Page 3 | No touch policy at school?

purpleme12 · 2025-08-27T16:32:47+00:00

My child is going into high school Apparently there's a 'no touch' policy at school! Ie you can't even hug ..... Out of all the rules I didn't foresee this one... Wondering how common this is? Is this the case at anyone else's school? Seems really draconioan to me

BurglarAndSwag · 27/08/2025 19:58

We had the same rule at Borstal.
Well, it was more 'No Tongues' if I remember the Governor right.

LupaMoonhowl · 27/08/2025 20:05

Perfectly reasonable rule. How often do you touch your colleagues at work? Do you scuffle with them in the corridor? These rules are necessary because accusations and counter accusations are made in the current climate following ‘me too’.
And girls really don’t need to do each others hair in school.
They can hug and scuffle as much as they like outside school.

Original poster

purpleme12 · 27/08/2025 20:23

Well to be fair it is fairly informal place to work where I work so yeah sometimes we do hug each other

OP posts:

FourTop · 27/08/2025 20:30

purpleme12 · 27/08/2025 20:23

Well to be fair it is fairly informal place to work where I work so yeah sometimes we do hug each other

As soon as someone else, maybe in authority, or of a different sex, put you under pressure to accept this when you didn't want it (or the other way round) it would be a problem.

There's nothing wrong with school being a place where appropriate relationships and respectful behaviours are expected and enforced.

Original poster

purpleme12 · 27/08/2025 20:34

obviously there's nothing wrong with school being a place where appropriate relationships and respectful behaviours are expected and enforced

OP posts:

BaronessEllarawrosaurus · 27/08/2025 20:35

Our school has that rule but it's only enforced if it's an issue. Girls hugging first day back fine, hugs for an upset friend fine, boys high fiving fine. Boy smacks girl on ass they'd come down on them like a ton of bricks. It works at that school because it's dealt with with common sense.

Octavia64 · 27/08/2025 20:37

Honestly teenagers can be a bloody nightmare.

they know about consent and autonomy.

but quite a few of them do not bloody care and while they won’t go around beating anyone up, they’ll bully others as much as they can under the guise of “just a bit of banter” and “it was just a joke”.

small kids in primary are generally not capable of doing a lot of physical or emotional damage to each other,

teen boys (and it is usually boys although I’ve seen girls do it) can really hurt people both physically and emotionally and believe me they know about consent and autonomy and they do not care.

it is far more important to them to be one of the lads and to join in the physical jostling and play fighting that many teen boys do and that so frequently gets out of hand.

two year 11 lads play fighting in a corridor scares the shit out of small year 7s. Often they are adult male size and strength and it really does create an unpleasant environment.

some of these lads will also be taking or dealing drugs, stealing, carrying knives and committing other offences outside school. It’s bloody hard to educate these lads about consent and autonomy - getting them to stop breaking the law would be a bloody good start.

WhenYouSayNothingAtAll · 27/08/2025 20:57

I can see both sides of this. Yes it is sad, and play, touch and even mucking about is all part of growing up and development. However , too many kids (primary and secondary) push it too far, lines get blurred, bullying, sexual assault, fighting etc. It is hard to police and supervise them at all times and make a judgement call whether a hug is a hug or something else or if play fighting will turn to real fighting and so on.

DD’s class had a touching ban in y6 because of the boys. They were always all over each other, pushing, shoving, jumping on each other, tackling etc. Not necessarily an issue , but every day one of them would go home crying (despite doing it 2 minutes before), or some form of injury, or an actual fight started and parents complained.Keep my child (who started the pile on /wrestling/whatever) game safe!!Then they complained about the no touching rule. 🤷‍♀️

WhenYouSayNothingAtAll · 27/08/2025 20:58

Octavia64 · 27/08/2025 20:37

Honestly teenagers can be a bloody nightmare.

they know about consent and autonomy.

but quite a few of them do not bloody care and while they won’t go around beating anyone up, they’ll bully others as much as they can under the guise of “just a bit of banter” and “it was just a joke”.

small kids in primary are generally not capable of doing a lot of physical or emotional damage to each other,

teen boys (and it is usually boys although I’ve seen girls do it) can really hurt people both physically and emotionally and believe me they know about consent and autonomy and they do not care.

it is far more important to them to be one of the lads and to join in the physical jostling and play fighting that many teen boys do and that so frequently gets out of hand.

two year 11 lads play fighting in a corridor scares the shit out of small year 7s. Often they are adult male size and strength and it really does create an unpleasant environment.

some of these lads will also be taking or dealing drugs, stealing, carrying knives and committing other offences outside school. It’s bloody hard to educate these lads about consent and autonomy - getting them to stop breaking the law would be a bloody good start.

You haven’t been in a primary recently have you?

Octavia64 · 27/08/2025 21:01

@WhenYouSayNothingAtAllYou haven’t been in a primary recently have you?

no… I left teaching a couple of years ago…

has it got that bad?

WhenYouSayNothingAtAll · 27/08/2025 21:09

Octavia64 · 27/08/2025 21:01

@WhenYouSayNothingAtAllYou haven’t been in a primary recently have you?

no… I left teaching a couple of years ago…

has it got that bad?

Sadly, yes. In many ways.

Cheesecrunch · 27/08/2025 21:14

My son’s secondary school had to do this when couples were repeatedly draping themselves all over each other all the time.

There were even rumours of them sexually touching each other while they were watching films as part of one of their classes.

The couples (and their parents) were told, but they’d just say “there isn’t a rule against it” so the teachers had to bring in the rule so they could sort it out.