Schools have a duty of care to ensure that children are looked after, adequately supervised and do not come to any harm.
Children are by their very nature inquisitive and what could be a perfectly safe piece of play equipment could be dangerous if play is not supervised or if it is used by children too young or small. The school has a duty to risk assess play equipment and how it is used.
Because of a young child’s age they are especially vulnerable and need to protected against themselves and any potential allurements. A common allurement is wooden play equipment, which often incorporates “monkey bars”. If used properly by children of the right age, these would not represent a hazard. However, if the child is too small and allowed to play without supervision, these can be very dangerous. Simple accidents like this can be avoided if children are properly supervised and not allowed to use the play equipment unless supervision is present.
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Most schools have a playground assessment which specifies the children to adult/teacher ratio. Too little supervision could lead to unruly behaviour and accidents.
It is important that play time is properly supervised because play time is exactly that, a time when children can play and run to let off steam. They need to be properly supervised and then steps need to be taken to ensure calm is restored before they go back into class, ie, standing in a straight line and not going back into school until they are told to do so by the teacher.
If your child has been involved in an accident at school, due to a lack of supervision or any other type of negligence on behalf of the school or local authority, please contact one of our specialist personal injury solicitors.
We represented a young child who had such an accident involving monkey bars. The equipment was not fenced off. It was the end of break-time and there should have been two supervising teachers. They should have lined the children up to go back in to class. However, one of the teachers was not on the playground when she should have been. She was rounding up the children when our client ran towards the monkey bars. She took no steps to stop him from going on the monkey bars and when on the bars, he fell onto a sticking up post. He sustained a severe laceration to his forehead.
The case was successful because the school failed to follow their own risk assessment and also failed to supervise the children properly.
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Recent Case Study:
Child Injured At Swimming Pool Due To Lack Of Supervision
