The School bug
“I say I say I say, what is black, weighs 16 lbs and would be illegal in Austria?”
- I don’t know, what is black, weighs….
Wait a minute, wait a minute. It’s not a joke. It is my eldest’s school bag. I picked it up the other day - and picked is not really the word - to discover (Gripe 1) it was heavier than the tiddler. My first instincts were that there must be something in there that was not school work. The child was duly summoned. I was half-expecting a rock collection, though he is a bit past that sort of thing, finally. But no. It was all his weighty learning. (Almost all. It did also contain my response to the travel survey, pored over and commented on at great length and NOT handed in last term so I did NOT win a day at the McDonald Marine Hotel which I would have had a good chance at as the School Travel coordinator said there were only 10 responses presumably as they are ALL still in the school bags but that’s enough of that!).
Apparently in Austria school bags are only allowed to be a tenth of your body weight. While this does raise slightly disturbing visions of school children becoming anorexic in an attempt to weigh less than 10 x their homework so they can’t bring it home, it does seem to have a bit of sense to it. If they were at work, I would’ve thought they would be covered by manual handling regulations. As it is, (Gripe 2) they all seem to have these hugely heavy bags dangling round their bums. This is definitely not the style suggested by the leaflet I was given when seeing about back problems probably caused by carting the tiddler. I did show him the leaflet. I have to say it hasn’t made much difference. I don’t know if the school has had no better luck or if they don’t try.
And finally, Gripe 3. We had an amendment to the dress code last term saying that the school bag should be black. Where do we live? Scotland. What do they walk home in? The dark. I can see the point of a dark school uniform, I can see that formal colours might give a more formal attitude. But I’ve always found it slightly comforting that as he mucks about with his mates on the way home, flopping on and off the pavement as they seem to do at that age, wearing his invisibility cloak er I mean his school jacket, that his school bag was not only bright orange but also reflective. No more.
November 5th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
These heavy school bags - I can’t even move my eldest’s bag at the moment as it is way beyond my current legal lifting limit. I have been wanting to write a post about this very thing. I keep asking them to get lockers but apparently they’re too inconvenient. I’ve stopped giving them packed lunches as it’s just extra weight. It’s even worse the days they have to take in musucal instruments. Postmen would go on strike if they were carrying bags that heavy for such a large part of the day.
But if you see the girls going to school, they seem to manage wih something the size of a purse and a folder tucked under one arm. How do they do it?
November 17th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
[...] don’t normally make packed lunches for the boys, as anyone who has compared the weight of a modern day school bag to a cashless catering smart card will appreciate. However, Friday is half day, there are no [...]
April 21st, 2008 at 10:21 am
It is true that the children are not protected like the teachers are through Health & Safety Law. I sell specialist bags because my own children had problems with back pain.
It is important that they empty their bags daily and only carry what they need for the day. We need more parents to bring this to the attention of the Head teacher. There is a thirty percent increase in children with back pain since 1990 some secondary school children carry the equivalent of a fully laden microwave on their backs. It is a very worrying problem.