A burning issue
U.K.: It’s sunny, stay inside
Schools warned over sunny trips
School stops boy using sun cream
Sunburn can be a serious issue. Studies have shown that sunburns or exposure to the sun can increase the risk of skin cancer and other skin ailments. What is a school to do? They are responsible for the care of their students and sometimes there is a scholastic need or purpose to being outdoors. Sometimes the sun being out coincides with those planned external activities. The Derby City Council has a solution - cancel trips if the weather is nice.
Children are used to being told a trip is being postponed because of the vagaries of Britain’s rainy summers.
But now schools in Derby are being told to consider cancelling trips in good weather because of the risk of sunburn.
…
Derby City Council … said teachers should consider “postponing or cancelling events… in periods of excessive sun”.
They also have a solution for what to do if caught in the sunlight unexpectedly. Sort of.
Teachers should also consider keeping a supply of maximum factor suncream to spray onto pupils, although they are told not to rub it in for fear of being accused of inappropriate contact.
Hillcrest Primary in Totterdown seems to have just the opposite plan. They are so in love with the sun and its effects that they’ll go as far as confiscating suncream from students.
Joseph Marshall’s mother Helen sent him to school in Bristol with a bottle of factor 60 sun block to protect his pale, freckly skin from sunburn.
She was angry when staff at Hillcrest Primary in Totterdown confiscated the cream, saying they were endangering his health.
Head teacher Norma Watson said pupils were not allowed medication at school because of the risk to other children.
A spokeswoman for Bristol City Council said it supported the school’s policy.
I jest, though. They do not wish a sunburn on their students, they just want to protect their students from the harmful effects of suncream. They do have a compromise solution - wear long sleeved shirts with long pants and wear a sun hat. Stop laughing - that’s really what they said. Middle of summer, long sleeves, long pants, sunhats. After all, you know how much boys love to wear sunhats no matter what the weather is like and children of all types are more comfortable and content wearing lots of cloth when it is hot.
Sometimes I’m reassured when I see articles like this. At least I know that we’re not the only ones who suffer fools gladly.
(Tip credit to Bumper)
Sunblock is now a drug over there?
Man, I am glad we threw off the Crown 228 years ago.
I think we’re in the same boat overall. We’ve got Tweety Bird wallets that are considered weapons over here.
And I thought American schools were fucked up…
Welch’s grape juice is an alcoholic beverage if a public middle school girl in Georgia pretends it is, even though it really isn’t. She got suspended for ten days for joking to her friends that she was drinking wine. She purchased the grape juice in the school cafeteria. The school knew she purchased it in the school cafeteria too, but because she pretended it was “wine” she was suspended. Jackasses.
Two hundred years from now, historians will look back on this and laugh their butts off, sort of like how they now laugh about Salem witchcraft trials.
Why not just do what the schools around here do? Give the parents permission slips to sign if they want the school to apply sunblock?
I wouldn’t joke about the long clothes. That’s part of why people in middle eastern countries wear the robes all the time - not exposing your skin to the sun is always more effective than using even the strongest sunscreen.
Still, this school’s policy is absurd.