Parents’ fury after primary school bans its pupils from RUNNING during lunch break
Staff at Hillfort Primary School in Cornwall, claim that the harsh ban has been put into place to reduce the number of playground injuries.
A PRIMARY school has sparked fury from parents by banning pupils from running during their lunch break.
Staff at Hillfort Primary School in Liskeard, Cornwall, claim that the harsh ban has been put into place in a bid to reduce the number of playground injuries.
However, angry parents have said it is 'health and safety gone mad', and have started a petition to ditch the rule - which they claim takes away 'freedom'.
So far, the petition, in which parents ask for a bigger playground and scattered lunch times, has received more than 150 signatures from furious relatives.
In the petition, they said: "Please lift the ban on running in the playground at Hillfort Primary School at lunch time break.
"Ensure that there is adequate funding and provision of suitable staff to safely supervise lunch break.
"Enable and empower children's right and freedom to run freely through spontaneous, child led play, in the playground during lunch time break.
"Stopping children running during free play due to bumping into each other is health and safety gone mad.
"Do not allow 'health and safety' to remove the liberty to spontaneously run in the playground during imaginative and child-led play.
"Please look at and consider alternative options to reduce risk, as required without removing liberty to move freely during play.
"Please consider staggered lunch break times, extending the size of the playground to meet the needs of pupils or other creative alternatives to removing the right to play freely in the playground."
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Defending the ban, headteacher Dr Tim Cook, said he has already noticed a 30 per cent drop in first aid incidents.
He said: "I sat down with some of my senior colleagues to assess the problem with children running across the playground and ending up in first aid.
"We've tried to be a little more reactive and proactive and put in place eight to 10 lunch time activities for the children including a choir, sand play, and Lego.
"Children can still run in the early years playground and we have two football courts which the children can run in.
"This is just a ban on running from one side of the playground to the other.
"This has only been in place for three days, but we have already noticed a 30 per cent drop in first aid incidents and an 80 per cent drop in behavioural incidents.
"I'm on the gate every single morning and not one parent has approached me about this."
The headteacher added that his only regret was that he could 'have communicated with parents better'.
He added: "If I have any admission of guilt it's that I could have been clearer in my communication originally - I do accept that.
"I will hold my hands up and say that communication was an issue and something seems to have been lost in translation.
"Some of the points on the petition aren't factually accurate and I have flagged them up for review.
"I do take exception to the claim that we're not putting enough staff in place or that we're using this as a means of cutting back lunch staff.
"We have the same amount of staff who try their very best to do what is best for the children."
The new ban is set to be re-reviewed next week.