UK Headteacher Bans Pupils From Touching Snow

Across the UK at the moment, kids are loving the fact that they're allowed time off school chucking snowballs around while adults have to be sat in work - unless it's 'unreasonably' cold, that is.

Not all kids are enjoying themselves in the winter weather though, as one school has banned its kids from even touching the snow for fear it will do them harm. Y'what, mate?

Gez Smith, headteacher at the Jo Richardson Community School in East London, explained that he's banned pupils from touching snow for health and safety reasons as he faced a grilling on Good Morning Britain.

CHECK OUT THE HEADTEACHER'S EXPLANATION:

To the befuddlement of the panelists, Smith said: "The problem is it only takes one student, one piece of grit, one stone in a snowball in an eye with an injury and we change our view.

"We've got a duty of care and that duty of care has got to extend."

ITV/Good Morning Britain

Smith explained his rationale for stopping kids touching the snow, explaining that if kids don't touch the snow they won't be able to throw it.

The hard-line headteacher added that joshing around with snow during lunch breaks often leaves schoolkids not 'fit for work', using the language of a DWP assessment.

"If you're soaking wet, your hands are cold, you've been involved in a fight, you've had something thrown at you or the last thing you do before you go into school and into the classroom is have a snowball in your face, you're not ready to learn," Smith concluded.

ITV/Good Morning Britain

GMB presenter Piers Morgan wasn't impressed by the rule, suggesting that mollycoddling the kids in this way risks leaving them 'unprepared for normal life'.

He added that, like most baby boomers, he had plenty of snowball fights as a kid and it didn't stop him succeeding.

Smith wasn't having any of it, though, as he explained that by clamping down on messing about the cold weather, he is simply protecting himself and the school from a potential lawsuit.

"What you didn't operate in is a society whereby the first thing that happens is a parent on the phone to a company to make that claim, and I'm responsible," Smith said.

At least the kids at Jo Richardson can have fun in the snow once the last bell has rung - if it hasn't all melted away by then.

Topics: Snow, UK News, Entertainment, TV and Film, Beast From The East, Good Morning Britain

Chris Ogden

Chris Ogden is a journalist at LADbible. He graduated from the University of East Anglia with degrees in English Literature and Creative Writing before completing his NCTJ Diploma in Multimedia Journalism. Chris has previously written for the independent culture magazine The Skinny, among other publications.

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