School Fair Safety

School Fete Safety

I got an email from a reader overnight and it really concerned me. Schools have a huge responsibility in regards to student safety and from what I have seen, generally take this responsibility very seriously and professionally. However, some of the stuff I have seen come come from my kids school lately seems to be a bit over the top. I could go on forever about how sad it is that peanut butter sandwiches and monkey bars are banned etc and understand that kids are much more precious these days and need to be protected from themselves and not have the same learning experiences and adventures that we did as kids. BUT, we have written about safety overkill many times in the past and I think this may be a concerning outcome of that. Are we so focused on micro managing safety and risk that we totally lose sight of or forget about the things that are really going to cause us big time grief, particularly when they aren’t part of normal day to day operations???? It is incredulous that the planning for an event such as this didn’t include traffic management plans, strict rules for stall holders/operators and constant supervision/intervention by trained Safety Officers??????? Here is the letter, what is your advice to the reader?

“Safety concerns – I wonder when we see things unsafe in the community what we can do?. I mean often the best and only thing we can do is witness it. The thing is, sometimes it is a thought like: “oh that is a problem waiting to happen”. I was at my daughter’s school fete today and some of the working participants were leaving and drove their vehicle through the busiest area of the fete with little care. Of course the vehicles were going slow, which is the least they can do, however, no other precautionary measures were taken. It was dark and people everywhere and then vehicles were trying to leave. This kind of operation is never safe…a vehicle driving and clearing the crowds as the car approaches people. If safe measures were being taken the vehicle would have left before dark, have had escorts and cleared a safe and visibly marked path. And preferably this path is in the least busy part of the venue. I was shocked that this was able to happen. This is at a fete that is held every year and is professionally run. A lot of money is made at these events, but if safety isn’t the first priority then it isn’t worth it.”