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Ah. Magnesium ribbon. That brings back memories 😂
To the OP, sorry to hear that...hope he's feeling better this evening .
Teacher here.
I’m waiting for confirmation that this was a belt sander.
I really hope that the child isn’t hurt seriously.
I ask that you talk to staff at the school and make sure you have the full story before lodging a complaint. If you still want to complain later that’s your choice.
Obviously schools have a duty of care. Generally schools take this very seriously. But the net effect of complaints and threats of legal action has been to make schools less effective.
and stealing magnesium ribbon
That is a rite of passage, surely?!
How the science department didn't realise they had a lot less magnesium than they should, is a mystery!
When's circular saw week?
Complaints to the school and academy trust will be going in tomorrow, anyone else we should be contacting?
So my very non PC workshop induction had the line "everything is design to cut metal, your fingers are not metal and pose not threat to the equipment.
If your daft enough to reach past the guard* don't be surprised buy the pain".
In +10yrs the worse injury was a lad who ran the lathe backwards the tried to pick up the part (I heard the his two machines away). He didn't do it again though.
Was he told to not sand with finger too close to the abrasive? How did he not notice his fingers were against the sander?
* The guards actually posed a bigger risk as they impeded your view of the cutter.
Did you not teach him rule #1? Never put your fingers where you wouldn’t put your dick?
Even though it was +16yr olds I don't think i'd get away with that, though overalls tied around the waste did get you a telling off and asking which part of your body would be dragged into the machine first.
When’s circular saw week?
It will follow nail gun practical.
set off fire alarm
Fire alarm? Posh ***t 😂
We had a lad blow up a thistle funnel in chemistry when I was in school. He was making hydrogen gas by dissolving calcium or magnesium iirc in acid. Instead of letting it bubble him and a couple of others were putting loads more in and putting their hands on the top to up the pressure and get the jet of hydrogen to blow further. This was all fine until it went bang in a big way and he was wearing the thistle funnel in what seemed to be a thousand bits in/ on his face and hands, including a good long section of the glass tube embedded in his cheek. If that wasn’t bad enough for our very amateur school nurse (who I’m sure was no more qualified than the librarian at first aid) our class vegetarian fainted and banged her head after she saw the pools of blood on the floor! It was carnage. He did recover but had some nasty scarring. Chemistry was a little less hairy after that. This was the top set as well!
Ex-DT teacher here 😁
I'll echo plenty of what's been said above...
- There will be risk assessments in place.
- Students will have had the machinery demoed and explained to them in detail.
- They should have had to demonstrate safe use of the machinery to a member of staff before being allowed to use it on their own.
- rules will be in place, such as min size of piece to be used on machine, no of students queuing/waiting, safety marks on the floor, etc.
All that being said, teenagers are teenagers, and I'd always have one or two per year who wouldn't listen or would get cocky and then the machine would bite.
School should contact you, but bear in mind teachers are really busy!
Please assure us that this was a belt sander injury, not just your son rubbing his bloody finger stubs up and down a bit of course sandpaper out of sheer boredom?
That would definitely show a great deal of tenacity if nothing else.
Ha, you'd think. But I had children sand off fingertip skin while polishing pewter on 600 wet and dry. Quite common actually, even when warned repeatedly.
How the science department didn’t realise they had a lot less magnesium than they should, is a mystery!
Spin that.... These are people that got into that job because they love a bit of chemistry. Get past the corduroy and the elbow patches, making weird shit do cool shit is what they get off on. Now, in these constricted times you might not be allowed to encourage kids to **** around with chemistry in their own time, and if you could do the awkward sods wouldn't because you said you wanted them to. But.....turn a blind eye at the right time and the good shit gets delivered to where it's most needed, you are in the clear when they **** up and the next generation of chemistry nutters is born. Ain't Chemistry brilliant!
My son (13 year 8) managed to sand a good chunk off the tips of 5 fingers including a good portion of the nails as well today in DT class.
At what stage did he think - "oooh, yah bugger, this smarts a bit!?" Sanding five fingers down sounds like someone was pissing about.
The op is probably waiting for the Daily Fail reporter & photographer to arrive.
Stand by for the obligatory sad faces compo picture, plus at least we'll know the value of the op's house.
It’s a ‘learning experience’.
magnesium ribbon to set on fire in the playground
Even more dramatic in the confined space fume cupboard that is the back of the school bus 🙄
Spin that…. These are people that got into that job because they love a bit of chemistry. Get past the corduroy and the elbow patches, making weird shit do cool shit is what they get off on. Now, in these constricted times you might not be allowed to encourage kids to * around with chemistry in their own time, and if you could do the awkward sods wouldn’t because you said you wanted them to. But…..turn a blind eye at the right time and the good shit gets delivered to where it’s most needed, you are in the clear when they * up and the next generation of chemistry nutters is born. Ain’t Chemistry brilliant!
Me and a few schoolfriends made jolly Roger cookbook pipe bombs and tried thermiting a gas main with stolen chemistry lesson magnesium......I'm now responsible for the engineering aspects of a Tier1 COMAH chemical site so your theory works out.
the tool in question was a disc sander, it had a quarter guard on it, he was sanding a small name plate and it got dragged between the table and the sanding disc followed by his fingers. He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
Nature, sorts the wheat from the chaff.
the tool in question was a disc sander, it had a quarter guard on it, he was sanding a small name plate and it got dragged between the table and the sanding disc followed by his fingers. He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
Tbh that sounds too small. If it will fit between the disc and the table then it's dangerous, especially for an inexperienced user.
The table/disc gap should be set as small as possible - defo a lot less than finger width!
I'd be questioning the machine set-up, risk assessment of piece size, and general instructions, i.e. is the piece smaller than others, or had the teacher not realise the risk of the smaller piece being worked on.
My kids go to the same secondary school I did. I learned more in the dt workshops than anywhere else. They were brilliantly equipped and as a sensible kid I was given free rein welding, using lathes and multi axis milling machine from 13. The workshops only have a 3D printer and a vac former in now. Everything else gone now due to health and safety concerns. Such a shame that kids can’t learn practical skills
All that being said, teenagers are teenagers
They are. I like to think of myself as a sensible type, but age 15 or so I discovered I could throw the very sharp marking knife at the bench and it would stick in and look cool. So I moved further away and did it again, and again, til I was on the other side of the room. Of course at this point it needed quite a lot of welly; and the angle between knife and bench had decreased to the point where it finally ricocheted off the bench and a few mm from my mate's face.
I'm sensible now because back then I was lucky. As was my mate.
the tool in question was a disc sander, it had a quarter guard on it, he was sanding a small name plate and it got dragged between the table and the sanding disc followed by his fingers. He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
That would only happen if they were sanding the back of it flat on the disc. It 100% would not happen if sanding the edge, with the name plate flat on the bed. Asking him specifically if sanding the back was the instruction. I would really hope it wasn't. Do you trust him to tell the truth?
He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
Of course he was 🙄
I once demonstrated to a class that a mixture of ethanol and bits of sodium shouldn't be disposed off down the sink.
When it hits the trap the sodium reacts with the water and if there enough ethanol you get a lovely blue tower of flame out of the plughole.
(Bloody silly sodium ethoxide demo)
I wish my enthusiasm had been curbed there. Hexane oxygen demo heard about a mile away.
Ethanol rocket with a massive drinks cooler bottle. (All risk assessed and approved by head of department but probably not acceptable now).
This exact thing happend in my first observed lesson as a trainee. I felt awful!
These things happen. If they had called you, what would be different?
Ethanol rocket with a massive drinks cooler bottle<br /><br />
pray tell more? I have some of those bottles to make water bottle rockets and plasma cannons for scouts.
Ethanol sounds like it’ll be fun!
Spent most of woodwork making truncheons and most of metalwork making throwing stars, both of which would be illegal these days. Come to think of it the school workshops were essentially weapons factories. We survived with only a few puncher wounds to show for it.
Hope child heals fast.
Can we do Bunsen burners now?
I was a WGBE as a teenager. Chemistry teacher told me he’d had enough of my shenanigans disrupting the class and would ignore any further attempts to disrupt his lesson. That was a challenge to teenage me. I set fire to a curtain with a Bunsen burner. Definitely got his attention!
I remember our 6th form chemistry teacher (in his first job), obviously wanting to impress us with a biggish thermite demo. Watching the (not very fireproof) roof tiles melt & drip onto the floor was magic !
Hope your son is okay OP. This bit though
He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
Who told you this was the case?
My cousin was a technology teacher. He once told me that he always told his pupils that it isn't only the tip of a soldering iron that gets hot, but any part of it other than the handle. He told me that more or less every single student that ever learnt to solder would burn their fingers at one time or another. He used the expression "a useful one-hit learning experience" as very few students ever burnt themselves twice.
Ah, Design and Technology it holds a special place in my heart. Awarded highest mark in the local education authority, and proud of my A* at GCSE and A-level!
My dad also taught DT for twenty odd years. That may or may not have had an influence on my results!
Gotta agree with the majority above. It doesn't sound like anything other than a bit of an accident and going off down the blame game won't help anyone.
Dad's favourite story - kid using a soldering iron. Someone nicks his little damp yellow sponge from its wire stand. So kid dabs tip of soldering iron on his tongue.
Oh and always remember - sharp tools are much, much safer than blunt tools.
TBH its the teacher who sounds a bit of a duffer. He should have seen that sanding the flat of a thin nameplate might slip between the pad and the table which is clearly too far away from the pad, which should only be a couple of mil.
He should have I suppose, placed a false bed on it using a wide flat piece of mdf or wood, held in place with a clamp so the gap would be zero.
I am surprised that disc sanders are used in schools now as they were so often misused. If I recall we were told to remove them in the early 1990’s in the LA I worked in and when I moved to another college in a different authority in 1999 there were none in their workshops either.
I’m sensible now because back then I was lucky.
That's one of my favourite ever things I've read here.
He told me that more or less every single student that ever learnt to solder would burn their fingers at one time or another.
I can confirm. I once had a lad lean his full forearm across the business end of a soldering iron, after placing it on the table (rather than returning it to the holder, as requested). It actually fused to his arm and we had to pull it off. The smell was horrifying.
I also once caught a child prodding a plug socket with a hot soldering iron, managing to melt holes in the face plate 🙄
My lad (same age) put a sewing machine needle through his finger at school a couple of weeks ago. My only thought was "why am I not surprised". Kids, especially boys, are stupid dicks at this age 😁
TBH its the teacher who sounds a bit of a duffer. He should have seen that sanding the flat of a thin nameplate might slip between the pad and the table which is clearly too far away from the pad, which should only be a couple of mil.
Or perhaps the students were only meant to be using the sander to sand the edges with the nameplate laid flat on the table?
Sounds to me like you lad learned a lesson today that he will not repeat.
Well, he can only repeat it a finite amount of times.
Is he the only 13 yr old in the country without a phone, or at the only school in the country with such a strict phone policy that after injuring himself he couldn’t call you himself?
Fingerprint locked?
Joking aside that does sound pretty grim. As others have said though, you need to decide what your complaint is. Was he unsupervised when he should have been? Were there safety guards that had been tampered with? Did the teacher leave the rest of the class unsupervised to deal with him? Why wasn't the machinery disabled when there was no adults around? Should they have called you? Did they follow their own policies and procedures? If yes, do they need revising; if no, why not? Etc etc.
To my mind, mistakes happen, it's how an organisation responds which is important. I think if it were me I'd start in the first instance with a factual letter requesting their comments and then going from there.
Or perhaps the students were only meant to be using the sander to sand the edges with the nameplate laid flat on the table?
this
(although as said, it does sound like the machine needs adjusting)
Not at school but at work. I once stuck a chainsaw in my right hand. You're not meant to cut & catch. So you're definitely not meant to do it at height and cut with the left and catch with the right hand. I got away very very luckily with 2 cut tendons and 12 weeks off work.
My missus always used to ask how I could preach about safe tool use due to my accident. My accident has given me a deeper appreciation of how quickly things can go wrong.
Hopefully your son heals up and learns a very valuable life lesson
My cousin was a technology teacher. He once told me that he always told his pupils that it isn’t only the tip of a soldering iron that gets hot, but any part of it other than the handle.
Let's do electronics!
That’ll be a freestyle manoeuvre only considered sensible in a 13 yr old boy’s mind!
I mean I happen to know a forum member put a 10mm steel drill bit through his right thumb whilst attempting to enlarge a hole in a bracket and not owning a vice. And he was in his mid-20s at the time...