

1. yes - extremely right i would be incandescent

1. take photo of injury.

write to school detailing concerns, and ask for meeting.time spent in A&E detailing injury. you can ask for photocopy of his medical records if you wish.there is a small payment for this. ask for a written response to your concerns

1. i dont know what another school would do

4.if sport is paid for as an addition extra curricular i would decline payment for time he is off. cant pay for a service he cant access

5.get a physio referral. it is painful but most ligament tears heal.boys are robust

1. don't be too litigious

but where are the class warriors on this thread? I haven't seen them.

op should calm down. It was an accident

Eh? Class warriors? What's that got to do with it?

The 'if it was a state school, you'd probably get legal aid to sue..' as in: everyone who sends their children to state schools is working class/unemployed and thus would get legal aid. A tad 'classist' perhaps?

mrcerec, my ds (was 8 at time) fell over an obstacle in a sports session and hurt his wrist. He told the teacher it hurts but told not to keep making a fuss. Had to stay another 2 hours in school. I pick him up, see he's in pain and the swollen wrist and head off for my 3 hrs in A/E.

Not too dissimilar from your story so far.

My ds had a broken wrist and was in plaster for next 8 wks. Like you I was upset at the carelessness of the incident and lack of care and support following.

So I wrote my letter to head explaining that it wasn't fair on ds that this happened and that he was ignored. I asked for an apology to him and assurances the sequence of events that led to accident won't recur thus preventing injury to others.

Result: an entirely appropriate and meaningful apology to ds and me and review of what happened resulting in changes in practice.

End. Accidents happen. Type of school irrelevent. We were out of pocket for money spent on swimming lessons. It happens. Sorry your ds is in pain, hope it heals fast.

coolma the OP didn't mention legal aid, mmrsceptic did! Similar looking names on same thread shouldn't be allowed.

I personally think a state school would be more concered about a claim, because no one needs legal aid, telly is full of ads for personal injery lawyers on no win no fee.. and state school can't boot you out like a public one can.

However I don't think the OP has mentioned suing..

I think at any school the TA should have said sorry and head should have been more cordial, just polite really. Not in a massive written and signed in blood way, just an informal disscussion.

Oh I realised that - sorry hadn't read through properly, just got in a snot about it - in fact am in a bit of a snot about lots of posts tonight - best go to bed

I agree with Typical that the school should be reviewing how its staff deal with injuries so that a similar injury is properly dealt with in the future.

And I have to say, as a nurse and as someone who has had ankle injuries, they swell up pretty quickly, and if the school had stopped to look properly, they ought to have seen the swelling. And even if all they had done was to get the lad to put his foot up and put an icepack on it, that would have helped.

No school wants to encourage the lead-swingers, but this school has gone too far the other way. I would not be happy either, if this were my child.

With regards to the sports/money issue - if the OP has paid for extra sports, that his son won't be able to do, due to the injury, then I do think that the school should reimburse him for this. It is a greyer question if he's wanting reimbursment of the portion of the school fees that relate to sports within the general curriculum.

Just a quick update -

swelling is going down - now lovely bruising. Matron (sorry to use that word again ) has told Head he needs to be more empathetic in future. Still no-one has apologised to DS though, or asked how he is.

mrcerec - glad to hear your ds is getting better, and very pleased to hear that Matorn has had words with the head. I hope she gave him and the TA a bollocking tbh.
I get the impression that a situ like this would be slightly less likely to happen in a state school because state school teaching staff have to be trained. Which is not to say that all state sector staff are faultless nor that private sector teachers are all untrained, but I suspect that H&S awareness would be greater at a state school and therefore it would be less likely that an adult would've decided to pitch in quite so forcefully, iyswim.
I like WhereYouLeftIt's comparison between state/private and multinational corporate/family business.

My point exactly Otterinaskoda - I feel if this had been a state school I would not have had to go in and complain. Nothing to do with "it shouldn't happen because I'm paying shedloads of money" attitude. Funny how some posters took it that way

I am teacher in state school, IMO adults should not be getting involved in sports with kids for this very reason. If they are needed to (eg bowling in rounders) then they should do so very carefully so as to avoid accidents. The school need to be looking at their systems.

pmsl @ 'Matron'. And are the teachers addressed as 'Master' in this violent, Lord of the Flies-esque place then?

what a risible thread. It's given me a good laugh though.

That'll teach you for going private then. Sounds like you need a dose of the real world my friend.

There's an advert on telly with that old geezer off The Bill - Lawyers 4U or Injuries R Us or something. Why not ring them? good luck with that!

Not master - just Sir. But all the kids do have to stand up when a teacher comes in the room. But then again I had to do that at my state school.

Why is this a risible thread - my son is injured - is that risible?

A school assumes a position of responsibility to it's pupils and stands in loco parentis during a school hours. As such it has a duty of care to act in the best interests of the pupils during school hours including lesson time and break time, as well as after school club time. It honestly sounds like an accident but I would expect any school to attend to an injury, howsoever caused, with more care in order to carry out it's duty and avoid a claim for negligence (it has nothing to do with loss of income in this case). As such I am surprised at the laissez-faire attitude adopted by the Head.

Of course you are entitled to be cross as your son sustained an injury and it doesn't sound as if the school acted upon it appropriately as evidenced by your spending hours in A&E with him afterwards. However, it is often (although not always) the case that prep schools have a more "traditional" stiff upper lip approach to incidents such as this and you have no doubt come to realise this. Beware of leaving an impression on your son from your reaction to this as it would not be ideal to have him expecting more attention any time an accident should occur. An adult can use his or her judgment to assess situations in most cases but children lack that prspective and it may be best to trust in the school for as long as your son is or remains a pupil there.

I think calling it risible is rather too, mrcerec. And I'm not sure things are always that much better at state schools.

Ds2 broke his wrist while he was in Year 7. The school rang dh (I was in the gym and therefore incommunicado), and luckily dh was on his way down from London for a doctor's appointment, so cancelled that and went to pick up ds2.

He found ds2 in the sickroom, with his arm resting on a pillow - it was very swollen and clearly needed a trip to A&E - which the school staff knew because they'd told dh that they thought ds2 had broken his wrist and needed to be taken to casualty!

What's more, the school is pretty much next door to the local hospital, at the end nearest to casualty - and yet the school let ds2 sit in the sickroom waiting for dh to turn up! I was shocked that the school didn't take him along to casualty themselves - bearing in mind that they'd been trying to ring me, without success, had got through to dh, and had then waited until dh got back to our hometown on the train and up to the school in a taxi!!

stayingsunny - I agree with what the school did in your case.
Maybe they didnt have spare staff to take your son to A&E
Maybe they wanted your consent before taking him, what if you hadnt wanted them to, or they had given treatment you disagreed with.

IMHO if the injury is not life threatening (which a broken arm/wrist is not) then what was the problem with him sitting with it elevated until you or your dh arrived?

Sadly schools cant win in this situation.

OP - I still think you're over the top, its your reaction which will eventually turn this ridiculous nanny state into schools that dont allow sport at all in case of injury to children.
It saddens me the things our children miss out on today because people are scared of legal action. God I almost had my own chair in A&E as a child with all the accidents I had, and they were just that - accidents. You cant expect your son to go through life without injury.

I agree that the injury wasn't life threatening, but it was painful, and ds2 had to sit for longer in pain than was necessary. The school had spoken to dh on the phone and could have asked his permission to take ds2 to casualty, and he could have met them there and taken over from the staff - and poor ds2 could have had some proper pain relief.

However, though I disagreed with their judgement, ds2 was ok, and the delay didn't cause any further problems, so I didn't take the matter further. But I wasn't happy with them.

My son was in the primary school at which I teach (in that period between end of GCSE's and end of term which seems to be a bit of a No Man's Land!) helping out. At lunchtime he went out and had a game of football with the younger boys ( although saying that they were only 4-5 years younger and not much smaller!) One tripped him up and my son fell, hurting his leg. The teacher on duty sent him into the staffroom for an ice pack, thinking perhaps he had bruised his leg. By then he was in a bit of pain so Grandad came and took him off to hospital for a bit of a check up. Turned out he had broken his knee! 8 weeks in plaster and months of physio later he is back to normal! But accidents happen, perhaps he shouldn't have been playing football, perhaps the teacher should have realised he had broken his knee, perhaps grandad should have driven faster! No-one did it deliberatly, no-one meant to cause him pain, no-one meant to be unsympathetic( including me!) and no-one was sued

Update - had an email from the head!!! Said he was sorry he didn't have much time to talk to me yesterday ; he did have enough time to tell me he would have done the same thing as the teacher involved, therefore he would have had more than enough time to say to me "oh,I'm sorry to hear about your DS's injury, leave it with me and I'll investigate and get back to you in the next day or so."

He's obviously had second thoughts particularly since the school nurse (didn't want to say Matron ) told him off for not taking it seriously enough.

But he's apologised now, and the teacher has to my son, so that's good enough for me . Why he wasn't more conciliatory in the first place I'll never know...

he's a lucky chap that you are a nice guy

I love a happy ending

a happy ending.common sense prevails

Except the TA has somehow qualified as a teacher overnight

I thought of you Feenie when I read the update