School kids in Britain no longer have to worry about whether their field trip is being called off because of rainy weather. Now they have to worry whether it will be called off because of sunny weather …
Derby City Council issued the guidelines because of the link between sunburn when young and increased risk of skin cancer in later life. It said teachers should consider “postponing or cancelling events… in periods of excessive sun”.
The guidelines also advised to teachers to “try to plan external activities, for example, short duration trips, external lessons and sports days, for times when the sun is likely to be at its lowest strength – and the temperature at its lowest”.
All right everyone, let’s cue the Morlock scene …
Of course, we worry about sun here in Colorado, too — being in Denver means being a mile high (hey, that’s catchy), so the UV risk is even higher. But Katherine’s pre-school gives parents the option — if they’re not of the sun-block-slathering sort like us — to allow the teacher to lotion the kid up. That option’s available in Derby, too, evidently, but with a different twist …
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.
And, just to make it a genuine trip into Wonderland, this BBC story shows it can get even more rules-bound-Zero-Tolerance-complicated than that …
An eight-year-old boy has been banned from taking sun cream to school. 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. She said instead teachers encouraged them to wear long-sleeved clothing and hats.
(via Daimnation)
I’ve been in situations as a Brownie Guide Leader where we had to tell the kids not to bring or wear sunscreen on an activity because we had one girl going on it who’s extremely allergic to one of the common ingrediants in many sunscreens. We supplied sunscreen that she didn’t react to for all of them. Until we discovered that another kid was seriously allergic to that sort. That was a headache.
Probably PABA…
A woman I know has problems with that and it’s in almost every skin care product.
Probably PABA…
A woman I know has problems with that and it’s in almost every skin care product.
Handling such things on an exceptional basis might be worthwhile, but you handle it as an exception, a headache, and move on. If someone said, “No kids can go outside because some very small number of kids might be allergic to an ingredient in some sunscreens,” that would seem unreasonable. It would be letting the exception define the rule.
On the other hand, anything with peanuts in it is outright banned as a snack at Katherine’s school.
And in others schools, of course, no more birthday cupcakes, either. Yeesh.