'Safeguarding issues' caused by timetable changes

[Clip]

Seems someone' set up a nice little business around all this. First teachers get Id cards then the kids then they get a whole very expensive entry system using cards and so on and so forth.

I get kids do have to have some protection from those nasty nonces but what a business to get in from the start making up all this stuff in he name of 'safety '

/cynical

 

[randyrippley]

I complete regular Safeguarding training through Scouting. Fortunately in Scouting we look for things that cause genuine harm, not things like this that don't - indeed a key part of our method for young people of the kind of age we are talking about (this is a high school, so 11+) is them having the opportunity to do things under very light supervision - for instance, going out hiking in the countryside with adults supervising from some distance unless needed, or camping again with adults "on call" but not present directly - two things that have much more potential to go awry than kids sitting in a small, safe, low-crime town like Ulverston for half an hour before and after school having a chat. And young people grow because of it, not come to significant harm.

(I know Ulverston fairly well, my sister lived there for about 10 years and I visited regularly)

I sometimes feel that in Scouting we wave a banner of common sense while fighting against this kind of nannying. Reading this kind of thing worries me even more greatly of what children who are nannied to this extent will grow up to become.

Ulverston may be low crime, but those bloody seagulls nesting on the station roof are murderous.
I've had my scalp ripped open twice by those ********s

 

[chris_in_salop]

FWIW, on the "Safeguarding" topic, this shows how much the "Safeguarding industry" has progressed from actually protecting children from abuse and similar on towards justifying their own existence by "crying wolf" and causing anything that might mildly inconvenience a teenager or cause them to have to experience the big, nasty outside world for more than necessary to be considered a "Safeguarding issue".

Even if these teenagers (old enough to get the train to school themselves in what is a very safe area of the country indeed) have to sit outside somewhere from 0800 to 0830 and from 1530 to 1630, or whatever, they really won't care. They'll enjoy spending time with their friends.

It is not a "Safeguarding issue", it is an issue of mild inconvenience. And those who say it is a "Safeguarding issue" are doing a massive disservice to those who are unfortunate enough to be actually experiencing a real one such as parental abuse (because most of the time it is parents and close family who do that kind of thing).

For using that phrasing the school should be ashamed of themselves.

You do realise that "safeguarding" has a meaning in education law and Ofsted inspection criteria that goes way beyond the prevention of child abuse? It isn't about a "safeguarding industry". Neglecting statutory safeguarding duties is just about the quickest way for a school to go into Special Measures. This is then likely to lead to the dismissal of the Headteacher, quite possibly with a complete loss of pension if, as is very possible in a safeguarding case, it is judged to be Gross Misconduct.

The bigger issue is that no-one seems to have explained adequately to the local community why the existing timetable has to change. I don't just mean a token consultation to tick the box, I mean getting buy in from local people. So all the customer sees is that the Railway has unilaterally decided to make life more difficult for them. I would suggest that an adequate response to a genuine customer issue is not "tough!", "catch a bus!", or "open the school building an hour longer!".

 

[Bletchleyite]

So all the customer sees is that the Railway has unilaterally decided to make life more difficult for them.

To an utterly, utterly trivial extent. Indeed, on the way home they'll be waiting around for less time. So on balance they have to get up half an hour early, and in return get home earlier. Big deal.

Does the school's duty really extend to what is the parents' business, namely getting to and from? I find that frankly bizarre.

 

[island]

FWIW, on the "Safeguarding" topic, this shows how much the "Safeguarding industry" has progressed from actually protecting children from abuse and similar on towards justifying their own existence by "crying wolf" and causing anything that might mildly inconvenience a teenager or cause them to have to experience the big, nasty outside world for more than necessary to be considered a "Safeguarding issue".

Even if these teenagers (old enough to get the train to school themselves in what is a very safe area of the country indeed) have to sit outside somewhere from 0800 to 0830 and from 1530 to 1630, or whatever, they really won't care. They'll enjoy spending time with their friends.

It is not a "Safeguarding issue", it is an issue of mild inconvenience. And those who say it is a "Safeguarding issue" are doing a massive disservice to those who are unfortunate enough to be actually experiencing a real one such as parental abuse (because most of the time it is parents and close family who do that kind of thing).

For using that phrasing the school should be ashamed of themselves.

Well put. “Safeguarding” has joined “data protection” and “discrimination” as terms thrown around by people who don’t really understand them to win/shut down discussion. It is important to remember that just because some of the customers on your premises may be children does not mean your business is caring for them and therefore in scope of “safeguarding” obligations.

 

[transmanche]

Yes, all activities are risk assessed, either written or dynamically or a combination of the two. And yes, you absolutely can leave 11 year olds without *direct* supervision in Scouting

But there are trained adults, in a suitable adult/child ratio, who are tasked to supervise those 11 year-olds and take responsibility for those 11 year-olds? They know who they are, exactly how many there are and where they are/where they should be? They have inhalers/epi pens/etc for children that need them - and are trained in how and when to use them? And are able to intervene if something goes wrong?

Yet you seem to be suggesting that it's OK for an unknown number of 11 year-olds to be in a school building with no-one tasked to supervise them (directly or otherwise) or take responsibility for them. For someone that's supposed to be clued-up on all aspects of safeguarding, that worries me.

(And before that, it isn't an issue that the kids are outside the school - they got the train there unsupervised, after all!)

On the train, there is a guard who his tasked to take responsibility for all passengers in the event of something going wrong. There may also be TravelSafe officers on-board.

Just about every other business has a fire procedure that manages to cope with the idea that people, often children, are on site, in known areas of the premises, without knowing precisely who or how many.

And most (if not all) places of a similar size to a typical secondary school will have security personnel who are tasked to take responsibility for everyone on site in the event of something going wrong.

 

[transmanche]

It is important to remember that just because some of the customers on your premises may be children does not mean your business is caring for them and therefore in scope of “safeguarding” obligations.

But if you are a school, then you definitely are in the scope of safeguarding obligations.

When I was there circa 250 pupils would arrive by train (was 2tph during my era now 4tph) and a good 650 by school organised coach (zero on board supervision).

What, not even a DBS-checked and fully-trained driver? Impressive...

 

[AlterEgo]

What, not even a DBS-checked and fully-trained driver? Impressive...

What if the train was DOO with no second member of staff aboard? Would this be a safeguarding issue?

 

[transmanche]

When I was there circa 250 pupils would arrive by train (was 2tph during my era now 4tph) and a good 650 by school organised coach (zero on board supervision).

What, not even a DBS-checked and fully-trained driver? Impressive...

What if the train was DOO with no second member of staff aboard? Would this be a safeguarding issue?

I was referring to the school coach which purportedly had 'zero on board supervision'.

The train in question, we know, has a guard on board. So the 'what if' is irrelevant.

 

[AlterEgo]

I was referring to the school coach which purportedly had 'zero on board supervision'.

The train in question, we know, has a guard on board. So the 'what if' is irrelevant.

It’s not irrelevant as I’m curious to know in what situations unsupervised 11 year olds constitute an unacceptable safeguarding risk.

If they walk a mile to school alongside roads for 20 minutes, is that an unacceptable safeguarding risk?

If they go to school on a DOO train for 20 minutes with no supervision or member of staff available, is that an unacceptable safeguarding risk?

If they stand in the playground or sit in a classroom unsupervised for 20 minutes, is that an unacceptable safeguarding risk?

 

[transmanche]

I’m curious to know in what situations unsupervised 11 year olds constitute an unacceptable safeguarding risk.

From the school's point of view, having an unknown number of 11 year-old children roaming the school building without any supervision whatsoever and without anyone being responsible for their safety represents a risk that needs mitigating.

Parents naturally expect schools to look after their children and keep them safe. When the children are the 'custody' of a school (or an organisation such as the Scouts, etc) parents expect them to take reasonable steps to mitigate reasonably foreseeable risks.

Each risk needs to be looked at individually. A 14 year-old can reasonably be expected to walk alone around their home town during the late afternoon/early evening. But it becomes a different matter if they are nearly 300 miles from home and alone in London when they are supposed to be in the care of their school. I think even fans of Good Old Fashioned Common Sense ™ would agree that the latter scenario is somewhat more of a risk than the former.

In this recent example, a 14 year-old was left behind in London when the school party departed Kings Cross and he wasn't on the train. Clearly, the school had risk assessed this and had mitigated the risk (e.g. by counting heads) but for whatever reason, the mitigation failed in this instance. (Comments on social media purporting to be from other members of the school party suggest that a headcount was taken before going through the barriers and again as they boarded the train, but that this pupil was dawdling and failed to actually board the train. A better way to mitigate the risk might be to undertake an additional headcount on the train - but before the train actually departs.) Luckily, in this situation the pupil presented himself to station staff and was put on a following train - in first class and in the care of the on-board staff.

So by saying there is a safeguarding risk does not mean we've all gone to hell in a handcart, or that we've created a culture of nannying children. Merely that a risk has been identified and which needs to be examined and mitigated.

And as discussed in some depth upthread, some of those mitigations do not come with zero cost.

 

[whhistle]

While they can in move the school day, in practice there are many things that need to happen for this to be possible - see page two for some of the things you have failed to think about.

A little rude, no?

Not simple (perhaps), but still possible.

A school near me is thinking of stopping the school day at 13:00, but then have a large amount of extra curricular activities until about 4:00 that aren't in the syllabus but would be great for kids to learn/do. Not too much consultation required and it seems pretty popular with parents.

I know many people who work in a school who would prefer to start earlier and finish earlier.
Yes, the school crossing patrols, parking restrictions blah blah blah would all need moving, but as someone else has suggested, 10/15 mins is hardly going to be a huge inconvenience.
It is simple, but some people are just against change and don't want to give something a try to see if it works.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But there are trained adults, in a suitable adult/child ratio, who are tasked to supervise those 11 year-olds and take responsibility for those 11 year-olds? They know who they are, exactly how many there are and where they are/where they should be? They have inhalers/epi pens/etc for children that need them - and are trained in how and when to use them? And are able to intervene if something goes wrong?

Yes, though in some cases this won't be within the 20-30 minutes being spoken of here. We train them to handle things themselves to a fair extent. (They also won't just be 11 year olds, they'll be mixed 11-14 year olds - but so will a school).

But then an outdoor activity is higher risk than walking down the street or sitting in a social area in a school or in the playground.

As regards inhalers, in our context young people carry them themselves and use them themselves. Epipens are more complex, we would tend to have to make special arrangements for users of those depending on the allergy and its severity, we might well train a specific young person in administering if it came to it. But those are comparatively rare and do not need to define the general rule; young people requiring them need special arrangements to ensure their safety - such as parents buddying them up with another young person for the journey.

Yet you seem to be suggesting that it's OK for an unknown number of 11 year-olds to be in a school building with no-one tasked to supervise them (directly or otherwise) or take responsibility for them. For someone that's supposed to be clued-up on all aspects of safeguarding, that worries me.

Then lock the gates until there are enough staff there and they can wait outside. Then that becomes the parents' problem. Though I really don't see why there is any kind of practical difference between them being on school grounds and being in the street. Well, other than one thing - fire evacuation - but you handle that by limiting the number of places they can be in in the school - classrooms should be locked when not occupied anyway, for example.

And if the parents consider that a problem, time for them to find an alternative mode of transport, such as the frequent (if more expensive and a bit slower) service bus between Barrow and Ulverston which is no less suitable than the train.

On the train, there is a guard who his tasked to take responsibility for all passengers in the event of something going wrong. There may also be TravelSafe officers on-board.

Not if it was DOO (which, as it's a Northern Connect route, there is a chance it may become in the not so distant future, though for discussion of this there is a separate thread). And guards are not First Aid trained, not DBS checked, and very much not tasked with looking after kids - and it is really dangerous to assume they are. Their primary role is the safety of the train and passenger safety in relation to being on a train, not general supervision of children. Children who cannot look after themselves in a public place (including sorting themselves out if they get stranded e.g. calling home or a taxi) should not travel alone by train - and that isn't just my view, it's ATOC's. The railway does not provide an unaccompanied minor service in the manner of airlines.

TravelSafe officers? What are they? I've never seen one. So odds on no, there won't be one of those either.

And most (if not all) places of a similar size to a typical secondary school will have security personnel who are tasked to take responsibility for everyone on site in the event of something going wrong.

I think you overstate the responsibility a couple of staff on the front desk of an office complex can take for anyone.

 

[pt_mad]

Northern aren't going to be able to please everyone. Any change to train times that is more than 10 minutes is going to disrupt someone, and please others. They have to get the balance right. And presumably they feel this new tinetatim will do that .

They have responded to the article and said they'd provide information to those involved. They didn't say they were negotiating. So presumably it will stay as it is and they are satisfied with things.

I mean if northern did any sort of U turn and didn't carry through the changes here, what kind of implications would that have for the rest of the country? It would seemingly set a potential precident that, where a timetable will disrupt school opening times, the TOC needs to change those times accordingly. This could lead to all sorts of problems with other incidents of this around the country.

This must go on in other areas, where kids arrive early and have to wait for trains after school. Must do. It's just that it's been the same timetable for donkeys years and so they accept it.


When I was in school basically you didn't become the schools responsibility until you walked in the gates. And when you left the gates, you were no longer their responsibility. And they usually ushered you out 15 minutes after finishing if you didn't go.

My bus (public) home was 5 minutes after finishing time. If I was slightly late out I'd have to wait a further 40 minutes for the next. And this did happen about twice a week. And nobody batted an eyelid or cared. No talk of safeguarding for some reason. If teacher wouldn't let you pack away then that was the way it was.


Another problem with this is that we are wrapping the youngsters up in cotton wool to such an extent that when they are released into the real world at age 16 or 18 they are caught unawares and it's a big shock. Everything has been organised for them and the day you say right you're on your own you can get to your job, apprenticeship, college by yourself and sort x out by yourself they are not used to it. And they have to suddenly learn to be street wise about walking alone in a public area with nobody safeguarding them.

I feel we were eased in before and it was a gradual transition to taking responsibility for yourself. We got up to all sorts of trouble including after school. And basically if it was trouble the kids would get blamed, there was no mention of safeguarding. The kids were more likely to be seen as a nuisance than vulnerable. Gradually we were getting ready to take responsibility for our own freedom, time and actions. And we weren't referred to as children at age 15 either rightly or wrongy. It seems that if the kids in mid teens need safeguarding they are referred to as children, however if they vandalised something or abused members of the public they'd be 'youths' or gangs.

 

[Domh245]

From the school's point of view, having an unknown number of 11 year-old children roaming the school building without any supervision whatsoever and without anyone being responsible for their safety represents a risk that needs mitigating.

My school's solution to that problem was to make the school building off limits and make us wait in the playground instead. The school would be open from about 0730, and I used to get in for the first few years at about 0745. There were a few different things that you could do at that time of the morning, there was a "computer club" where the head of IT just opened up a computer room and let us wait in there, doing homework, research, or whatever took our fancy, as well as a breakfast club in one of the house rooms where we could go and buy breakfast. The day properly started at about 0830 when we all lined up in the playground and made our way up to form period for 0840. If it rained, then we waited in our house rooms under the supervision of the housemasters before then going to form.

 

[AlterEgo]

Each risk needs to be looked at individually. A 14 year-old can reasonably be expected to walk alone around their home town during the late afternoon/early evening.

Indeed they can.

Let’s take 11 year olds. Which of these presents a greater risk, them walking a mile to school alongside and crossing roads in the rush hour, or being in a classroom? Clearly, the walk to school is far more dangerous.

Sure, according to the law, the school has to pick up whatever “safeguarding risk” presents itself on their premises, but I’m not sure how many parents realistically expect a school to safeguard their children to a greater extent than the parents themselves safeguard them.

The issue of child safeguarding is way overblown in this regard (though I’m not pooh-poohing it in entirety, there are some absolutely vital elements of safeguarding like DBS checking supervisors etc).

In this recent example, a 14 year-old was left behind in London when the school party departed Kings Cross and he wasn't on the train.

Aside from the fact this would have been the height of comedy at my school...

If this had happened to me, I would have been killed by my parents when I got home, because failing to board a train would be *my fault*.

Children need exposing to risks so they learn how to mitigate them for themselves. The Scouting movement seems to have that right, as did the Air Training Corps when I was a member.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I feel we were eased in before and it was a gradual transition to taking responsibility for yourself. We got up to all sorts of trouble including after school. And basically if it was trouble the kids would get blamed, there was no mention of safeguarding. The kids were more likely to be seen as a nuisance than vulnerable. Gradually we were getting ready to take responsibility for our own freedom, time and actions. And we weren't referred to as children at age 15 either rightly or wrongy. It seems that if the kids in mid teena need safeguarding they are referred to as children, however if they vandalised something or abused members of the public they'd be 'youths' or gangs.

On a much wider level I massively agree with this - adulthood was a phased progression in the 1990s, starting from about 15 and finishing in your early 20s. And we were much better for it.

Where modern Safeguarding has provided clear benefit is in reducing sexual abuse by adults (often very familiar ones to the child, rarely the supposed bogeyman on the street corner) and related matters like ensuring children do speak up when adults act inappropriately. I am totally unconvinced that the "nannying" (oversupervision) aspect has had any benefit whatsoever and it has had many demonstrable negatives - and it is visible in how many young adults today seem to want a rule for everything and for the Government to nanny them into adulthood, when what my generation wanted was our true independence.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Children need exposing to risks so they learn how to mitigate them for themselves. The Scouting movement seems to have that right, as did the Air Training Corps when I was a member.

Given that no statutory organisation seems to allow for that any more, and given that parents often don't either (other than handing their kids over to the likes of us in Scouting), I think it's quite possibly Scouting's most important role these days.

Edit: Interestingly, though, the Government is looking to palm off some of NCS on Scouting...we maybe doing something right?

 

[pt_mad]

On a much wider level I massively agree with this - adulthood was a phased progression in the 1990s, starting from about 15 and finishing in your early 20s. And we were much better for it.

Where modern Safeguarding has provided clear benefit is in reducing sexual abuse by adults (often very familiar ones to the child, rarely the supposed bogeyman on the street corner) and related matters like ensuring children do speak up when adults act inappropriately. I am totally unconvinced that the "nannying" (oversupervision) aspect has had any benefit whatsoever and it has had many demonstrable negatives - and it is visible in how many young adults today seem to want a rule for everything and for the Government to nanny them into adulthood, when what my generation wanted was our true independence.

Exactly. The safeguarding has obviously been great with regards to protecting under 16s from dangerous adults. Educating them in what is and isn't acceptable is probably the best form of defence which is probably part of this.


As for the rest, it seems to intertwine with the health and safety blame culture which is so widespread nowadays. Where, whenever anyone whatsoever is on private land, the owner or manager of the premises has to take responsibility for them. To the extent that in some cases burglars could blame landowners if they got hurt attempting a break in, if there was no sign warning of an asbestos roof for example.


Yet, on council streets and pavements, there seems to be no such responsibility for the landowner. Maybe because in this instance it's essentially the taxpayer.

I took a walk in a large council owned park near us a couple of days ago. There is a wooden bridge over some water with a huge step, and no fence at one side. Other side is exposed to the open water. No sign saying mind the step or caution exposed edge take care. Because it's council land. Same as there are no signs on a cobbled pavement or street to say trip hazard. Or a curb stone to say mind the step.

And the authorities aren't expected to take responsibility for the kids in the public pavement. But they are once they enter the school gate or the hours of school begin.


Goodness knows how we managed before. If you ran over a curb and went over the handlebars of your bike it was your own fault and you limped home with scabs on your knees. You didn't try and sue anyone or call ambulances. Kids got up to trouble and everything has a risk and that was part of growing up.

It's the same with barracading the front of schools with a 7 foot steel spiked security fence and locked gates. My local school now has this. When I attended there it was a 3 foot railing and we used to pop out to the shop at lunch. And guess what, nobody died. And we enjoyed and lapped up the responsibility, trust and freedom. Seems a bit over the top just lately.

 

[transmanche]

We train them to handle things themselves to a fair extent.

Exactly! Something you cannot expect from the general population.

Epipens are more complex, we would tend to have to make special arrangements for users of those depending on the allergy and its severity, we might well train a specific young person in administering if it came to it.

Again, thank you for making my point. To mitigate the risk, it takes planning. This takes time. And some of the solutions cost £££.

Though I really don't see why there is any kind of practical difference between them being on school grounds and being in the street. Well, other than one thing - fire evacuation - but you handle that by limiting the number of places they can be in in the school - classrooms should be locked when not occupied anyway, for example.

At least you accept that the fire risk needs to be mitigated. But you clearly have no clue how a large modern secondary school operates!

Of course there will be some teachers at work from quite early on. But they will be doing jobs to prepare for the school day; preparing resources, marking work and so on. Jobs they can't do if they are supervising children. To say that classrooms should be locked (even if they have locks!) is just daft.

Not if it was DOO.

But it isn't. So thats' irrelevant.

And guards are not First Aid trained, not DBS checked, and very much not tasked with looking after kids - and it is really dangerous to assume they are.

Now you're deliberately trying to obfuscate things. I didn't claim they are, nor did I say they should be. Again, think of your risk assessment...

Their primary role is the safety of the train and passenger safety in relation to being on a train, not general supervision of children.

And it's their primary role that I was clearly referring to. That is, there is someone in charge should something go wrong. Someone to ensure the train is safely evacuated. Someone to ensure the emergency services are summoned if needed, etc. Someone who is in charge of passenger safety.

TravelSafe officers? What are they? I've never seen one. So odds on no, there won't be one of those either.

Google it. I see them quite often on Northern services

I think you overstate the responsibility a couple of staff on the front desk of an office complex can take for anyone.

They can ensure the building is evacuated in accordance with the fire evacuation plan, they may also be able to use CCTV to check. In most large offices they will know who is on site (e.g. who has swiped in/signed the visitors' book.)

But once again you are missing the biggest issue. The problem isn't that there are risks per se. The problem is that it takes management time and effort to mitigate those risks. And it takes money. Money that would be better spent on the school's primary function of educating the kids.

Let's say to mitgate the risk it's decided to employ four support staff for an extra half-hour each day to supervise the children. Let's say they earn £10/hour. That's £20/day. 190 school days per year means it costs the school £3800pa plus employer's costs (employer's NI would add on about another £500 or so) and there may be increased insurance premiums and other associated costs. So now we're talking about an extra £5000+ a year..

Saying 'just throw the gates open an extra 30 minutes early' is not a solution. It takes planning and it takes money.

 

[pt_mad]

But how did they manage with the school grounds open at 7am back in the 1990s with just teacher in doing jobs?

Managed ok then.

 

[transmanche]

But how did they manage with the school grounds open at 7am back in the 1990s with just teacher in doing jobs?

Managed ok then.

Ah the 'good old days' argument.

'Back in the 1990s' we allowed trains to operate with slam doors and no central door locks. 'Back in the 1990s' passengers would routinely open doors and stand on the running board as trains ran into a station, in order to be the first off. 'Back in the 1990s' two people died and 248 were injured in the Cannon Street crash because of this - and that's just one incident.

Things change, expectations change, rules change.

 

[pt_mad]

What's that above got to do with leaving the school gates open for kids to go in the playground at 7am?

TBH I do feel school was probably a better experience back then. Even a lot of the kids themselves feel over controlled with how it is now. And we managed to get on didn't we?

The compensation culture is going to get silly soon if it hasn't already. There has to be some things that carry risk without having a tangible blame. Such as walking a street that may be uneven. And running with the risk you may trip over. And riding a bike. And making your own way to school when you need to and if parents deem that too risky then drop them off and travel with them.


Or, when they leave school it's going to be a huge change all of a sudden where nobody takes responsibility for you if you turn up to work early or your bus is late.

 

[transmanche]

What's that above got to do with leaving the school gates open for kids to go in the playground at 7am?

I thought that was obvious. As I clearly stated, things that were acceptable in the 'good old days' are no longer acceptable today.

TBH I do feel school was probably a better experience back then.

What's your experience of being a school pupil in 2018?

The compensation culture is going to get silly soon if it hasn't already

None of this is anything to do with 'compensation culture'.

 

[pt_mad]

What's your experience of being a school pupil in 2018?

None of this is anything to do with 'compensation culture'.

Because I am in school now and my mum told me how good it was back then.

Joke. Seriously thought, because of the family. And them actually saying they feel they don't have much freedon in school. And its too controlled. I don't think that was too much of an issue when I was there, without the big steel fences and gates.


The reason I pointed to the compensation culture was because it intertwines with someone having to have liability. Why does someone or an organisation or owner have to have liability for everything that is not council land? Because they may be blamed and legal action taken against them. Presumably the school accepting liability between x am and x pm for the kids or once the kids enter the school gates is then saying they take liability for anything that happens. If anything does happen presumably it'd be blame and possible action hence the same kind of thing as the compensation culture.


It's probably the only reason public toilets on private land put a sign above the sinks saying 'caution, water may be hot' for example. Because they are obviously mitigating any accident claims. As it's obvious water in a washing up sink may be hot hence the hot water tap.

Anyway there will be some who agree some who disagree and some who will think the ultra protection and cotton wool wrapping of teenagers is better it's just a matter of opinion. But it seems Northern are leaving the new timetable as planned and that's that.

 

[transmanche]

The reason I pointed to the compensation culture was because it intertwines with someone having to have liability. Why does someone or an organisation or owner have to have liability for everything that is not council land? Because they may be blamed and legal action taken against them.

So you haven't considered the possibility that the school merely want to ensure that the children are safe from harm? People who work with children generally do so because they want the best for children. Not because they want to offload liability to someone else.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Of course there will be some teachers at work from quite early on. But they will be doing jobs to prepare for the school day; preparing resources, marking work and so on. Jobs they can't do if they are supervising children. To say that classrooms should be locked (even if they have locks!) is just daft.

How's it daft? In the large secondary school I attended in the 1990s (around 1000 pupils) classrooms were mostly locked when not in use.

 

[Bletchleyite]

So you haven't considered the possibility that the school merely want to ensure that the children are safe from harm? People who work with children generally do so because they want the best for children. Not because they want to offload liability to someone else.

The children are safe from harm.

Arriving at school 30 minutes early in a small, safe Cumbrian town does not pose any significant risk even if they have to stand out on the street. Of a Saturday many of them will do just that anyway. And Ulverston is much nicer and safer than Barrow where the kids we are talking about will mostly do so. Indeed that is quite possibly why they attend that school.

(It has already been established that the way home is in fact an improvement as they will be able to catch an earlier, not later, train).

 

[Bayum]

Do you think leaving teenage children in a classroom unsupervised for ten minutes is a safeguarding issue?

These are high school pupils, not infants. They can cope with being in a room.

Actually, yes. I do. I've seen both primary and secondary aged students assaulted in classrooms. If something were to happen to a pupil or a child because the teacher was not in the classroom, they have come to harm, thus creating a safeguarding issue. I've heard from teachers on training days whereby they have had incidents before and after school with fighting, bullying, stealing and other issues. Whether you like it or not, any pupil is capable of harming themselves or others, regardless of whether they are in school, out of school, 11y/o+. At least with adults in the classroom, incidents can be either witnessed, or prevented from going further quickly.

I complete regular Safeguarding training through Scouting. Fortunately in Scouting we look for things that cause genuine harm, not things like this that don't - indeed a key part of our method for young people of the kind of age we are talking about (this is a high school, so 11+) is them having the opportunity to do things under very light supervision - for instance, going out hiking in the countryside with adults supervising from some distance unless needed, or camping again with adults "on call" but not present directly - two things that have much more potential to go awry than kids sitting in a small, safe, low-crime town like Ulverston for half an hour before and after school having a chat. And young people grow because of it, not come to significant harm.

(I know Ulverston fairly well, my sister lived there for about 10 years and I visited regularly)

I sometimes feel that in Scouting we wave a banner of common sense while fighting against this kind of nannying. Reading this kind of thing worries me even more greatly of what children who are nannied to this extent will grow up to become.

You're seemingly forgetting that scouts generally want to be there. Children in schools don't always want to be there. They don't always want to be in classrooms, or with particular groups of people.

 

[theironroad]

This thread seems to have nothing to do with timetabling or even trains now, just a general argument about safeguarding.