Son - broke both his wrists first week in P1

[doolittle79]

Hello
My son broke both his wrists his first week at school falling from a climbing frame. I got nowhere with the school. Do I have a claim?

The school should be insured. Given the number of accidents and the fact you had to take time off work, applying for compensation is justified imo. I’d also campaign to make sure they sort out the play area plus supervision.

i wouldn't want money, but i can see why you might op, if you had to take that much time off work and you're on your own. I'd absolutely want to know what they'd done to stop it happening again.

Go and see a solicitor that specialises in those personal injury cases - goodness knows there are enough ads knocking about on daytime TV.

Raising the issue with school to ensure they are doing a proper risk assessment of the area, and are preventing any unnecessary risk: go for it.

Complaining to have to go to school to help your son: of course.

I am not sure what you mean by 50 accidents? Do you mean 50 kids with broken bones or concussions necessitating at least a visit to A&E? Or do you mean kids falling as they do? In my local schools, there' s rarely a day without at least a parent having to pick up their kids, they run into each other, they climb, they play. Unless you keep them on a chair all day, that's normal.

If you are thinking compensation, you have to ask for professional legal advice to see if YOUR SON is entitled to compensation for HIS pain and suffering and so on.

sorry - just seen your update about it being a known risk in slippery weather

The school will be insured - i'd be amazed if they haven't already notified their insurers and talked it through.

RIDDOR would not be given to you. It is submitted directly on to the RIDDOR reporting website.

If you are wanting to be compensated then find a solicitor to give you a free hour consultation to see if they think you have a case.

Just contact a personal injury claim company. As a PP said there are loads of them around.

You will get somewhere but be warned it will take about a year and the money goes to your son, held in trust until he is 18. So that won't help your financial problems i'm afraid.

Shit happens. that's life...

Etc

It does seem a high amount of accidents but generally, accidents at schools do tend to be at break times when the kids are climbing etc - most schools have a climbing frame. What makes your schools climbing frame more dangerous than all the others? My kids have an accident slip coming home most weeks from break time.

I do feel your frustration, when my daughter broke her arm I’d just had a baby and it really wasn’t easy but that’s just life isn’t it? Most accidents could be prevented if you really think about it!

If you’re worried about other children I would write to the school, but if I found myself in this position, I’d be telling my son to stay away from the climbing frame in future and leave it there.

As a pp has said if your in Scotland then OFSTED is irrelevant. The equivalent is Education Scotland. However it's not in their remit to investigate this type of accident, the way it perhaps is in OFSTEDs. You need to complain to the authority. You'd need to prove negligence though I would imagine.

I think she is for real. There are clearly several areas where they need to tighten things up - their risk assessment/prevention type work, response to accidents at the time they happen, follow-up documentation, making accommodations for the child to enable them to attend school, follow-up actions to prevent recurrence. Whilst in general I abhor the claim culture of this modern world it seems crystal clear to me that the school have quite a bit of learning to do and improvements they could make. Whether that turns into a lawsuit or not is another matter, but to say that the school did nothing wrong is just not accurate. If the figures OP provided are able to be formally evidenced (ie the number of accidents previously on this piece of equipment) then that could be grounds for a claim. There are obvious, clear areas for improvement, without question.

You'd have got very different responses had you put all the information from your later post into the OP.
Also if you had asked what people thought you should do, rather than asking about making a financial claim.

If you had come across in the first instance as being concerned about how long it took to get first aid, (although, how do you know this ?) and about the fact you've found there have been 50 accidents on this piece of apparatus in a 12 month period (again- how do you know this?), then they are definitely matters to follow up with the school.
I am sorry this has happened to your son, but talking about compensation just makes everyone close down and get defensive, it doesn't start a helpful investigation.

If you're serious about pursuing, don't be asking strangers on an internet forum, ask a frigging solicitor

^ this.

if you are serious about pursuing such a weak case then i would absolutely use a no win no fee solicitor.
You are going to have to proove negligence on the schools part instead of a normal playground accident, It also bears considering that your son will be attending this school while your pursue this, honestly not what i would want for any of my kids.
Good Luck because I think your are going to need it.

Speak to a personal injury claim solicitor. 50 accidents in 12 months is unacceptable and the school does sound like they are negligent. This isn't the platform for you to get advice, you need qualified and legal advice.

Who has told you that there have been 50 accidents in the last year?

Fact or hearsay?

Presumably school or local authority could have hired an assistant for him ..or you could have hired someone to support him if it was thst or nothing ? so it didn't need to be you taking time off work ?

1. How do you know there have been 50 climbing frame accidents in the last year? Do you have access to school records?

1. My dd broke her leg falling over a big log in a play area at centre parcs. I consulted 2 solicitors to see if they would take my case on a "no win, no fee" basis and both of them declined which I took to mean that both of them didn't think i'd win m case and were therefore not prepared to spend time on it.

Was your son told not to go on the equipment?

you won't ever get assurances, kids fall and dick about and will always get injured.

BUT if there are those things that could be improved, that needs pursuing. Don't dripfeed to your solicitor like you did here!

How do you know how long it took to get a first aider? I wouldn’t rely on the sayso of a primary age child. My kids will say something took hours when it was only 5 minutes.

50 accidents - you need to clarify what you mean, is it 50 accidents that required medical attention eg severe bruises, breaks, sprains etc or just 50 times a child fell off had a minor bump and just needed a cuddle? My kids come home with at least 1 accident slip a week as everything has to be noted no matter how minor and most is stuff that I would tell them they are fine and get on with it had I been there.

With regards to the slippiness etc then all you need to do is write to the school and the LEA and ask them what actions they have taken to remedy this, I would expect them to either rope off this equipment in bad weather, apply some non slip coating to certain areas of it, increase supervision or to get rid of it completely. They don’t need to be sued to make sure this doesn’t happen again, you just need to make a formal complaint to the LEA if the school have not taken actions

Regarding your financial situation of taking time off work. As people have said your son needs no money for medical equipment so any money that you might be awarded would go into trust for him so will not make any difference to you now.

We have wooden play equipment in our school. The children are not allowed to play on it when it is wet for precisely this reason. It is a horrible hazard. Speak to a solicitor and ignore the other posters who are telling you to get over it. This was totally negligent on the part of the school to let children play on wet equipment. I hope your little one is feeling better.

Is 50 really that high a number? My son has already had at least 10 accident slips home this school year, for mostly very minor bumps that they felt obliged to tell me about e.g. banged heads in maths with another pupil. So in that context, 50 reported accidents sounds quite low actually.

"This was totally negligent on the part of the school to let children play on wet equipment."

But they probably told them NOT to play on it.

50 accidents in the last 12 months probably includes falling and scraping their knee-in which case two out of three of my dc could have probably had that amount on their own. It doesn't sound too much.

As for breaking both wrists. A friend's dd did that in her teens when she tripped over her own feet walking along the floor at home. Carpeted soft floor, slight trip, happened to land awkwardly. She's never broken a bone before (or since) so not particularly accident prone.

My daughter broke her ankle skipping in Reception
My son fell over and got a large chunk of wood stuck in his arm in Year 1 and was blue lighted to hospital
Never occurred to me to sue.
Kids have accidents and unless you want to change your child’s school ( as you will be forever hated by everyone) then I would just move on

Love it when people claim to "not want it to happen to another child" when actually it's just about the money.