Dante Posted September 8, 2008 Posted September 8, 2008 A North Queensland primary school has banned cartwheels and handstands in the playground. Belgian Gardens State School in Townsville has banned all gymnastics activities during lunch breaks, declaring it dangerous because it has the potential to cause back and neck injuries. Cali Buschgens, 10, has been reprimanded for cartwheeling on school grounds and her grandmother Val Bryce says the ban is a sad reflection on modern society. "Sadly I think this is probably linked with the current society where litigation is rife and I feel that schools are probably trying to avoid a child being hurt and an irresponsible mother then trying to sue them for it," she said. Education Queensland has defended the ban on unsupervised gymnastic activities. Regional executive director Vicki Baylis says fear of litigation was never a factor in the decision and it was made purely for the students safety. "The issue around the gymnastics is around the safety of the kids and it was not motivated by any concept of litigation, but certainly [by] that safety and well-being component of those kids when we're talking heads and necks and potentially backs if there were an injury." Queensland Premier Anna Bligh says she is surprised by the decision, and says the school is obviously taking student safety very seriously. "I'd be interested to hear from this school what prompted them to take this action, because school communities by and large try to meet the standards that parents have in that community," she said. www.abc.net.au Just how sad is this to ban cartweels and handstand for maybe causing an injury.
Emasher Posted September 8, 2008 Posted September 8, 2008 Kids are still going to do it and if a teacher sees them, they'll just give them a polite warning. This rule exists for the same reason that adds that show car stunts say at the bottom of the screen "Closed course, do not attempt".
Dante Posted September 8, 2008 Author Posted September 8, 2008 so many stupid banning going on these days
Cube Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Soon they'll ban playing altogether and strap the children in chairs.
Guest bluey Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 can we just have like, a permanent link to the google news site on the gen chit chat page or something? then dante could post his OWN thoughts about stuff, poor thing. in other news: i nearly killed myself doing a handstand once. i totally agree with this and call for an immediate nationwide ban!! edit: after having bothered to read one of dante's walls of text posts ~ i do GENUINELY agree with that ban. in fact i've done the same thing for one of my classes ~ the kids just keep kicking each other in the head and ending up hurt 'cause they don't know how to do it properly. bit harsh to ban it all together but it's an american school, right? they're probably more worried about getting sued by parents.
rokhed00 Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 but it's an american school, right? No, Australian, my wifes home town in fact.
Guest bluey Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 No, Australian, my wifes home town in fact. ahh well ~ apologies ^__^ i didnt read it that well wall o' text + bluey = skim-read
EchoDesiato Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 At least they still have the Powerpuff Girls, right?
Ramar Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Dear god.. they'll ban football stickers next.
Rummy Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Bullshit, this ain't new at all, we had a ban on that shit back when *I* was in primary school(ok I'm only 21 but I really wanted to sound like an old man and also I was in primary school quite a time ago now). I wasn't too bothered though, I never tried to do cartwheels or handstands cos I never had the balls to not fall over and hurt myself, I used to be a tremendous whimp way back in the day.
Retro_Link Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 So glad that I grew up at the time I did! when it was actualy fun! And competitive Sports Days ftw!!
rokhed00 Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Everyone knows all they were good for was seeing the girls knickers anyway.
Android18a Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 I thought they banned girls doing handstands because perverts were taking photos of their knickers at lunchtime.
Roostophe Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 I could do handstands. I used to handstand with the girls.
Jimbob Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Now i think the H/S officials are taking it too far with banning too many things i used to do back in school. What next, Hopskotch.
Emasher Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 Pictures. Sorry, I meant to say Car Stunts.
Zero Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 The way I see it is, if the schools are likely to get sued by something consider it banned. Where I grew up we would have done anyway and i'm sure that kids these days will do it regardless if it's banned.
Emasher Posted September 9, 2008 Posted September 9, 2008 The way I see it is, if the schools are likely to get sued by something consider it banned. Where I grew up we would have done anyway and i'm sure that kids these days will do it regardless if it's banned. Exactly. When I was in grade 7. (Thats about 13 years old). About half the guys went into the forest (There was a big publicly owned forest attached to the school grounds) and had wars armed with sticks and stuff. Than one kid went nuts and stabbed my friend in the hand and the principal found out and banned the whole thing. It wasn't like we were really hitting each other with sticks, and this was just an isolated incident. So since it wasn't at all dangerous, we did it anyway. Nobody after that ever go hurt and it was all good fun.
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