Worth a read. I’m in two minds here. IF there was an accident, as a parent I’d be asking for his head. But, the risk situation seems to have been summed up by the teach. and no harm has come of it.
Discuss. (Javelin, horse juggling etc.)
Yahoo News: –
A teacher has been found guilty of unacceptable professional conduct after letting two teenage pupils go sledging in the snow. Design and technology teacher Richard Tremelling was sacked by the Cefn Hengoed Community School in Swansea after he failed to follow the school’s health and safety policy.
Mr Tremelling, 37, had taken the sledge into school after it snowed overnight in February 2009 to show his GCSE class its “classic design”.
When two boys asked to try it out at the end of the lesson he took them sledging on the snow-covered grounds.
Despite no harm coming to the boys, the teacher was initially suspended.
Mr Tremelling was accused of failing to consult the head teacher, or writing to the school governors before setting off.
And while he maintained he risk-assessed the activity before it began, he was told he should have done it in writing.
Within 11 months he was dismissed from duty for allegedly failing to follow the school’s health and safety policy.
In all, he was accused of nine separate breaches, amounting to an alleged failure in his duty of care to pupils.
The sledge in question was a Scandinavian “snow racer” which was an “exceedingly stable sledge”, Mr Tremelling told the hearing in Cardiff.
He said: “I did not go sledding on a cheap Asda £10 sledge, I went on a Scandinavian classic design sledge which has built-in safety features, and also a brake.”
He agreed that neither of the pupils involved had worn protective masks, but said he did not believe they were necessary.
School policy stated that written permission was needed for any outside activity or visit.
But Mr Tremelling said that because the sledging took place during the morning break directly after the lesson, it was simply a continuation of classroom teaching.
As such he did not regard it as either an official activity because it was within school, or a visit out of school.
An independent assessment had later been made of the sledging which concluded “no significant risk” was presented by Mr Tremelling’s actions.
The General Teaching Council’s professional conduct committee found him guilty of four out of nine charges: that he allowed pupils to go sledging; did not have head teacher’s permission; ignored cautionary words of warning from colleagues; and denied the allegation when questioned by the head.
He was cleared of five charges, including that there was no risk assement, there was no parental consent and health and safety guidelines were not followed.
The committee ruled that he can remain a teacher and his charge will be removed after two years.
By: Bograt - 12th January 2011 at 16:54
Me too; I was once accused of breaking the school barometer, after some girl had said she had seen me tapping it. Ended up getting the strap (this was in Scotland) and I stormed home to tell my Dad. He just laughed and said “That’s for all the times you didn’t get caught!”
I was a bit puzzled by this and it turned out that he had been falsely accused at school as well. He cycled home and expected his father (who was a police detective sergeant) to arrest the head! Dad got the reply that he was to give me all those years later……:)
By: Sky High - 12th January 2011 at 12:51
I got my fair share of physical punishment at school and always fully deserved. Discipline, respect and responsibility were key parts of the realationship between child and teacher in those days and I suspect are almost unheard of now. You were punished if you deserved it and you knew it. So you made sure you avoided it. If you didn’t you accepted it as deserved.
Acceptance of discipline, respect for one’s teachers, and responsibility for one’s actions would transform school life.
By: Bograt - 12th January 2011 at 12:27
What are all these claims, for heaven’s sake?
Most claims against teachers are for assaults on children. Usually it’s a case of the child having been restrained because they were about to commit a violent or dangerous act. Sometimes, however, it’s a child making up a story which then has to be followed up, and on investigation, is proved to be false.
I thoroughly agree with you that it’s not right or sensible that things have come to this, although some things about the ‘good old days’ were certainly not so good. I still can see clearly in my mind a Fifth-former (that dates me!) being grabbed and shaken by the hair for talking during assembly, this happened in front of the entire school. Even then we considered it to be a bit extreme, but as it was the headmaster carrying out the ‘punishment’ nobody thought to challenge him.
By: spitfireman - 12th January 2011 at 12:07
Right…..I’ve joined a union……………hi viz………ear defenders…………..goggles………….first aid kit…………………OK, kids………………………………….lets go ‘extreme chainsawing‘!!:diablo::diablo:
By: Sky High - 12th January 2011 at 11:14
We are of a mind, BB!!
By: BumbleBee - 12th January 2011 at 11:08
We seem to have become a nation that sees risk everywhere, intent on blaming someone else for the slightest thing that goes wrong,then making them pay for it if possible.
I’ve just been reading on a pensioner’s forum of somebody who was hit in the face by a quilt that fell from a shelf while she was reaching for another one,dislodging her glasses.
She says quite seriously that she’d have claimed compensation if they’d been damaged. In that case,I must have missed a fortune with the number of things that have hit me in the face over the years,trying to get my short little arms to reach the top shelf.
In the version I read of this incident,the teacher tried out the sled on the slope first and came to no harm.To me,raised in the 50s and so exposed to all manner of hazardous activities,that’s all I’d want in the way of risk assessment.
As for submitting a risk assessment in writing,I bet the snow would have melted before the activity was considered and permission granted.
The only thing this teacher was guilty of sounds like using his common sense,though I wouldn’t be happy about him lying to the headmaster.
By: Sky High - 12th January 2011 at 10:23
The world we live in is not one with which we have to be in sympathy. Your first statistic is very revealing. My mother spent her life teaching, in both the private and public sectors, predominantly the latter, and was a Deputy head for the last few years and I recall her mentioning claims against her colleagues and her staff on only 2 or 3 occasions in 40 years! What are all these claims, for heaven’s sake?
By: Bograt - 12th January 2011 at 10:11
This sounds like a case where the union comes into its own…my daughter is a teacher in London and it’s imperative to be a union member when you are a teacher. Something like 80% of claims made against teachers are overturned once the union gets involved.
It does look as if in this case the teacher sadly was doing everything ‘on the fly’ and a bit of pre-planning would have prevented the whole case in the first instance. Too easy to blame H & S and compensation culture but it’s the world we live in nowadays and fifteen minutes filling out a form and a quick word with the Head would have been sufficient to cover him.
By: ChrisGlobe - 12th January 2011 at 09:16
No doubt sacked for upsetting the right of the snow to lie there peacefully and not be sledged upon…
By: Creaking Door - 12th January 2011 at 09:11
He was cleared of five charges, including that there was no risk assement, there was no parental consent and health and safety guidelines were not followed.
The General Teaching Council’s professional conduct committee found him guilty of four out of nine charges: that he allowed pupils to go sledging; did not have head teacher’s permission; ignored cautionary words of warning from colleagues; and denied the allegation when questioned by the head.
An independent assessment had later been made of the sledging which concluded “no significant risk” was presented by Mr Tremelling’s actions.
What the **** has this teacher actually been found guilty of?
“That he allowed pupils to go sledging” which was later proved to present no significant risk.
That he “did not have head teacher’s permission” for an activity that presented no significant risk.
That he “ignored cautionary words of warning from colleagues” for an activity that presented no significant risk.
And that he “and denied the allegation when questioned by the head”. Presumably he denied that he had put pupils at risk…
…and it was later proved that he hadn’t in fact.
Sounds like he was sacked for being right! :rolleyes:
By: Sky High - 12th January 2011 at 08:31
The whole thing has become ridiculous. As expressed in the first post “as a parent I’d be asking for his head”
And this encapsulates the problem. Before we were overtaken by ‘elf an’ Safety adults and children took risks. Parents accepted it and accidents happened. No one sued anyone and we all got on with our lives.
We now live in a world of risk assessment and risk aversion, which constrains free activity and risk taking. Whilst there is the threat that the individual responsible for an activity is held to legal account for any accident that befalls his charges, then nothing will change.
By: TonyT - 12th January 2011 at 02:11
Typical of the cr*p in the UK now, to the detriment of the teaching industry, all this risk assesment rubbish probably has saved no one, far from it, it ruins lives and creates a world of jobsworths……. take flourescent tabbards, yes you were visible when you were the few wearing them, but now everyone has them you just blend in, got stopped at work for not wearing one and was pulled up, I pointed out that the reason he HAD seen me was because I WASN’T wearing one sunk in slowly when it dawned on him it was true. I remember they risk-assessed a similar thing in the RAF over the lead in rounds and it’s health consequences in handling them, b*gger all mattered though about the poor sod you would shoot with it!
By: spitfireman - 12th January 2011 at 01:04
It does seem a bit harsh as the same kids probably went sledging on a cheap £10 ASDA one later that evening:rolleyes:
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January 12, 2011 at 12:46 am