Telegraph.
I remember myself swimming in my youth and having eventually to get out as my eyes were burning due to the high level of chlorine in the water used as a disinfectant. I also remember that many pools banned the larger scuba goggles too, not sure why, might have been because they contained glass and if broken became a safety hazard. But I do remember getting hold of the first type of modern goggle and enjoyed swimming underwater and being able to see clearly without the water distortion on my eyes. It made swimming a lot more fun and the exercise was good for us.Pen-pushers have slapped the ban on the swimming aides amid "fears" a pair could "snap" onto a child's face too hard, injuring them.Parents branded the ruling by Oxfordshire County Council's healthy and safety brigade as "nutty" and "extreme."However, bureaucrats defended its no-goggle policy claiming that it reflected national guidance provided by sports bodies.Children will now need a medical reason for them to be allowed to wear the protective eye wear in the pool during school lessons.Teenage swimmer Danni McFadden, aged 13 years, said: "It hurts my eyes if we swim without them and I go in the water."Her mother Carmel Ryan added: "I remember being a child and I thought it was great swimming underwater."It makes swimming more fun."The professional swimmers wear goggles."It's a bit nutty."If they think someone is messing around with them, they should correct it. They do protect the eyes."
Oxfordshire is not alone in banning goggles.
Last year, Leicestershire County Council advised schools of the "dangerous" eyewear which it said could snap back in children's faces, or make them bump into one another due to reduced peripheral vision.Hertfordshire County Council has done the same.
A spokesman for Oxfordshire County Council refused to divulge the specific reason why goggles had been banned from its swimming pools.I think it's because they know the reaction they'll get for doing something so stupid. Yes kids bump and bang each other occasionally, yes they do stupid things, usually they'll only do it once as they are quick learners, unlike Health and Safety officers no doubt. But doesn't it strike anyone normal (for a given value of normal) that making something like swimming less enjoyable brings a whole new set of dangers such as drowning into the realms of possibility? If kids don't like going to the pool because the water hurt their eyes, perhaps they'll also not learn to swim.
I can't even find an instance of any kid being blinded by swimming goggles, I got to 5 pages in google and merely turned up a load of stuff about teaching blind kids to swim as well as a load of guff from mumsnet about the same subject of goggles.
Perhaps it's time we let kids be kids again and saved a bit of cash getting rid of the health and safety brigades.
5 annotations:
"....and saved a bit of cash getting rid of the health and safety brigades."
It is easily deduced that the Industrial Revolution first introduced your much detested 'health and safety brigades' to places of work. You correctly point out that there is usually a cost element in dealing with hazards and risks. Perhaps a lot of cash could have been saved if it had not been squandered on unnecessary guarding of machines. The contraptions had previously provided factory children with energetic and amusing dodge games. You see, accidents and ill health just befall the careless; or is it just those who lack your abundant commonsense, QM?
MTG
And then there's the Huyton schools ban on leather footballs... :)
I see MGT, you'd rather employ people who would ban swimming goggles? Or kids playing conkers? Leather footballs as Julia mentioned? Nothing wrong with applying health and safety properly, but those cases should not have been under scrutiny. Those who promote them are not worthy of employment in the health and safety business.
Perhaps if they'd employed common sense and applied it in the way it was originally supposed to be in the dark history you allude too? But they don't, do they? They'd rather kids stopped having fun than admit that they did something stupid.
XX or make them bump into one another due to reduced peripheral vision. XX
Aha! But full facr helmets on motorbikes are allowable?
It's legal to wear a burka whilst driving here Furor, the peripheral vision in those is zero.
Yet strangely enough there is a deafening silence from the H&S brigades when it comes to certain religions. Much easier to pick on kids.
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