There is a concerted campaign that has worked to take any last sprinkling of fun away from the school experience. When schools claim they offer a “safe environment”, what they really mean is they offer a mundane, lifeless one:
CARTWHEELS, tiggy, high fives and hugging top the list of activities banned by overzealous Australian schools during the past few years.
Principals concerned about accidents on school grounds have implemented the rules over the years in an effort to prevent playground injuries.
But parents have routinely described the bans as “over the top”, “extreme” and “ridiculous” and have urged school rule makers to let kids be kids.
In the latest example of excessive school rules, students have been banned from performing handstands and cartwheels in the playground of a Sydney primary school unless under the direct supervision of a trained gymnastics teacher.
Drummoyne Public School said children could perform cartwheels and somersaults “under the supervision of a trained gymnastics teacher and with correct equipment. These activities therefore cannot be condoned during lesson breaks.”
In a newsletter sent to parents and posted on the school’s website, principal Gail Charlier said it followed consultations with the Education Department’s state schools sports unit.
It is not the first school to outlaw the childhood fun. In 2008, Belgian Gardens State School in Townsville banned all forms of gymnastics including cartwheels, handstands and somersaults.
The school imposed the ban after deeming gymnastics activities a “medium risk level 2” that posed a danger to children.
But it’s not just gymnastics being outlawed in the playground. The humble game of tiggy was banned at schools in Queensland and Victoria.
New Farm State School, in Brisbane’s inner north, outlawed the popular lunchtime game because of injury fears, while at Mt Martha Primary School in outer Melbourne, tiggy was banned under the school’s strict “no contact” policy that also banned high-fives and hugging.
Hugging bans have been popular among principals, with Adelaide’s Largs Bay Primary School banning year six and seven students from mixed-sex consensual hugging for fear it would set a “bad example” to younger students.
Children at the William Duncan State School on the Gold Coast were also punished with detention for hugging or touching their friends boys or girls.
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