Most people remember the headmaster who banned the children at his school from playing conkers without goggles and gloves as a safety precaution. As a health and safety practitioner I found this completely ridiculous as, if he had done a risk assessment, I would be astonished if he had been able to cite even a trivial risk.
However, I was stunned when my 6 year old came home from school the other day and announced that he was not allowed to play conkers at school – because it was dangerous! Dangerous as in he might graze a knuckle or suffer from damage to his pride if he loses as opposed to learning nothing about how to deal with risk in the real world – a much more potentially dangerous omission.
Tags: conkers bonkers, health and safety gone mad, school safety
