Playground games banned at Primary school

jpwhittle

ah ok my mistake lol, i knew there was something of somekind, guess it was still a kind of game were we came from!!

bluenoseam

So the consensus is that the current generation of kids are going to grow up moaning & whining about getting owies because they were banned from all the traditional rough & tumble games our parents/grandparents played without any real issue? H&S - killing the fun to stop the fun killing you since the early 90's

Sezzler

Not much was banned at my old primary.. only thing we couldnt do was climb on the tress on the school field. Used to love bulldog and 40/40. The 40/40 game I used to play involved a person who was "it" counting to 40 stood in front of a post or wall, known as "home" while the rest of us would go and hide.

The person who was "it" would then go and look for the rest of the players. If they spotted someone they would have to run back to the "home" postion and shout " 40/40 I see (persons name) hiding...." If the person who they had found was able to make it back to the home postion before the person who was " it" then they could shout " 40/40 save all" so every player was safe and the game could start again or they would just say " 40/40 save myself"

Shame so many of these games are banned.. guess in a few years many of these games will be forgotten in favour of more safe.. and in my opinion boring games!!!

Tashja

Funny - as I was reading thi I got this email . . . .

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL MY FRIENDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE1930's 1940's, 50's, 60's and early 70's !
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us and lived in houses made of asbestos. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese, raw egg products, loads of bacon and processed meat, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes or cervical cancer.
Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints.
We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets or shoes, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.
We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
Take away food was limited to fish and chips, no pizza shops, McDonalds , KFC, Subway or Nandos..

Even though all the shops closed at 6.00pm and didn't open on the weekends, somehow we didn't starve to death!
We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We could collect old drink bottles and cash them in at the corner store and buy Toffees, Gobstoppers, Bubble Gum and some bangers to blow up frogs with. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soft drinks with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......
WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!
We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
No one was able to reach us all day.. And we were O.K.
We would spend hours building our go-carts out of old prams and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. We built tree houses and dens and played in river beds with matchbox cars.
We did not have Playstations, Nintendo Wii , X-boxes, no video games at all, no 999 channels on SKY , no video/dvd films, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no
Lawsuits from these accidents.

Only girls had pierced ears!

We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

You could only buy Easter Eggs and Hot Cross Buns at Easter time...
We were given air guns and catapults for our 10th birthdays,
We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Mum didn't have to go to work to help dad make ends meet!

FOOTBALL and CRICKET had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.. Imagine that!! Getting into the team was based on MERIT

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bully's always ruled the playground at school.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!
Our parents didn't invent stupid names for their kids like 'Kiora' and 'Blade' and 'Ridge' and 'Vanilla'
We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL !
And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!
You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were.

borokat

Bulldog is dangerous, I have a long scar above my eye from playing it. If I could go back in time and ban bulldog earlier then I would! Broken limbs heal but scars are with you for life.

borokat

Our teachers used to hit us with canes and gym shoes and bully's always ruled the playground at school.

Clearly they didn't bother teaching the correct use of apostrophes for those born prior to 1980.

liney

borokat wrote: »

Bulldog is dangerous, I have a long scar above my eye from playing it. If I could go back in time and ban bulldog earlier then I would! Broken limbs heal but scars are with you for life.

In which case anything which involved running around on concrete is dangerous in case you trip over and fall on your face!

I'm sorry you have a scar, but your argument that banning Bulldog would have prevented it doesn't seem very strong to me considering you could have easily slipped playing Tig, football, >insert random game<.

Our school provided hoops, skipping ropes etc, but they do discourage games like Bulldog and RedRover if they start to take over the entire playground and prevent others from enjoying their own games. If they keep to a corner, or play on the field out of the way they are allowed to continue though.

pigpen

liney wrote: »

In which case anything which involved running around on concrete is dangerous in case you trip over and fall on your face!

I'm sorry you have a scar, but your argument that banning Bulldog would have prevented it doesn't seem very strong to me considering you could have easily slipped playing Tig, football, >insert random game<.

Our school provided hoops, skipping ropes etc, but they do discourage games like Bulldog and RedRover if they start to take over the entire playground and prevent others from enjoying their own games. If they keep to a corner, or play on the field out of the way they are allowed to continue though.

My daughter tripped over another child landing on her face, her glasses smashed into her cheekbone and she had a massive graze up her left cheek.. 9 years later the graze is still visible so these kind of childhood accidents are normal.

ETA.. the same child knocked herself out on the huge metal school gates and almost broke her fingers on one of the smaller internal wooden gates.

RadoJo

I don't think it's so much that schools are over protective of children, but they are overprotective of themselves and rightly so. There have been plenty of threads on here asking for advice on how to tackle a school over injuries and damaged uniforms on school premises and I can completely understand why schools would find it easier to ban the games that result in the majority of these injuries and accidents than deal with a constant procession of parents asking why their child was allowed to be put at risk.

I don't think it's a case of believing that children are more delicate nowadays, but when every school has to complete an accident report and compile notes on the exact nature of the incidents that occur, it's probably just not worth their time either, particularly as it means that at least one member of staff is tied up and unavailable to supervise the other kids for every injury that is sustained on schools premises.

The comparison with out of school activities is also a little fatuous - a parent supervising their own children whilst playing is much more able to ascertain the potential danger of an activity than a playground supervisor with possibly hundreds of children to keep an eye on. I imagine that it must be an awful feeling for a child to be seriously hurt on 'your watch' in such a role and I would have thought that they would want to avoid those incidents as well.

As for teaching children about life in the real world, I'm afraid that doesn't really ring true. If workers were engaged in a dangerous activity that their employers were aware of and failed to implement any safety precautions, anyone injured as a result would be in line for compensation and the company would probably be subject to penalty measures.

Either way, I can understand schools wanting to put children's safety first and reduce their liability - if you really want your kids to play games which might result in injury there's nothing to stop you organising (and therefore being responsible for) them!

monkeychops

I must be old - I don't what any of those games are lol!