Posted By Crim 8 year old school boy in classroom swings back on his chair - chair collapses under him and he falls backward injuring his back. Chair is metal frame with welded joints, is now taken out of service. Teacher says he is all right to stay in school, Teacher says they have been told to sit properley on chairs. Your thoughts please

Posted By Crim I agree he shouldn't swing on the the chair but who is responsible for controlling children's actions while in school? With regard to the chair, I have past experience of such chairs where the weld cracked and chairs collapsed when used correctly. Should there be a regular check?

Posted By Bob Thompson CMIOSH Yes crim there should be a regular check, we have had a recent situation where a chair collapsed when a person was resting on the back. It transpired that the brand of chair was not properly tested and only thought to be suitable for a person of 14 stones. so a good six foot rugbyish lad may well be out of its limits. However we did identify one manufacturer who had test results for their chairs to 32 stones. Guess which ones we now specify. Regards Bob

Posted By Bob Thompson CMIOSH I have emailed you the info, By rugbyish I mean chunky as I too am rugbyish I much prefere it to well built. Regards Bob

Posted By Christopher Crim, I had a similar experience in a FE College. The chairs you refer to are difficult to assess, unless you replicate the exact same conditions. Clearly, in doing so the chairs are being submitted to a useage for which they have not been intended. Even if your son was using a robust chair, there would almost certainly come a point when the chair would topple over. Did the teacher have first aid training? She may have made her decision to keep him in school based on the information he gave her. When you found out he had injured his back, was he taken to casualty or taken to see his GP for an assessment? Lost time from school? How did you find out about the incident? Would you have felt more comfortable if the school had contacted you? Was there a responsible person available to keep him at home. By keeping him at school, the teacher was ensuring that he was being constantly monitored. Did he ask for his parents to be contacted? What is the school policy for the reporting of incidents at school to parents? I have to admit that I didn't know that chairs were identified as being of different weight bearings. DSE chairs yes.

Posted By Christopher In our case, I had all the chairs checked in the room. The actual chair was carefully examined. There was natural wear and tear. All the chairs had been purchased at the same time. Therefore, we took the decision that they had had their natural life span As part of the refurbishment plan, all the chairs were replaced in the room. However, being realistic an 8 year old is meant to explore and try out new experiences. There is I would have thought a possibility that if he/other repeated the same activity with another chair in the room, then the same result may occur. Discuss politely with teacher. I hate to have to say this, but remember if he is a big lad, you might be drawing attention to his size, and he might not thank you for it. At 8 he has a long time to remain at school, and fellow pupils tend to have very long memories. If an accident report form was completed, then their LA will pick it up.

Posted By Ken Taylor Can we get things clearer? The original thread said that the chair collapsed (ie a failure of the chair) whereas some respondents have taken this to be a tipping over of the chair (ie through misuse). Pupils (and even teachers) rock chairs backwards from time to time and I would expect a welded metal chair frame to be able to withstand this. Robust furniture is a good idea in schools.

Posted By Martyn Astey Am I hearing this correctly, are people really saying that all chairs (school, workplace, college, etc) should be subject to a planned inspection regime? Should this be simply visual or some form of 'non-destructive testing' on the welds. We don't do it at our workplace, maybe it ought to go in our objectives for next year. Maybe our insurers can do it when they carry out the statutory inspections. Seriously, I suggest you write to the Head Teacher with a copy to the Chair of Governors then this will be discussed at the Governors meeting. Why don't you apply to be a Parent Governor or Community Governor at your sons school? Most schools struggle to fill all their places and you will be able to have a direct input into the workings of the school.

Posted By Martyn Astey Too busy for school committee work ........ hmmmmm... Have you looked into whats involved in being a School Governor; you seem to dismiss the idea very quickly. I would recommend anyone with an expertise (health & safety or other) to get involved with their local school through the School Governor system. You don't have to have kids at the school and you can help improve the health and safety performance in the school. Don't have time ........... where have I heard that before?

Posted By Exdeeps Crim, You get out of life what you put in. Being a Governor opens up all sorts of possibilities such as free training in areas you are not expert in, it looks good on a CV (But don't do it for the CV)and you get to find out just what is going on (I confess, I am a nosey so and so and found the chinese whispers and rumour mill at the gate did not give me enough information) Typically, a gov. will spend approximately 20hrs per term on preparing for and attending meetings etc, and finally, you have a unique skill set that the school may well need to tap into - go on, give it a go Jim (A school governor)

Posted By Exdeeps GSP, You need to be a school governor too. Get on the committee and then use your knowledge and professional status to filter out the niff naff, trivia and other nonsense, thereby ensuring that the pupils get what they deserve from the education professionals, who after all are only experts in education, not the other stuff that makes a good school better, Jim

Posted By GSP I'm sorry but you are pathetic, no doubt your child was told numerous times not to swing on his chair, although you no doubt believe his word he hasn't been. Chairs of this sort are designed to be on 4 legs, not 2 or even 1. Please get over yourself and stopping increasing the compensation culture and ever increasing rope and fear for school now days over parent with nothing better to do than complain.

Posted By John Watson An interesting thread. As a school governor myself I know that we have a person nominated as a "link" governor for H&S issues. I suggest, if you continue to draw a blank, that you write to the governing body care of the school, for the attention of the H&S link governor. This should progress the issue in the right direction. Regards John

Posted By Bob Thompson CMIOSH well folks this is a can of worms. To keep things into perspective. There is some discussion on whether chairs should or not be inspected. I would make the following comments employers are required to ensure that any equipment provided is safe for use and continues to be safe for use, as safety anoraks it is incumbent on us to recognise that equipment that is constantly under stress and baring load is more likely to incur problems. Chairs certainly fit this description. the fact that they may get misused is for us to take account of, good risk assessment basics. I would and certainly have advised that any chairs in use within our environment are checked periodically for signs of damage, we may not have xray eyes or non destructive testing certificate but that is no excuse for not acting reasonably and at least trying to prevent problems. I know it is not Friday but rant over.

Posted By Crim On the one hand we could say yes we are being too pedantic and step back, do no more that we are right now and hope that no-one else gets injured due to the collapse of a chair. On the other hand the fact that we are in possession of the above information should mean we will act responsibly and do all we can to prevent accidents involving the type of chair in question. If this means the Purchasing Dept./people need to assess the end user pre order then that is what should happen.