Should school have contacted DS's sports coach about an incident that took place at school?

[ptangyangkipperbang]

DS aged 8 got into a fight at school. It was over with in a few mins, the boys made up and they missed a playtime and had to write about the incident at lunchtime. I thought it had all been dealt with and supported the school by talking to DS about making the right choices, etc, etc.

A week later the boys went to judo and were called over by the coach who talked to them about their behaviour as one of them had mentioned a judo throw had been used when they were fighting.

It turns out that without asking permission from parents the school had contacted the judo coach to ask him to 'tell them off'. The school have a relationship with the coach because he'd run an after school club there in the past so he'd been put in a difficult position.

1. Can the school contact an outside body without a parents permission? (Excluding child protection)

1. Can the school 'sub-contract' discipline?

1. Have the school over reacted?

1. AIBU to be really cross?!

Any comments gratefully received as I'm a bit open mouthed about it all.

www.manchesterscb.org.uk/docs/Information%20Sharing%2C%20further%20guidance%20on%20legal%20issues%20%2C%20HM%20Government%2C%20October%202008.pdf

This guidance supports the cross-Government guidance document Information sharing:
practitioners? guide. It provides practitioners, managers and trainers with additional
information on:
 the law specifically concerned with information sharing;
 the pieces of legislation which may provide statutory agencies and those acting on
their behalf with statutory powers to share information.
It is for everyone who works with children and young people, whether they are employed or
volunteers, and working in the public, private or voluntary sectors. It is for staff working in
health; education; early years and childcare; social care; youth offending; police; advisory
and support services, and leisure. It is also for practitioners who work in services provided
for adults, for example mental health services and drug and alcohol services, as many of the
adults accessing those services may have parenting or caring responsibilities.

That depends ubik. Where I work, I've pretty much had it drummed into me that however good your intentions are, a breach of the data protection act is still a breach of the data protection act. That's how it should be.

I haven't read that whole doc mrz, but it seems to be a guidance document, covering many laws. I'm curious as to what actual law was broken in this case, and the penalties associated with what the school has done?

probably half the laws detailed in the guidance document Grolithe

I think a mixture of the common law and data protection act would come into play here. It's likely the school have made a written record of the incident so would be considered under DPA. The most likely penalty would be a fine, but I couldn't say how much.

The Common Law duty of confidentiality says

It is possible however to identify some circumstances in which sharing confidential information without consent will normally be justified in the public interest. These are:
● when there is evidence that the child is suffering or is at risk of suffering significant harm; or
● where there is reasonable cause to believe that a child may be suffering or at risk of significant harm; or
● to prevent significant harm arising to children and young people or serious harm to adults, including through the prevention, detection and prosecution of serious crime.
For the purposes of this guidance, serious crime means any crime which causes or is likely to cause significant harm to a child or young person or serious harm to an adult.

it doesn't seem as if any of these circumstances apply

Probably being the operative word mrz.

When working in IT within the Banking Industry, I had to undertake mandatory training on the DPA and other regulation that affected my job, repeatedly in timeframes prescribed by the regulators. This training clearly outlined what would constitute a breach of the legislation, and the penalties I could face for such a breach.

Is there similar training to cover this stuff? Or just 'guidance'?

It could be argued that a school talking to a judo coach with whom they have a working relationship about incidents in which the judo throws he has taught being used in their playground is covered by 'to prevent significant harm arising to children'.

I don't know about every school but certainly the settings I have been involved in have to sign a confidentiality agreement which is written by the management. It is written very clearly in their contracts and handbook that a breach of the agreement could result in disciplinary action including instant dismissal. Not sure where the law comes into it really - the staff are well informed of their role though.

I'm using the NHS guidance not the link msz linked to. It suggests seeking specialist legal advice before sharing confidential info in any of the situations she just suggested. The bar for justifying being in the public interest is set high. Essentially I think it boils down to life or death situations.

Grow - it could be, but there was no need to discuss specific children - they could have addressed the whole judo class and I would imagine those 2 children are not the only 2 that could have used or thought about using judo moves outside the class - they are only children after all.

My 5 YO DS started judo and when he got his yellow belt, he and has friend who also got it took the belts in for show and tell, the teacher asked them to show the class some moves (WTF?!), luckily they were sensible enough to say they weren't allowed but that may not have been the case especially as asked by the teacher.

Two eight year olds fighting is very unlikely to be considered a risk of significant harm and talking to the parents and children involved would remove the risk of any harm

mrz with all due respect I think two eight year olds throwing each other round on a concrete playground could actually cause significant harm, which would be why judo schools use crash mats.

do you know they were throwing each other around on a concrete playground?

Ok, unless they were actually fighting on crash mats (closely supervised), wherever they were they could have been injured.

grass?
playground safety surface?

They could be injured playing on the climbing frame or tripping on the steps or playing football ...but it wouldn't be considered a risk of significant harm

I would see risk in two eight year olds performing judo throws on each other round on grass or even a safety surface. Especially as it was unlikely that there was a trained instructor closely supervising them at the time.

Would you see it as a greater risk than falling 2m from a climbing frame?

Do you have a climbing frame at your school which has a significant risk of a child falling 2 metres? If so, I would say that children need to be closely supervised on it.

No but we have a climbing frame that is 4m high without a sign

and in a recent H&S inspection was not regarded as a significant risk

Thats ok then. What did the inspector say about the two 8 yos martial artists chucking each other round in the other round in the other corner?

How on earth can a teacher who knows nothing about judo say two 8 yo fighting using judo throws is ok?

How do you know what "a teacher" knows about Judo?