Boy In Tree Left for His Own Health and Safety

In London, a boy is left in a tree after recess while teachers went back to classes because a health and safety policy made the school do it.

...instead of helping him, staff followed guidelines and retreated inside the school building to ‘observe from a distance’ so the child would not get ‘distracted and fall’.

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The boy was only rescued after 45 minutes in the tree when passer-by Kim Barrett, 38, noticed the child and helped him down herself.

But instead of being thanked for her actions by the head teacher of the Manor School in Melksham, Wiltshire, she was reported to the police for trespassing.

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[Barrett said] 'He was so young. He didn't look frightened but he was completely on his own - there were no teachers or friends in the playground and the field was empty.

'I walked past at 11.15am and he told me he had been hiding since the end of playtime because he didn't want to go back into class.

'Break ends at 10.30am so that means he had been in the tree for at least 45 minutes.

‘I stopped to ask him if he was OK, and it became clear that he'd been there since the end of playtime, which had been around half an hour earlier.

‘I was immediately concerned. I walked over to the school with the boy and was met by the associate head.

‘He didn't appear at all concerned, and was actually very patronising, patting me on the arm and asking me “what do you expect me to do, exactly, dear?”

‘When I said I thought it was a serious incident, he then said his only concern was me trespassing.

And people wonder why I'm interested in homeschooling.