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Health And Safety Concerns Keep Teachers From Chasing Runaway Students

03.06.2009 - Teachers 'not allowed' to chase four-year-old school runaway - because of health and safety risk

In what is being called a "safe handling policy," teachers at a school in England have been prohibited from chasing after a four-year-old who constantly wanders off school premises and walks alongside a busy main road. The teachers have been advised to track the child and call the police to retrieve him.

The young boy's mother, Suzan Baker, was appalled upon hearing the school's policy: "I got a call telling me that they had picked him up from woods at the back of his school. They told me they had followed him and rung the police. When I questioned them about it they just said 'do you know how fast a four-year-old can run?'"

The school stands by its policy. Headteacher Jill Wilkinson said: "We have a positive safe handling policy that allows us to use reasonable action. However it can be dangerous to chase after a child because often it makes them run faster."

Listen, if you can't run faster than a four-year-old, maybe it's best you put down the buttered crumpets and scones and hit up the old gymnasium, you pack of gluttons—children's lives are at stake!

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