Some advice on biking to school & using their bike shed.

[benb]

Wow well done you are very heroic in your struggle against the oppressive over bearing regime of that school and your victory shall reverberate down the book of history.
Your name shall be the battle cry on the lips of the self-righteous forever more.

Wow, you really are up yourself.

If you'd bothered to read the thread, you'd see that the mini-Puddles do wear a helmet.
The issue is that the head is exceeding their authority. What right do they have to dictate what safety measures parents choose to take outside school property when the child is not under the school's duty of care?

This is no different to the school demanding that pupils walking around the village always wear high-vis tabards, even in the evenings and weekends.
Or the school sending evening and weekend meal inspectors round to check parents are not feeding their children unhealthy meals.

And as others have said, they do not insist roller-bladers or scooter riders (or pedestrians, come to that) wear helmets, so why not?

 

[Sara_H]

Good for you, Puddles.

Ignore some of the sillier messages here, not worth wasting thought proceses over.

 

[Tim Hall]

Good for you, Puddles.

Ignore some of the sillier messages here, not worth wasting thought proceses over.

Good for you, Puddles.

Ignore some of the sillier messages here, not worth wasting thought proceses over.

Wot she said. Well done, Puddles.

 

[mcshroom]

Now that is very selectively quoted. Reading the whole quote gives an answer to your 'logic'

We find no basis for the idea that cycling is dangerous or especially productive of head injuries. Our study has shown that the greatest influence on the likelihood of serious head injury is motor vehicle involvement, independent of whether a child is cycling, walking or a car passenger. We conclude that improving the safety of the cycling environment is likely to be more effective in reducing head injuries than the promotion of helmets, and it would also benefit child pedestrians who outnumber cyclists 5 to 1 in receiving head injuries. Increasing walking and cycling to gain the wider health benefits is complementary to this, for it has been shown to be the most effective way to reduce the risk of all kinds of injury to those involved (Jacobsen, 2003).

The data is laid out on that page as well which details the different injuries, and also the net drop in both cyclist head injuries and helmet usage rates over the period of the study.

This pie chart is quite enlightening, especially as Mr Smith asserted that

You are more likely to hurt your self crashing or falling off a bike then you are tripping over.

 

[summerdays]

Didn't Puddles say the school has a basic cycling training requirement? However, once you start imposing requirements about bike road worthiness, who does the checking, how do you legislate and who has the responsibility to say yes or no?

Who has the responsibility to say whether the helmet has been fitted properly and can inspect it to say that it hasn't been dropped etc - I doubt the head would be able to tell me if you lined up all the children and asked her to pick out those with an "ok" helmet and those not.

 

[Sara_H]

Wow well done you are very heroic in your struggle against the oppressive over bearing regime of that school and your victory shall reverberate down the book of history.
Your name shall be the battle cry on the lips of the self-righteous forever more.

Are you wearing sunglasses on top of your head, by chance?

 

[Archie_tect]

Who has the responsibility to say whether the helmet has been fitted properly and can inspect it to say that it hasn't been dropped etc - I doubt the head would be able to tell me if you lined up all the children and asked her to pick out those with an "ok" helmet and those not.

That's the trouble with rules, they have to be policed by people qualified to do the assessments!

 

[summerdays]

That's the trouble with rules, they have to be policed by people qualified to do the assessments!

And for helmets that is......???

 

[Archie_tect]

It would have to be the Head Teacher, after an appropriate period of training and a suitable test for competence.... unless the Head Teacher assigns the role to a subordinate in which case the subordinate would have to be trained and tested and then be assessed for their ongoing competence by the Head Teacher who would have to undertake suitable training to be able to assess the subordinate.

[edit: unless they decide that is the parents' responsibility....]

 

[PocketFrog]

I think that the Head is more imagining the scenario should one of her pupils injure themselves while riding to school - As the general public love to have a scapegoat, they would be asking, though their group moral panic:

"Why wasn't there a helmet policy in place to prevent this tragedy?"
There wouldn't be the same outcry or deflection of blame to the school if a child be injured in a car accident not wearing a seatbelt.

I think I see both sides of the argument here but the Head could have been much more gracious in her replies to your concerns/questions.

 

[Archie_tect]

I don't imagine anyone but Puddles knows the answer to your question Adrian.

 

[fossyant]

I don't see the point, really of all of this.

 

[4F]

Wow well done you are very heroic in your struggle against the oppressive over bearing regime of that school and your victory shall reverberate down the book of history.
Your name shall be the battle cry on the lips of the self-righteous forever more.

Bad day at work at the high horse factory ? IMHO if the head had responded to me in the same short manner from the start then I would have taken the same actions.

 

[ufkacbln]

Then they would be wasting their time and money trying to sue a school if a child fell over, really stupid argument put forward!
You are more likely to hurt your self crashing or falling off a bike then you are tripping over.

Not according to hospital admission figures they are not!

Which again comes to teh simple question...... why should a child's parents (or teh school) be responsible for preventing head injuries when the child is on a bike, yet are allowed to shirk responsibility when they are playing, or walking / running

 

[ufkacbln]

...... as it off the premises and they have NO authority out side the school.
If you say it is the same thing it is not as if they were making you put a helmet on your child then yes it would be but they have no authority to make you or your child wear any thing off school premises.

Which is the whole point!!!!!!!