If your child was injured at school

[lovingmummy]

If it was clear it was an accident, no other children were involved and the correct procedure was followed after the accident, would you take legal action?

I broke my arm very badly doing a cartwheel (I slipped), and on another occasion (not badly) falling off a horse. Of course they shouldn't sue- especially if the boy was messing around. My aunt was going to sue her son's school because he put his hand through some glass (which should have been safety glass), but he was mesing around! So rest of the family told her not to be so silly- he was messing around- he made a full recovery- why sue?

and no I don't wrap my DS up in cotton wool either.

blinkin h&s laws go too far sometimes though.

Sorry, not meaning to attack you Whizzz, just you said you didn't believe in the "accidents will happen" argument, but I feel that both times, what happened to my son was just an accident.

My DD has fallen many times and hurt her lip, she is clumsy and thats all there is to it. No-one is at fault except her. I just hope she learns from each fall and takes more care.

I suspect 'compensation culture' is largely a tabloid exaggeration. If it exists at all, it's probably down to the Government's 'reform' of personal injury law, removing legal aid and replacing it with no-win, no fee. But I suspect the real problem is insurance companies insisting their clients go to ludicrous extremes even when there has never, ever been a claim - chopping down horse chestnut trees because of the imagined possibility that someone may be hit by a conker and sue.

I am always injuring myself - my clumsiness can amuse people for hours - but never even managed to sue the bstrd who ran me over (he was uninsured but the police didn't do anything about that either). Let alone all the other people I could, in theory, sue - the company whose office chairs weren't adjustable and injured my leg (it could only happen to me...) for instance.

I know from my day job that most patients, for example, who are injured by doctors or nurses don't actually sue. The minority who sue do so mainly because they can't get anyone to accept responsibility or change procedures to avoid it happening again; or because they will unfortunately need very expensive care that won't be provided for free.

My cousin lost an eye at school. My aunt sued and won. This was about 25 years ago. I beieve her arguenment was lack of supervision, Some child was throwing stones.

I think that is the important thing to teach children - of course they are going to hurt themselves as they run & play but as you say - it's trying to teach them about what they were doing that caused it so that they learn for the next time.
I was very proud of my DS (5) when he told me how he's said to another boy at school who had climbed onto a chair, to get down as he might fall & hurt himself !

Re Compensation culture - I see it far too often unfortunately. I have no problem with 'real' claims where procedures or systems have failed but so annoyed where people try & claim due to their own negligence

Oooo... don't get me started

Aw Eaney, that sounds awful. A lost eye is irreparable and I think he deserved compensation for losing it. At least my son's arm is pretty much as good as new.

Why do they have climbing frames in schools? I know of someone else whose kid broke their arm on a climbing frame. If there is adequate supervision then fine but is it possible to have adequate supervision when there are hoards of kids using it.

Whizz, is there a minimum no. of adults to children required in a school playground?

haven't read whole thread but no, i wouldn;t

No, I wouldn't.

No1
My son was assualted in a local park by an older child, the cops are involved as ds broke his arm, we COULD press charges and sue civilly but we asked for a face to face apology from the boy.
Legal action is the last resort not the first!

I should imagine so - there must be guidelines as to ratios(I'm more industrial than education based) - I'll see if I can google the answer

link here about PE click to download & view the document

Supervision Ratios from Teachers.org.uk
There are no minimum pupil/staff supervision ratios laid down in law. The DfES
advises that the numbers of staff (teachers or midday supervisors as appropriate) on
duty at any one time should be determined according to the results of a risk
assessment which takes into account the ages and abilities of the children and the
geographical features of the school. The considerations here are based on health
and safety law and the ratios must be in line with the minimum requirements
necessary to ensure that children are safely supervised at all times.

Son of an aquaintance fell over in playground during breaktime and scuffed his face quite badly. Mum said she was going to insist that the school should stop children running around at playtime!!

Whizz thanks. The person I know whose child broke her arm is not sueing but is very angry with the school. It was a really bad break requiring surgery and there appears to be some nerve damage as she does not yet have the full use of her arm. She may need more surgery and even then they are not sure of the prognosis.

Just to point out that not all broken arms can mend to being good as new. Her older daughter broke a collar bone a few months prior.

When there are a lot of serious accidents in a school it sugests that some measure could be taken to reduce the risk of further accidents

If I thought it was due to negligence on the part of the shcool, either by faulty equipment or inadequate supervision such as a certain age group not being allowed on that particular equipment but this not being enforced, or too many children at once, then maybe. But accidents can and do happen with even the best one to one supervision. Children have to be allowed to take the occasional risk and learn personal responsibility. If that child was misbehaving and had been told off previously or even removed from the equipment due to poor behaviour, for the sake of argument, and still went on to do it again then the consequences are surely not the school's responsibility.

I hate the blame culture that is developing. these same children will probably be suing the sweet manufacturers in later life for making them fat and unhealthy.

Trouble is, it's unlikely this situation will actually go to court. Most local authorities have the policy of settling fairly early on regardless of fault so as to avoid litigation costs.

As a result, regardless of whether the equipment was maintained and the supervision was good or not, the lawyer will probably get a bigger fee than the kid's settlement. And the LEA will have less money to spend on maintaining school buildings, offering training, curriculum support etc. Some LEAs will pass the cost (or some of it) directly to the school.

ds broke his collar bone in cricket at school and at a different school last year broke his nose in Rugby, never occurred to me to think of blaming the school He also has a knee injury which was from rugby and seems to be one of those chronic injuries but I view it as one of those things

and at yet another school dd1 broke a boys nose with a cricket bat (he was fielding too close behind her) and nothing happened about that either

From the RoSPA's (Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents) website.

'Few accidents can be said to be ?Acts of God? or matters of pure chance. Most have complex immediate and underlying causes ? but most can be foreseen and their chances of occurring and/or their harmfulness can be reduced or even eliminated if the right kinds of control are in place.'

Prevention of accidents

This sums it up for me really. There is only so much that can be done to minimise the risk of accidents occuring and if this everything possible is done then you can ask no more of a school or an employer. Trouble is, I suspect, some schools and employers fall short of the mark.

OK I understand that in some cases there is a case. However whatever happened to personal responsibility?

I am getting more and more hacked off with the fact that everyone blames everyone else and it is NEVER their fault. We are not supposed to be offered credit cards as it might entice us to spend too much, we are not allowed to have pubs open as it might cause people to drink more, etc etc.

I am as PC as they come but I am getting so irritated by this. ACCIDENTS DO HAPPEN if we tryed to EVERYTHIING H&S say we should at work, it would be impossible to function (sometimes we have to carry a heavy box of magazines - shock horror) I am a grown up and I want to choose things and suffer consequenses. I want my kids to learn from their mistakes too. Obviously I don't make things diliberately dangerous for them, but I do teach my kids how to use sharp knives etc as I prefer to teach the safely. Sooner or later kids will not be able to PLAY in school playgrounds IN CASE someone falls - World gone MAD IYKWIM

She could possibly sue using 'lack of supervision' as the basis of her claim. I used to work for a claims company (then thought better of it ) and this was often the basis for a claim against a school/nursery etc.

there are no playgrounds around here as the council removed them because of fear of litigation from some injured child's family
They actually did ban running in a school around here for a while (it was bought back by popular demand). In DS1's school certain chasing games are banned. I think that's sad.

I fell off a climbimg frame as a child - it bl00dy hurt and I learned to be more careful. Children learn more from their own mistakes than from adults telling them what not to do. Obviously I don't want my children to be too hurt but I want them to learn how to safely assess situations for themselves.

There is a difference between this and blatent negligence though - councils/schools etc still need to be held accountable for maintaining safety standards.

Excellent post crunchie.

I broke my collar bone falling off a climbing frame at school, but my dad was the headmaster and therefore unlikely to sue. It did cross our minds to sue the Queen when ds ripped his arm open on the railings at Buckingham Palace mind you.....