My 5-Year-Old Broke His Arm at School – School Ignored My Warning. What Should I Do?

[Hannuda]

Hi everyone, I’d really appreciate some advice from other parents who may have experienced something similar.

My 5-year-old son is in Reception. At the beginning of June, he had an accident at home and came back to school with his left arm in a cast. I spoke directly with the headteacher and clearly asked that he not take part in any outdoor or physical activity, as I was concerned about the risk of further injury.

Despite that, on 11 June, during class time (not breaktime), he was outside in the play area with his class. He climbed onto a low block and fell, breaking his right arm — with multiple fractures. He was supervised by a teacher, but at the moment of the fall she was speaking to another child and did not see what happened. They claim he had been told not to climb, but honestly, he’s five — when you put kids in front of playground equipment, it’s predictable that they’ll want to use it, especially if they aren’t closely supervised.

What upset me most is that the school did not send me any written report until 21 days after the accident, and only after I repeatedly emailed them. When I finally received the report, it seemed to shift the blame onto my son rather than taking any real responsibility for what happened — even though they had agreed to keep him indoors for his safety.

My son has suffered a lot, physically and emotionally. He missed important football training sessions (he plays for a pre-academy), and it’s been hard for all of us to see him so down. I’m now considering making a formal complaint to the Council and possibly seeking legal advice — but before I take that step, I wanted to ask:

Has anyone experienced something similar with a school? How did you deal with it?

And taking legal action against the school will push their insurance premiums up mean they have less money in their budget.

What age were they though?

Older years, absolutely. Reception, not possible. Half of the actual classroom is outside!

I was wondering this.

The whole way your posts are written doesn't really flow as it would for most people brought up in the UK.

Plus, being able to get all these medical tests done so quickly doesn't sound like my experience with the NHS.

Sometimes saying what country you are in, when asking for advice, can be useful as the advice can be different for different countries.

Is it? My reception class was all indoors

I'm always intrigued by threads where the OP received assurances no doctor is likely to issue given the circumstances.

I thought Early Years provision had to include outdoors play? Has it changed (my DC are much older)?

He was supervised but outside. Told not to climb but did anyway 🙄

Your reception class didn't have an outside space? They're required to have daily access to outdoor space.

I'm weighing up what's more mind-blowing this or the fact the ops child has apparently already had extensive testing to rule out medical issues.

They do.

Why that poster thought their 30+ year old experience was relevant to nowadays, I have no clue.

DD broke her arm last summer holidays and went back to school with a cast. She was fine in herself but the school were very cautious, she wasn't even allowed to sit on the floor, had a chair provided even in assembly as they didnt even want her to lean on her arm to get up from the floor. She certainly wasn't allowed to run riot in the playground where she could climb, run or anything where further injury could have happened. It was inside play or quiet corner for play time.

In hindsight, the school were probably more cautious than me! 🙈

Good grief.

Parents expect more of schools than they expect of themselves.

It was an accident.

I’m sorry but you’re being ridiculous. How on Earth can you expect your child to have the level of supervision you’re requesting. I work in a school. We have 3 broken arms currently, all while just running around at break time. They are not allowed to do PE. The children know they can’t climb on things or run while they have casts. They do all of those things and don’t listen unfortunately. Keep him at home while it heals because you simply cannot expect school staff to watch him every second.

I too wondered about so many breaks. Kids fall and hurt themselves all the time but multiple breaks are not common.

I understand how upsetting this is for you all but, honestly, it's unrealistic to expect teachers to monitor a child individually all the time. It was an accident.

NRTFT so someone might have said this already, but there is no way that that at the usual staffing levels in reception (a teacher and a TA) that someone can keep an eye on just one of the 29/30 children every single second. It sounds as if the teacher had him next to her during an outdoor activity, he knew what not to do, and did it anyway.

Sometimes it is just not possible to keep a child inside - the class he might have been send to where he could be kept an eye on is doing PE in the hall, the other possible class is away on a trip, the TA who might have been able to come down from KS1 is off sick/dealing with an autistic child having a meltdown/in a meeting with the SENCo/supervising another class due to a staff absence. If he is climbing on things and falling off them, he'd have been more at risk inside alone than outside under supervision.

Schools are very tight for staff, but teachers are extremely reluctant to leave young DC unsupervised anywhere. This is obviously upsetting - but do you watch him every second that he is with you?

He was being supervised but the moment the teacher wasn't watching him he chose to climb. This is on him OP, the school can't be expected to hold him down for the full school day. There are other children in the class who also need the teacher's attention.

Get over it and move on. He’s 5 he’s going to do what he wants at school regardless of what the teachers say if he wants to climb let him he’ll get over it

My daughter fractured her ankle. She had to wear a boot. We had to complete a risk assessment outlining what activities she could and could not do in order for her to attend school. We had to redo the risk assessment everytime her needs/ restrictions changed. We completed it with the welfare person and that was distributed to the teachers.

so initially she had....
Boot to be worn
Boot can't get wet
Seated at playtimes - colouring books provided.
Seated on chair at carpet time and assembly.
No PE

This was amended every 2 weeks until after 6 weeks she was back to full activities.

Was a risk assessment completed? Did you put anything writing?

So you want him to be locked inside whilst all
the other kids were outside playing? Who did you expect to supervise him inside? Or did you expect them to keep all the children inside with him?? If you wanted him to just sit inside all day then you probably should’ve keep him at home.

‘Get over it and move on’ is such a negative, dismissive statement to say to anyone who is upset / angry etc. 🙄

My son had a risk assessment for a period of time after breaking his arm to allow for healing/recovery. But then went back to normal. How long was it after original arm break?

Another vote for focusing on why he has broken 2 arms in a couple of weeks rather than blaming the school. Sounds like he wasn't doing anything that would normally cause a break tbh

I think keeping them inside with a book or toy until their arm has healed is appropriate in situations like this when they are young and will do stuff without thinking.

agree with other posters if he’s broken two arms in the space of a few weeks you need to get him checked as he may have brittle bones

Did he have both arms broken at the same time?

YABU, particularly for saying that a five year old child has “important football training”.