Heavy school bags carried by children (a massive future problem!)

On the way back from gym today I passed a group of KS3 boys 3 or 4 of whom were pulling something like the one below. They looked full and I wondered how they’d have been able to carry them up and down stairs in the school building.

Surely, the real answer is for schools to have the cash to be able to supply locking cabinets for all the pupils. Then they would not need to carry everything all day. At least nowadays it is not heavy text books.

I too remember the weight of my school satchel, no backpacks then. I also remember a fashion for picnic baskets to carry our school stuff . We carried the basket in the crook of our elbows .
I don’t agree with pull along cabin bags at school , they’re bad enough at the airports . Although I recently took the train at 3.30 ish and lots of boys had pull along soft hold-alls for their cricket stuff .

I remember the days. 51 years ago I started at secondary school. By the time I left, 5 years later, I had more muscles than Popeye. Nothing changes.

It’s nothing new. I can remember the weight of my school satchel every day carrying books and homework back and forth to school. And we walked every day over a mile each way in rain and snow . No special shoes or anything on our feet. I was a scholarship child in a private all girls school so money was very tight. As was my sister too

I never had the problem. My grammar school was a new build on a massive site, so plenty of room for proper desks for all and cloakrooms with pegs plus boxes under benches for sports stuff. All we had to carry to and from home were textbooks and exercise books that we needed for the day’s homework, plus swimming stuff weekly and the cookery basket once a fortnight. My DC’s comprehensive had lockers. I’ve got two very slight DGS going to secondary schools in September, so I’m hoping they have something similar (sounds unlikely though, from what you’re all saying).

We’ve just had a discussion on my old girls’ Facebook group, about how we only took our PE kits home for washing every half term. Those aertex shirts must have reeked!

Since I started teaching in the 1970s this was already a problem in Danish schools, as the old-fashioned school desk with a compartment for books had been replaced by tables.

2o years on, schools said books could not be kept in classrooms as there was too great a risk they would be stolen.
And that there was not room for lockers for each child either.

Now, judging from what younger colleagues who still teach tell me, e-books have replaced the old text books, significantly lowering children's loads. So you could look forward to that too, or try to raise the funding for it.

I too have always said and felt that carting heavy books cannot be good for young backs and shoulders, but neither can sitting at desks or tables the wrong height - and these are a world-wide feature of classrooms.

However, the medical profession seems singularly unconcerned with this, so it is hardly surprising that teachers, school bursars and whoever else allocates money to schools aren't bothered.

If anything is to be done to solve the problem, it will have to be tackled both from the angle of health and from the angle of funding for schools, and it is no use waiting for that useful committee member SOMEONE ELSE to do something, as the Reader's Digest publish her obituary years ago!

This is not a new issue. When I was at secondary school in the early seventies, we didn't have backpacks which distribute the weight better than other types of bag. I had to use a variety of shopping bags etc. If you left any books in desks, you would never see them again, so there was no option to carry everything, including PE kit and lunch, around all day. Yes I do have some back issues but I don't blame it on carrying my school books. Nothing new under the sun. They'll be fine.

We bought our daughter a pull a long school bag years ago, but she discarded it quite quickly as it was to annoying to use. Probably due to the poor condition of the pavements and school yard. We got the kids the backpack with the chest and waist straps to spread the weight more evenly, but they never used them either. Mind you that was before they needed a tablet or laptop to do their lessons and homework.

Chestnut

jan1956

no more than what we carried 55 yrs ago and we coped

How on earth do you know that? Do you even know what weight you carried? We didn't have heavy laptops for a start.

I was working by then 😃

Certainly we didn't carry the heavy bags pupils are expected to carry now. PE equipment like hockey sticks, hockey boots and even PE wear got left in the cloakroom then, we had our own desks to store all books etc.

My mother bought me a leather satchel with two shorter straps that I was supposed to wear on my back but everyone else had satchel with long straps so I used to hook mine over one shoulder.

Astitchintime

Anyone with any serious concerns about the weight being carried by pupils can surely contact the H & S Office at their local county council. If a council employee was asked to carry/lift anything over a certain weight wouldn't the HSE be on it PDQ?

It might be an idea to weigh the bag plus accessories to see what actual weight the child is carrying.

I suspect the reason they are carrying books is because they have to buy their own books and therefore have to take them home? Even more reason to have lockers.

jan1956

no more than what we carried 55 yrs ago and we coped

How on earth do you know that? Do you even know what weight you carried? We didn't have heavy laptops for a start.

I wasn't aware children had to cart computers around with them?

Anyone with any serious concerns about the weight being carried by pupils can surely contact the H & S Office at their local county council. If a council employee was asked to carry/lift anything over a certain weight wouldn't the HSE be on it PDQ?

Pull alongs would cause others to trip over them

I remember having a heavy bag, a PE bag and sometimes home economics victoria biscuit tin full of pyrex and ingredients and I had to walk to and from school 2 miles away in all weathers. I remember vans used to deliberately drive through puddles to splash you too

I used to walk and cycle with back pack, cookery basket and a trombone. Did me no harm , I’m 66 now and no issues.
Pull along wouldn’t be ‘cool’ then or now.

no more than what we carried 55 yrs ago and we coped

I share your concerns GrannyLondonSW8. However, I don't think pull-alongs are the answer. (So uncool!😄) I can understand that laptop computers may need to be taken home but bags full of heavy books are surely unnecessary these days. I remember struggling on and off buses, carrying a heavy satchel, when I was 11 and I see my granddaughter doing the same, though she is bigger and it doesn't seem to worry her. Perhaps the answer is more work being done in school and less homework!

It varies a lot at different schools. In the schools I worked at the students were not lent text books as there were not enough - just ones to use in class. However both my children were lent textbooks at the grammar school. Some schools provide lockers for all students so they don't have to carry everything all day but the last school I worked in didn't have enough lockers for all students so they carry everything around all day, including heavy coats in winter.
When I was at school we had cloakrooms where we left our coats and PE kit and we had the desks with lift up lid so could store books there. We only had to carry home what we needed for homework. I agree that many schools need to give more thought to such things but another thing that has changed from when I was at school is that we stayed in the same classroom all day apart from when lesson were in a specialist room. When we were in, for example, science, our regular classroom was empty. However that meant that teachers had to move rooms, possibly carrying sets of books they had marked. Now teachers stay put and the students go to them, meaning more kids carrying more in their bags. There is noo easy answer and providing space and lockers costs money so everything is a compromise.

When my AC were at senior school they had very heavy school bags but then children slung their backpacks over just one shoulder. I did my best but they did the same, later both were diagnosed with scoliosis, one worse than the other.
At least sense has reigned, or fashion changed, and the children now all carry backpacks on both shoulders.

My grandaughter has a heavy bag that has to be bought with the school logo . She carries a lap top in it that was supposed to replace text books but still has text books and reading books plus sports kit. Teachers usually drive to school and a lot of children are taken by car so my daughter has not found much support with this problem from staff or other parents. She has complained of back pain . She is in year 7.

GrannyLondonSW8.

I’m not worried about my DGD but I have noticed her school backpack because I saw her putting it on one day and she almost fell over because of the weight of it.

Would she push a wheeled trolley to school, absolutely not.

Lockers are available but nor enough and sometimes they are too far away for access throughout the day

I’m 70 and this was an issue when I was at school. Been like this for years