You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
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...
Teacher demonstrated boiling water in a pyrex pot for some experiment and we had to replicate this, sent away to collect items needed and continue at desks.
As fresh faced 1st years our teacher had us trying to find the boiler point of meths by errr heating beakers of meths over Bunsen burners - quite impressive that only one of the 16 beakers went woof & we all escaped with our eyebrows.
It doesn't stop when you're a kid, for boys at least...
Mid 20's playing darts in the Pub.
Hypothesis:
Friend 1: My shoes are stab proof, like steel toe caps but better, as they are light and flexible.
Method:
Friend 2: Launches, no, pile-drives a dart into friend 1's foot
Result: Screaming.
Conclusion: The shoes were not stab proof. Better get another round in.
Can we do Bunsen burners now?
One from my Dad i've always remembered. The day his grammar school told the boys they no longer had to wear caps he was in chemistry. So the boys lit their caps with the bunsen burners and threw them out the first floor window.
Except the dust cart happened to be just below collecting rubbish from the school. Cue a burning dust cart.
I do recall one of my classmates catching fire to his tie in Chemistry, it would have usually been a problem that people weren't wearing a tie when they should have been, so why anyone was wearing a tie when they shouldn't have been was and is still a mystery.
In GCSE CDT I designed and made a pair of ski vices for servicing skis which I still have and use. Aluminium casting, milling, lathe work, threading and tapping. Not likely anyone would have the kit to do that now, by the sound of it.
My physics teacher set fire to a metal waste paper bin contents with a discarded cigarette he was using to fill the room with smoke to demonstrate a laser. When he realised it was on fire he picked it up to take it outside as we were in a normal classroom instead of the lab. Halfway to the door his tie dangled in and caught fire so he dropped the bin onto the floor, grabbed a pair of scissors from his desk drawer and coolly cut the burning tie off at the knot!
Anyone else struggling with the concept of Molgrips being a feral teenager lobbing knives around? I thought he'd be sat at the back, tutting. 😁
I missed a lot of the really stupid stuff because I was a girly swot and all the headbangers were in lower sets. That and I dropped Chemistry as soon as I could. I heard tell of a sodium "incident"; and another time the fume cupboard failed catastrophically, the teacher said a word he probably shouldn't have said in class and told everyone to run for it.
A mate of mine had a knack for blowing up electronics. Not intentionally, he was just crap. Apparently when ICs of the day blew they blew out downwards, and a sudden unscheduled demonstration of Newton's Third Law is how he ended up with a 741 Op Amp embedded in the ceiling tile.
Then there was Warren. But I've spoken of Warren before. A bored B-streamer, unsupervised gas taps, a carrier bag and a cigarette lighter were not the wisest of combinations. It was like something out of Street Fighter, I've never seen kids scatter that fast.
I'd just be keeping an eye on him for a few weeks, in case this was him trying to remove his fingerprints before embarking on a spree of bank jobs and jewellery heists.
I suppose we've all done daft things with tools/machinery in our teenage years.
Mine was aged 15 with this.
Only 24 stitches.
But i was lucky thinking of it now, i could have lost the hand.
this just gave me a proustian moment. Innocent times, making pointy things to poke and throw at each other.
Oh yes! We used to make teeny little darts, using spent matchsticks. Cut* two little slots crosswise at one end and fold little squares of paper to fit in the slots as fins, then break the heads off of pins and push into the other end and wrap thick-ish fuse wire around. Then throw them around the classroom.
*We used to carry penknives around too - I used mine in tech drawing, because I could get a much finer point on my pencils than the teachers desk sharpener, which always seemed to break the very end off the lead.
and the blackboard duster bounced off my head
That’s something I managed to avoid, but bits of chalk were often used as an attention-getting devices. There was one particular teacher who was fond of the blackboard eraser for getting the attention of those not paying adequate attention to his lessons.
I remember one science demonstration with a piece of sodium dropped onto a bowl of water, the metal whizzed around the bowl in a suitably satisfying fashion, until it suddenly exploded with bits skidding across the desk and one bit hitting a pupil’s blazer sleeve and burning a hole right through it. Fortunately no skin was harmed in this experiment. The little dotted line of burn marks were still on the desktop when I finished school.
This thread reminds me of this
😂
My biggest Craft & Design disaster was spilling a whole jar of varnish over a relatively new Russell Athletic jacket 😖 Certainly improved the waterproofing but since the entire jacket was now one big white stain I obviously couldn't wear it to school again 🙄
Well, he’ll have to use his other hand now, it’ll feel like someone else is doing it……… picking his nose.
My CDT teacher had an old camper with a fuel guage that didn't work. He ran out of fuel on the way to school and was seen walking back from the garage by pupils with petrol can in one hand and his customary Silk Cut lit in the other....
I’m sensible now because back then I was lucky.
Genuine Lolz,plus --> #storyofmylife
103 posts with practically 100% of the opinions* saying that he should have been more careful
I didn't expect that. What's the OP going to do in the face of that, still continue with the threat to rain fire and fury on the school and governors anyway?
* not 100% of the posts because a fair proportion of them were to say "sanded fingers? Hold my beer!", which entertained me no end.
Did nobody else read the OP and have their inner teenager say 'I wonder if you can 'cut' your fingernails on a desk sander?'
And I say that as someone whose second teaching subject is DT...
On the subject of physics, our insane teacher at secondary school (1987) did an experiment one time where we all joined hands, then he turned some electric thing on that was attached to the first person in the ring. The whole class fell backwards, it was like we had been kicked hard in the chest.
He admitted he had the thing turned up too high, but part of me thinks he did it to every new class, on account of being a psycho.
I'm in a FB group for a high school reunion next year. I asked if anyone remembered who got a javelin through their foot/leg.
I got 4 (FOUR) names 😆
WCA is still trying to work out which anecdote will win him the thread.....
I enjoy a bit of chemistry. Technicians are wise to things like this and it is usual policy to chop reactive metals up in the prep room and the ribbon stays there. Two things in particular went out through me: Magnesium and wooden splints. Everybody remembers the magnesium, but the most abused item is definitely the splints.
Managed to avoid most of the horror stories although I did have a case of those awful squeezy reagent bottles being used as water pistols (with hydrochloric acid, OK they were lucky to get as far as being issued 1M but still). Stopped a few plastic beakers being heated (I lit the bunsens for the first few uses by S1s.)
Alkali metals - perspex screen over the bowl for sodium which is the really dodgy one.
Ethanol/IPA whoosh rockets are a highlight of demos, there is a video out there of me shaking one up in preparation. I consented!
Story went round that an aluminium-iodine reaction (carried out outside) did not go off. Reaction mix taken back inside and half way up the stairwell guess what happened. Expensive redecoration required.
Van der Graafs - sometimes I would work in a department that had a working one. My physics teacher once charged up a pupil and got him to shake hands with an unsuspecting jannie working outside.
Van der Graafs – sometimes I would work in a department that had a working one.
Rev one up and stick some poor kids head against it was the norm in our school!
I wouldn't believe a word that came out of the mouth of my 13 year old if he'd had a similar accident in DT. Boys of that age are daft and once they've been daft they will give you the version of the truth that puts them in the best light with no thought to the ongoing consequences.
Almost certainly doing it wrong if not dicking about. Hopefully lesson learnt. What actual good will going ballistic do?
Hope the fingers heal up soon.
Shit happens. Did he film it for his tik tok channel. It’s a life lesson, sure at 13 there will be plenty more to come. Kids are not made of glass and need exposure to the reality of life.<br />You’ll be laughing about it sooner than you think.
Chill. (Says the father of 3 ‘adult’ children who have had many learning experiences)
WCA is still trying to work out which anecdote will win him the thread…..
TBH, he'll only need to pick the next cab off the rank from his list of 'Minor incidents and near misses' for this one. 'Major' and 'Serious' files will still be in the filing cabinet
Now trying to imagine the school days of WCA
Must have looked like Hogwarts after the battle at the end of Deathly Hallows Part 2
I loved D&T or CDT as it was called then. We did all sorts of dangerous stuff, Brass and alu casting, lathe work etc. I got an A*.
Sadly the way things are going we will end up with the teacher demonstrating down the front of the class without the kids having a hands on experience.
Unfortunately were dealing with young persons who are less experienced, need more instruction, training and supervision and are likely to arse about.
Fingers and nails will grow back and I guess the ops son will now be well aware of the hazards of the sander.
OP was quick to call out the school for not getting back to him within 2hrs, well what about all of us? We have been waiting even longer for a suitable update!
speaking to their lawyer, has been told to make no comment before issuing a statement?
My physics teacher once charged up a pupil
Er, were things that different in the 70s?
Sadly the way things are going we will end up with the teacher demonstrating down the front of the class without the kids having a hands on experience.
Unfortunately were dealing with young persons who are less experienced, need more instruction, training and supervision and are likely to arse about.
The subject is slowly dying imo, but not for those reasons.
Firstly it is expensive. Expensive to resource and expensive to man. I teach in an independent school and our workshops are ugly but very serviceable. Lots of well used good toys and to those of you with grey (or no) hair, it would look very familiar. Materials, servicing and repair/replacement costs are eyewatering however. Down the road is an academy in a 10 year old building - one of the privately constructed and leased back numbers. Their workshop is awesome - better toys than us. But it's also immaculate because it's never used. The school has no budget for materials of any consequence. The staff estimate every child spends less than an hour a term doing practical work. Then to man, you have maximum class sizes that are smaller than most subjects. That creates a nause for timetablers and is expensive. A lot of schools are now saying - 'sorry DT have a class of 30+ anyway and work something out'. That often means half the class are sat doing paperwork whilst a few on rotation are doing the practical work.
Secondly its the staffing - we are now a generation on from the decline in practical skills as children. These are the new young adults becoming teachers and to be honest finding a young member of staff with a broad enough practical skillset to do the job, and then prepared to be a teacher is really hard. Those with the skills vote with their feet and do something else. I'd earn more as a joiner, plumber, electrician than I do now. The subset of people with degrees, the admin skills, the patience and the pastoral skills to be a modern day teacher AND with the practical wherewithal to do it in DT is vanishingly small.
The exam boards are aware of this and have dumbed down the GCSE, A Levels, National 5s and A levels accordingly. Only 25% of the coursework mark at GCSE and A level is for making the final 'thing' - So 12.5% of the overall grade (50% is from the exam). And you can get the marks to be honest with a bit of 'crafting', laser cutting and a bit of 3D printing if you really wanted to. It's more about design, prototyping and concept development now - all good things but it's a shame the final outcome is no longer all that important. Persuading a head to spend £4-5M on a new building of workshops when you know that is practically impossible. Triggering another generation of spiralling reduction in skills.
...anyway thanks OP. great thread. Feel free to cite in evidence.
Only wish I could contribute more. Boffiny kid, hated woodwork and metalwork etc (can't believe we had decent power tools at middle school) but was given free reign with a couple of others for a short while in the chemistry lab. We used go get to play with the crazy heavy bottle of mercury. The diminishing level of surgical alcohol may have been what put a stop to that.
And yet, despite my being utterly shite and having zero interest in the woodwork etc, stuff that goes in at that age largely stays in. And so for confidence with general DIY, bulding things out of wood (from bark off to finished coffee table etc) I've had far more use over the years than I have from my Russian or whatever.
And I would still fear a belt sander. And vice-related dares.
Pleased to report only 1 kid sent to minor injuries in15 yrs teaching DT was one of my top students at the time! He managed to slice through thumb nail with craft knife.
Parents were told quickly and met him at unit , put down as a learning experience (dad was a joiner) hopefully all sorted soon with lessons learned
All of these stories bring back memories from my school days in CDT and chemistry (I went on to do a chemistry degree and a significant chunk of it was down to how good my secondary school teachers were).
I (and a few other kids who could be trusted) were routinely let loose in CDT over a lunchtime - that simply would not be allowed now. We got the cool chemistry demos too back in the days when covering half the classroom in orange foam was not seen as a sackable offence but actually something fun.
Towards the end of my time there, the school was starting to move to doing a shedload of titrations rather than blowing shit up. How dull.
But yeah, there were kids who sliced a nail off or set fire to their tie - it was usually used as a learning experience for the rest of us.
Look children at how stupid little Frankie has been. Don't be like Frankie.
The subject is slowly dying imo,
The sixth Form college I was at closed their AS/A level D&T and 3-D art courses in 2013 for exactly the reasons you gave convert although there were other issues as well. Recruiting too few students, maintenance costs going through the roof and the cost of materials was becoming prohibitive. I realised that it was becoming unviable when our heat treatment area failed its annual inspection/ maintenance and was told there was no money to get it fixed/ upgraded. Which made teaching the two jewellery courses I ran a bit tricky mid year not to mention the Product Design A level with the students halfway through their second year with projects already decided.
The same had also happened to both our other local 6th form colleges a year or two before, although some independent and 11-18 schools did offer A level within 10 miles or so.
So I guess I'm the only one that will give the OP the benefit of the doubt here.
I've had teachers and work colleagues that were absolutely useless at explaining things, it may well be that the pupils were instructed verbally with a closed question to confirm understanding (ie do you understand rather than now tell me how you're going to do the job).
So yes he might have been instructed and yes he may have not carried out said instructions properly but he may well have done so in good faith.
I can also see how a plate might flip and drag digits into a disc sander if the table is too far from the wheel and it's being held wrong in the same way bench grinders can.
That it happened once is bad enough but twice? If that happened in my industry someone would be in a world of hurt and that's before the ONR (who deal with H&S) get the report. Some of you need to pull your heads out the 70's.
Pleased to report only 1 kid sent to minor injuries in15 yrs teaching DT was one of my top students at the time! He managed to slice through thumb nail with craft knife.
Parents were told quickly and met him at unit , put down as a learning experience (dad was a joiner) hopefully all suitably sorted soon with lessons learned all round
I survived school with only a few scars, well quite a few really. A mining degree soon added to the total with many opportunities for death but with such good tuition and fear that I had a lot of respect for what I gas handling. I still like things that go bang.
Most dangerous period of my life was metallography. A full chem lab with polishing wheels with different grits on there. You did the coarse grinding holding the samples until they are stable enough to go on a mechanical shining arm with diamond paste.
Water lubed your fingers got so cold you didn't realised you had lost fingerprints and nail edges until the blood started spraying around. Glory days.
One of the other members on the uk workshop forum has just contacted the blade on her tablesaw, the results are suitably gory. A couple of sanded fingers are a win in comparison.
https://www.ukworkshop.co.uk/threads/table-saw-kickback-and-trimmed-finger.145485/
My CDT teacher portrayed himself as the school hard man. So that, and the combination of sharp scary tools, meant no-one dared put a foot wrong in class, as death from a number of sources could arise.
However....one day a couple of school mates thought it'd be hilarious to push me in the big storage cupboard and lock me in.
I pushed down on the handle and it didn't move, so I had a teenage tantrum and kicked the door as hard as I could, breaking it but it still didn't open.
A couple of seconds later the teacher opened the door. I thought I was going to get my head caved in. Instead he pointed to the handle, and with no emotion showed me that in order to open the door, one had to lift the handle, not push it down. And there was no lock on the door.....
A girl in my CDT class managed to run the centre of her middle finger into a bandsaw. She got several mm into the nail before realising and calmly wandering round to the teacher who almost fainted. No lasting damage though, I don't think.
I got in trouble once, in a typical (for me) case of bad timing.
My mate Delvin had been getting small bits of mdf & firing them across the classroom by flicking them at the wrong side of the disc sander for most of the lesson.
I went over near the end of the lesson to have a look and he asked if I wanted a go. Of course, I did.
Just as I was lining up my first (and only) shot, the head teacher walked in. I didn't see as I was concentrating on getting my flick right, but Delvin did so quickly moved away from the sander & looked like he was busy with something else.
My mdf projectile flew in a perfect arc in slow motion & landed almost at the headteacher's feet.
He should have commended me for my accuracy, but instead I got a telling off & detention.
My wife machine-sewed her finger into the garment she was making a few years ago.Needle right through the nail, thread attached and all.
Disappointingly, I was out of the house and she'd managed to get it out by the time I returned.
@jimw might have been my DT teacher at a South West Midlands sixth form, class of 2001... Not heard of any other place offering a jewellery course. Fond memories
I doubt my notoriously namby pamby primary school boss would think twice about this. Tell mum at home time and ban him from the sander for a week. Moan at school? Way to go to getting yourself a bad reputation.
On the subject of physics, our insane teacher at secondary school (1987) did an experiment one time where we all joined hands, then he turned some electric thing on that was attached to the first person in the ring. The whole class fell backwards, it was like we had been kicked hard in the chest.
He admitted he had the thing turned up too high, but part of me thinks he did it to every new class, on account of being a psycho.
I did the vandergraf generator a few times and got the whole class holding hands with one kid holding a tap. That was a memorable lesson!
It stopped when I had a kid with a(very serious )heart complaint. At that point I realised I'd never asked about heart conditions, nor had I considered someone might have one and not know it.
Now I just get the "hard" kids to bump knuckles. A mate was still getting the charged up kids to touch another kids teeth. COVID put a stop to that.
I melted a deks and chair with a thermit reaction. I also had a thermit go off under my hands. I got distracted and started telling a kid off after I'd set it going. No I'll effects for me much to my surprise
That it happened once is bad enough but twice?
Lad 1 - I'm going to go against the instructions and hold the part at an angle off the table. Ouch. That hurt.
Lad 2 - You just weren't holding it well enough, see I'll show you. Ouch. That hurt even more.
thecaptain
My wife machine-sewed her finger into the garment she was making a few years ago.Needle right through the nail, thread attached and all.
My wife did that and apparently yanked her finger out of the way, which snapped the needle but left the broken end still poking through her finger.
Makes my bum clench just thinking about it.
stumpy01 , based on your username I'd have expected a more graphic contribution to this thread
OP before you make a complaint the first thing you need to identify is not what you want to complain about but what you want them to change.
My first thoughts are don't forget H&S at work 1974 applies. If your child was unable to hold a pen and do their schoolwork this was a lost time incident. Do you suspect the school may have avoided seeking further medical attention beyond what was administered by their first aider to avoid an A&E trip which would have involved a whole lot more paperwork for them.
tbh it was exactly the same in the mid 90s when I did my DT GCSE 🤷♂️ Thing I made didn’t even work properly & I still got a B 😂t’s more about design, prototyping and concept development now – all good things but it’s a shame the final outcome is no longer all that important.
tbh it was exactly the same in the mid 90s when I did my DT GCSE 🤷♂️ Thing I made didn’t even work properly & I still got a B 😂
No it wasn't.
Back then - yes (I've been teaching that long!) - the final made thing was worth 40% of the coursework mark and that was worth 70% of the overall module. So the final outcome was worth 28% of the overall grade. so whilst you could **** it right up and still get a B if you had enough about you in the other sections, you can no longer drag a kid 'challenged on paper' but with great hand skills to a pass like you once could. YMMV on if this is a good or bad thing.
Well, I have no idea what the percentages were, but we certainly spent way too much time (IMO) on the “portfolio” (‘research’, isometric drawings etc) and very little on actual workshop time/learning useful skills.
I’d earn more as a joiner, plumber, electrician than I do now. The subset of people with degrees, the admin skills, the patience and the pastoral skills to be a modern day teacher AND with the practical wherewithal to do it in DT is vanishingly small.
When i graduated (BEng Mech Eng), anyone who got a 2:2 or 3rd was invited to do a PGCE and move into Maths or DT teaching, those who got 1st or 2:1 were offered a masters place, shows how devalued it was as recently as the mid 90s.
I got a 3rd. And you couldn't have paid me enough to spend another year studying to then go and deal with school kids...
No it wasn’t.
It was actually, the options my school offered when i chose my A-Levels still included several courses, something along the lines of Woodwork, Metalwork, Electronics and Technical Drawing/CAD.
Though by the time we actually started that September, everyone was lumped into Design Technology.
IIRC Tech drawing had no "product" at the end barring a complete set of drawings.
I hadn't chosen any of them anyway, so didn't bother me...
Lad 1 – I’m going to go against the instructions and hold the part at an angle off the table. Ouch. That hurt.
Lad 2 – You just weren’t holding it well enough, see I’ll show you. Ouch. That hurt even more.
Exactly.
And between 1 and 2 the bloody machine should have been isolated until everyone got a safety reminder and proper confirmation they know what they're doing.
If it's good enough for industry losing 900k a day for outages it's good enough for teaching!
Back then – yes (I’ve been teaching that long!) – the final made thing was worth 40% of the coursework mark and that was worth 70% of the overall module. So the final outcome was worth 28% of the overall grade. so whilst you could **** it right up and still get a B if you had enough about you in the other sections, you can no longer drag a kid ‘challenged on paper’ but with great hand skills to a pass like you once could. YMMV on if this is a good or bad thing.
I was in the GCSE guinea pig year in 1998. My CDT Technology class was a disgrace. The teacher's idea of teaching was to take a register, slope off to the staff room to chain smoke, then come back 10 minutes before the bell went to make sure we packed up.
My project was as close to non-existent as makes no odds, I had some draft scribbles of a design and a Meccano frame. I'd learned nothing in two years. Two weeks before the exam I realised I was in trouble, broke into the CDT lab, picked the lock on the cupboard and stole one of each textbook. I spent that fortnight self-teaching two years' worth of CDT Tech at the expense of any other revision. I got a B. To this day I don't quite know how that happened!
Exactly.
And between 1 and 2 the bloody machine should have been isolated until everyone got a safety reminder and proper confirmation they know what they’re doing.
If it’s good enough for industry losing 900k a day for outages it’s good enough for teaching!
Do you think they would have told the teacher after 1 received a maskable injury, or after 2 received a non-maskable injury?
If the teacher didn't know 1 had happened until after 2 had happened, what were they supposed to do?
CDT is a dieing subject. Techie teachers are thin on the ground. We're a school of 870 and very soon will have 1 techie teacher, should be 3.
As somebody who had two old school techie teachers without degrees (IIRC one had been a hands on type engineer, the other came from a more design/drawing room type background but still with experience of working in a workshop), I often think schools are not only lacking having that real world experience in teaching environments, but they've made the entry requirements to teaching too high.
I think my CDT lessons did benefit from that variety in teachers, as the teachers were rotated.
Old school engineer mostly for the hands on metal working.
Old school drawing room mostly for the design and wood/plastic working.
Then the head of department was a bit younger with a full degree background, and although he could teach everything, as they all could, he mostly stuck to the graphics side, as he knew the other teachers were far better at the practical side, and full of practical tips from having worked in those environments.
IMo the best combination is a degree educated teacher who leads the course/department (and does a bunch of the teachery nause that comes with the job beyond the subject) ably assisted by tutor technicians. Definition of a tutor technician being that they are student facing, working directly with the kids as well as the prep/ maintenance to the point the teacher can be elsewhere if needed and the tutor technician is often the first port of call for a kid wanting assistance. Teacher and tutor technician work in a close relationship to make sure the kids are designing things they can make and tick the coursework requirements. Tutor technicians often are highly skilled folk, normally non graduates from industry who also know how to handle kids.
Sadly this level is support and staffing is only normally seen in independent schools and even them only in one that prioritise the subject.
I do love it when the OP doesn't return to update their thread 🤷♂️🤔
If the teacher didn’t know 1 had happened until after 2 had happened, what were they supposed to do?
Read the Op 🙄
I think we need pictures of the "good chunk off the tips of 5 fingers including a good portion of the nails"
To me, on the surface, that would suggest the kid managed to sand his fingers down to the bone on the finger tips, on a belt sander.
I suspect the injury isn't quite as drastic as that, but that is pure speculation on my part, and without further detail, we are all just speculating.
Given that the nurse "popped a couple of plasters on" i suspect it wasn't that traumatic
I do love it when the OP doesn’t return to update their thread 🤷♂️
It happens when everyone else on the thread disagrees! 🤣
fatmaxFull Member
Username checks out! 😀
I've got a pair of these, and they could take someones finger clean off with out even realising it!
IMO the best combination is a degree educated teacher who leads the course/department (and does a bunch of the teachery nause that comes with the job beyond the subject) ably assisted by tutor technicians.
That's basically what we had, we had "head of DT" who did all the classroom stuff/drawing and CAD, wore a three piece suit, had a moustache, occasionally smoked a pipe, think he'd worked in engineering design or a similar/parallel industry.
Then 3 "teachers" who had all (as far as i know) retired or quit their original careers in their 50's and moved into teaching. All had some gnarly scars, swearing at the kids was overlooked by senior staff and occasionally someone would get physically restrained or removed from the room for doing something stupid. Hand like a packet of pork sausages would appear over your shoulder and you'd find yourself going backwards rapidly.
Then we had Keith the tech who used to look after all the machines and do the "complicated" stuff. Like the punch card programmable lathe and milling machine, the vac-former and the grandly named "electronics lab" which was an old store room with a massive fan in the window to extract the fumes from a dozen 13 year old's learning to solder. More accurately described as "burning stuff" and "making components explode by wiring them up wrong". It was so cold in the winter i'm amazed we could even get the solder to melt.
That was a school of ~2000, we needed about twice as many staff as we had and the school was bulldozed in the late 90's early 00's as it was monumentally crap.
I feel sympathetic to tagnut jr but...
He was doing as he was instructed as was his mate.
If thats so, did the other 28ish kids in the class also suffer the same injuries?
Ah, bunsen burners. I told my 10 year old when we looked around secondary school a few weeks back of all the fun we had with bunsen burners... all those times of just lighting gas taps and having horizontal jets of flame shooting across desks, of heating tongs until they melted and bits fell on the floor only for some dumbass (me) to pick up the dropped off bit and have the bumpy end of a tong branded into my finger tips for months 😀
Ah, bunsen burners. I told my 10 year old when we looked around secondary school a few weeks back of all the fun we had with bunsen burners…
I think I was doing my degree when we needed to grow cells in a petri dish or similar. Beetroot was the cell selected, and needed to be sterile. Sterilisation, by dipping in alcohol and burning off the alcohol in a bunsen. I looked around the lab at one point and saw more than one flaming beetroot rolling across the floor, and one fellow student with their sleeve on fire.
Don’t know how I found this thread randomly last night, but read with interest.
Now sat in A&E with wife getting the back of her hand stitched up after she tried to open a paint can with a chisel 🤦♂️
Didn’t even open the can! But did get blood all over the wall… before she called me at work.
Obviously no decent DT lessons at her school in the 90s!
Hope OP son is ok, if no serious damage it sounds like a good learning experience