Children and personal injury claims
Exercising care and caution could reduce the amount of personal injury claims per year.
Jonathan Hughes-D’Aeth, head of Milton Abbey School in Dorset and former chairman of the Boarding Schools Association, insisted there was a “danger of using health and safety to replace thought, judgment and personal responsibility”.
Addressing the Independent Schools Council annual conference, Mr Hughes-D’Aeth said a generation of children had “not been given the chance to evaluate for themselves the risks of the dangers which are around them”.
The compensation culture costs state schools about £200 million per year - enough to pay for about 8,000 teachers, he said. Private schools were also increasingly affected by compensation claims amid a large rise in personal injury cases.
One must bear in mind, however, that there isn’t a tolerance for minor injuries occurring with young children. Most of the claims that arise out of the population of children come out of routine accidents that occur around the school. Generally, the outlook is that there is a rise is the compensation culture, especially among the young.
Updated on 25/06/2008