School negligence or just pure bad luck?

Eeek and justsally thank you, you have said exactly the point I was trying to make but perhaps my way of putting it was not politically correct. My nephews parents were more concerned by the fact that no one saw it fit to make them aware that he had fallen, be it by phone or just a note in a journal instead they left it to a 9year old child to do.

My reason for posting this is because after speaking again with the school last week they enquired as to whether all future incidents would be dealt with within school policy and the principal said he was happy with the way the situation had been dealt with and it was always school policy to report school yard incidents to the parents as in their School Policy but this one had been an oversight!!!
 
Fractures in children are difficult to diagnose without Xray as because their bones are still growing, they get 'greenstick' fratures. My own child had a fracture in her foot, which I only took her to hospital for on the 3rd day because pain was intermittant and no sign of swelling till then.
 
your original post mentioned this:
"the doctors bills are covered by the Insurance but nothing else, nothing for taking time off to bring their child to a hospital every week 50miles away and having to take time off work for this" so surely people could surmise from this (and the title of the thread) that there was a financial element to your query? If I were the principal of the school i would for 2 weeks follow the thrust of the last three posts and report every single little mishap and that would solve the problem as all the parents would be up in arms about being rung or informed of every little detail. if your nephews parents took 5 hours to decide post-calpol to bring him to the hospital surely some responsibility lies with them and the child rather than the teachers or the school. having said that i hope the child recovers from this traumatic event.
 
God what has it come to when now it comes down to a 9 year old child being responsible for the school (who were his carers at the time) not acting within THEIR OWN guidelines.:eek:

Oh enough, I'm starting to wonder why any of us pay insurance anyway, cos if we were to work of the basis of most of these replies then no-one would ever make a complaint, no-one only parents and children would be held accoutable for school accidents so there would be no need for these ridiculous premiums everyone pays for pubic liability, wouldn't it be a great old world alright! Wonder if the fall had been in one of the major retail stores would attitudes be any different. :confused:
 
Where do you draw the line on reportable accidents?? What is a reportable accident ??
Does a paper cut that drew blood warrant an accident report , a note in the journal & a phone call to the parent ???
Accident do & will happen. Next time the child will be a little wiser & will have learnt actions have consequences.

Teachers will do the best they can to mind.

It took his own parent 5 hours to realise something was wrong so how do you expect the teacher to get it right in an instance
 
To clarify my own position:
Do I think the school failed in its duty of care by not following its own reporting procedures for accidents? Absolutely.
Do I think the parents should be compensated for having to deal with the aftermath of a playground accident? No, playground accidents are a fact of life (unless gross negligence is involved).
As for children having accidents in major retail stores, in that case they should be under parental control so I would deem the parent responsible (unless gross negligence is involved).
 
I'm sure the situation in your post could have been avoided by teachers carrying around and being trained on xray machines - or sending a flurry of forms home whenever any child got a bump. Personally I'd prefer to see their time spent teaching and interacting with children, instead of filling forms for every scrape and cut.

I just accept that children can fall anywhere and accidents can happen that aren't particularly anyones fault. As for your point about if it had happened in a retail store - well, if the retail store had caused the accident through unsafe or faulty conditions I'd agree with you. But this child fell in a playground through noone elses fault. Its this kind of litigious thinking that stops children's after school programmes and bans running in playgrounds for fear of lawsuits.

As for the taking time off work to bring the child to hospital? well maybe the posters relation should have got some kind of hassle free pet instead of a child. That way they won't have to worry about the added inconvienience that children bring. Its people claiming for stuff like that that pushes school insurance up - and has schools spending a fortune on insurance instead of materials and equipment for children.
 
May07 said:
.....this incident had not been notified to to school principal. ..
Click to expand...
May07 said:
.. both teachers who were on yard duty were happy enough that the fall was no different to other falls within the yard and were shocked by the injury sustained and therefore didn't see the need to notify the principal of the incident. ..
. copy of the Schools Accident reporting procedures. When his father asked why the procedure was not followed ie parents notified, the Principal said he could not notify him of it as he was not made aware by the teachers on yard duty ...
Click to expand...


The question is not 'why wasnt the accident procedure followed?' but 'why wasn't the accident deemed serious enough to warrant the accident procedure'? It seems pretty clear that the teachers on yard duty made a judgement call that this was a non-serious bog-standard fall (of which there must be hundreds/thousands every day in Irish schools) and so not deserving of an accident report in line with the school reporting procedure. And I think teachers/yard supervisors should be allowed reasonable freedom to make these judgement calls - even if they get it wrong (in either direction) occasionally.

Teachers would be up to their eyes in paperwork if they had to follow 'the procedure' and fill in forms for every knock and fall in the playground. And I would take a very dim view of being called/phoned/notified of every slight incident involving my children.
 
Years ago when my son was in primary school, I got a call from the Principal informing me that he had been in an accident, not serious he assured me but if possible could I come to the school.

My son, aged about 10 at the time had been playing some kind of chase game in the playground & accidently hit his head off the corner of the wall. He was sitting in the Principals office when I arrived with a nasty bleeding cut on his forehead but being well looked after. I thanked the Principal for looking after him & calling me & proceeded to take my son to the doctor where he received 3 stitches.

I had paid the school insurance but did I even think of putting in a claim ? It never even struck me ! I was just happy that nothing worse had happened & that my son was ok & was too busy looking after him (as well as my other two children) I always assumed that these insurance policies (at that time they cost around €10pa) were for really major injuries.

Did my son blame the friend who was chasing him ? Not at all, as it could easily have been the other way round.

When so many serious things can happen to children, why make a fuss over something minor ? Nothing life threatening was involved. Yes, I would expect to be notified if an accident occurred that required immediate attention. Your nephew is ok, no lasting damage was done, so I don't really understand the problem.

Are children to be wrapped in cotton wool & not allowed to run & play in case they hurt themselves occasionally ? Should we not be prepared to give the time & money it takes to make them better if they do get injured ? Is that not part & parcel of what we take on when we decide to become parents ?
 
I am no teacher but to be honest as most other posters have pointed out, children trip, fall, push, kick, etc all the time. The reporting procedures would have to allow a judgment call on the part of the supervising teachers as to whether the incident warranted further action. The child may not even have had a bruise or any swelling at the time of the incident or for some time after and was capable of walking away from it. Only the child can communicate if they are in pain and at 9 years of age they are capable of determining how comfortable they are. The yard was supervised, the supervisors were aware of the incident, the supervisors examined the incident and determined to the best of their ability that the incident was not sufficiently serious to warrant reporting. Chances are within a few minutes of the incident the child was sitting down in the classroom (unless it was immediately before they left school) and didn't feel particularly bad. If the child had been there for a full day and had complained later of pain or been seen to be limping it would be a different matter. That the parents made a similar initial judgment call to the teachers is indicative of how serious it appeared initially. The child probably worsened as the day went on which of course prompted the parents to take the child to the doctor (who you'll notice probably suspected but did not diagnose a broken foot). IMHO the school was not negligent. That later events proved their initial decision incorrect is not the point, they did not have the same information as the parents did 5 hours later. To report every knock where there is no visible injury would be a needless administrative burden and would not necessarily have altered the parent's subsequent actions as well insist that every school is fitted with x-ray machines and have a policy of x-raying every child that falls!! I can't see why you think there is any negligence on the part of the school. There is inconvenience, there is a child feeling poorly but from what you say, at no point was the child not treated with due consideration. It was bad luck.
 
while not wanting really to comment on the accident I am more preturbed at the apparent blaze approach to safety reporting. Surely the yard teachers have a pen and paper to write " Mary x banged heads with Sally y", tears stopped after 2 minutes and they played well thereafter. Reportable / non-reportable to parents" and hand that to Principle? as a cover my a** for the school if nothing else. The principle cannot just say "sure i never heard about it" his teachers report to him.

The fact that this boy had two fractures and could not articulate to the teacher that he was in pain puzzles me.

For the OP to suggest that compensation could be appropriate for ferrying child to hospital and leaving work etc all i would say is that it comes with the territory of having children i think.
 
I have heard of a few cases of children who had a fall/bang, had a bit of a niggling pain, and then found out (in one case it was 3 days later) that there was a broken bone. It sounds quite likely that the boy was not in any great pain at the time. At 9, I would expect him to be able to say he had a fall. How was he when came home?
 
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