Head guilty of Hand S breaches which led to pupil's death .

[LIZS]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/6925503.stm Can't help thinking that this is the thin end of the wedge as far as our children being given scope to play is concerned. Obviously the accident ahd very sad consequences but how does the financial penalty and a civil case by the parents help ? At what age is it acceptable to expect children to obey out of bounds rules without constant supervision. Does Ofsted apply in Wales ,and if so, if it was such an obviosu hazard why had it not previously been noted as an action point .

Unfortunately this boy could have had 1 to 1 supervision and the same thing happened.
He goes running off across the playground to the steps, gets told to get off them, he jumps down and that one in a million tragic outcome occurs. The same scenario probably happens in playgrounds across the country but without any injuries.
This child could play on those steps every day before and after school while mum stands there chatting (this happens outside my classroom) and no one thinks the parent is negligent as all the other children are doing the same thing!

With regard to the supervision at playtime there may have been 3 adults to start with but you only need one adult tending to an injury and another sorting out a confrontation and all of a sudden there is that nightmare ratio of one adult to the rest.

Mamazon - the crimainal case was brought by the police/HSE I guess. Beacuse that has been sucessful the parents are now taking civil action

Another key thing here that I've not seen mentioned was the fact that the injured child was not found by a member of staff but by a 16 yr old ! This has got to be a case of poor supervision

whizz - interesrting link there - especially

" Enabling innovation and learning not stifling them"

You can bet that for that one poor little boy that died there have been another 100 other little boys doing the exact same thing and ending up with nothing more than a few cuts bruises (perhaps the odd broken bone or two) and a burst ego....and they probably learned not to do it again.

hing is though - even if there was 1 teacher for every 5 children - it could STILL have happened. I've only got 3 DC (and one of them is still a baby so doesn't "go" anywhere) - but if one falls over/hurts himself then my attention is focussed with them, the other one can quite easily do something dangerous and hurt themselves.

As for the MRSA - no-one is trying to say the hospital was at fault. BUT, the would he have died if he hadn't contracted staphylococcal pneumonia? Yes he was in a coma - but it's not unheard of for people to come out of comas and recover.

my db split his lip jumping down our stairs at home. I think he was jumping from about the 7th step -we were having a compoetion as to high we culd jump from!

To be fair he was about 7 at the time.

It was Chirstams Eve and my dad had to put a stitch in his lip.

He also, when he was about 4, managed to get a greenstick fracture of his arm while playing on a sofa at home.

Kids are "accidents waiting to happen" - but we do need to be careful to not totally sterilise their envornment.

it's interesting that in one of the articels, someone at the school actually says that in their view the grounds are less safe as a result of the safety precautions put in folowing the accident.

it's a bit like the people who say they had to stop using stari gates, as their kids would just climb over them, with the potential for an even higher fall.

But prettybird - I'll point out again as in my earlier post, the difference between H&S in the workplace / public area / school etc and H&S in the home re: the level of scrutiny / legal regulations

We have all taken 'risks' at home, the thing is the same 'risk' that someone else takes outside the home may not be as tolerable when other people or peoples children are 'at risk'

I accpet your point Whizzz - and I also realsie that many things that get forbidden on so-called "Health & Safety" grounds are done by jobsworths and not HSE officers.

However, it is interesting that another H&S specialist said that he wouldn't have recommended a gate to the stairs. Now "he would say that wouldn't he" given that he was commissioned to do the reort by the defence, but it does go to show that there can be differences of opinions as the hazards.

My ds split his head and needed three stitches while in the care of his Holiday Club - falling up a set of stone stairs while at Glasgow Cathedral. Accidents happen and I have no concerns about the quality of supervision he received.

I have more concerns about the fact that he was then x-rayed unneccessarily not once but twice, when he had never been unconscious, purely so a medic could cover his baksdie. I object to my son having being exposed unnecessarlit to the radiation becasue of our litigous society. (My dad, a paediatric radilogist, cwas horrified that this was done).

Of course risk perception varies enormously between individuals based on their knowledge, experience, point of view etc - that's what makes H&S so difficult sometimes to interpret / make a decision. The bad press H&S gets is usually the result of someone mis-interpreting the guidance or not accpeting risks that are tolerable to others.

You may argue (and & don't know all the facts of this particular case) & expect the H&S person did in this case that the gate wouldn't be needed IF the young children could be adequately supervised at all times while near the stairs for example. If that was the case, the risk would be tolerable to that person

A tragic accident and a rather severe punishment.

But the article says there were 10 3yo children in the playground, so by law, there should have been 2 staff present just for those 10 children. The required ratios are 1-3 for under 2s and 1-8 for pre-schoolers of 3yo and up. It's irrelevant whether you agree or not with this level of supervision, it is the law, and it was not observed.

These staff ratios do not apply to school age children, hence class sizes of 30 (and beyond) from Reception onwards.

Sorry, if someone posted this - I scanned and didn't see it.

Looking back as the case was reported as it progressed - here is the main bit of the prosecution by the looks of it :-

"The Health and Safety Executive is prosecuting the school's headmaster James Porter, 65, for an alleged safety breach.

The prosecution claims that Kian should not have been allowed unsupervised access to the steps.

On Monday, prosecuting counsel Nicholas Jones said there had been no physical barrier to the steps and only one teacher watching 59 pupils in both upper and lower playgrounds and she was unable to monitor the steps from she was.

Mr Porter, who also owns the school, denies that as an employer he failed to ensure as far as was reasonably practicable that pre-school age children were not exposed to the risk to their health by falling on a flight of steps. "

and heres the bit about supervision:-
"The jury heard from Stephen Scott, principal inspector in charge of the HSE investigation, who said that many factors were involved.

He told the jury that, while he had a great respect for a lot of the ethos at Hillgrove, "what I had were very serious concerns about his awareness of the kind of supervision ratios and standards at other schools, and the actual supervision and exposure to hazards for three to four-year-olds".

He added that greater supervision was required for three-year-olds, and that was expected by parents. "

The case was successful as the court must have decided that preventing access either by adequate supervision or a physical barrier was 'reasonably practicable' ie fairly easy to do with significant rewards (ie safety of pupils)

Not only was it an appalling piece of negligence to fail to provide adequate supervision for small, pre-school aged children, but outrageous that the teacher couldn't actually see the children and the poor kid was found by some passing teenager.

And wrt stairgates, falls down stairs are one of the commonest causes of serious injury to toddlers/small children. So there is a real reason to use them.

Absolutely agree Edam.

"passing teenager" - the 16 year old was on wrok experince at the school , so may well have been out watching the kids play at the time . No mention of any time lag between the fall and him being found just that he was on the scene sooner than the supervising teacher.

I used stairgates with ds1 - didn't with either ds2 or ds3 (ds1 would headbut them so couldn't). We did have a playpen so there was a secure place if needed - but both were far safer on the stairs far earlier than ds1 - especially ds3. He was unsupervised at times from pretty early on because that's what happens when you have 3, and he liked the stairs.

All the kids I have known who have fallen down stairs have been those that haven't been "trained" to be safe around stairs.

I tried to teach ds to go down stairs backwards on his tummy. He insisted on bum shuffling his way forwards. On watching him, I realsied he was doing so with a great sens of his own safaty (ie shuffling his bum forward, while leaning back) and I stopped bothering trying to turn him around.

It would be interesting to know the statitics of those toddlers that have been injured - do they have stair gates at home or not?

I think with stairgates it depends on each particular child as to when you use them and for how long. I know ds1 was safer on the stairs than ds2- went up and down on his bum a lot and was calm as was on his own.

I got rid of my stairgates as the only stair-related accidents we had involved falling onto or over them. A friend's little girl broke her arm after trying to climb over the one put up for her baby brother. I spent ages watching ds3 when he started crawling upstairs at about 10 months and he was so clever, repeatedly going up and down a few steps at a time until he was confident. I never let him go up on his own until he was older, but he has never had an accident and is actually very careful (if you don't count him sliding down the stairs on his tummy at top speed )

Without wanting to comment on the tragedy of the little boy, I have never let my dd's play on stairs, I've always taught them that they are for walking up or down carefully not a play area.

I have just gone through about 20 different web pages to see statistics for falling down stairs and the resulting injuries. What I found was even more startling every report stated that death by injuy was the number one killer of children. I attached a couple of saftey articles for those who are interested. This one is very good.

www.childalert.co.uk/absolutenm/templates/newstemplate.asp?articleid=8&zoneid=1

This one is good too.

www.rospa.com/homesafety/advice/child/accidents.htm

and this one is great

www.gtp.com.au/kidsafesa/inewsfiles/Nursery_Equipment_ML.pdf

I know this thread has twisted & turned & ended up discussing stairgates in the home - but I actually pointed out earlier that more injuries occur in the home/garden than outside.
Even the statistics for adults poit out that you are more likely to get injured whilt at home compared to at work

'The most frequent form of injury is the result of a fall, while accidental fire causes the highest deaths.'

from one of leati's links.

i live in a 3 storey house and have 5 children age 5months-9 years.if i were to put gates at the top and bottom of every set of stairs that would make 5 gates altogether.if there was a fire we would be f*d.

so i ,too,have taught dd2(20 months)how to go down the stairs safely,but i will be getting a gate for her room when she goes into a bed,as its different when they are sleepy.

i am concerned about this case,however,as my ds2's nursery has 3 stone steps leading down to the playground,and children as young as 2 go there.there is a gate at the top but not the bottom.