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Rookie teachers took schoolkids up a dangerous summit

Vixen

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Vixen
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A school has been fined £35,000, after a group of schoolchildren had to be rescued by a mountain rescue team.

One thirteen-year-old girl made her own way down the mountain in the dark.

They had the wrong shoes and wrong clothing on.

A group of 13 Year 10 pupils from Gateshead Cheder were on a trip to Helvellyn, in the Lake District, when they became stranded.

Schoolchildren, some of whom were wearing their school shoes and trousers, had to be rescued by Keswick Mountain Rescue Team in cold and icy conditions.

Newcastle Magistrates' Court heard one pupil was injured after slipping on ice and that at least two members of the public warned the group to turn back during their ascent.

Rescuers were scrambled during the group's descent, when they inadvertently ventured off the path to head towards a section of steep terrain of around 20 metres in height.
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Daily Telegraph
 
Gord_in_Toronto said:
I'll assume that that's just some sort of cheesy response? :confused:
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Of course it's a cheesy response, but it is true that there have been worse ideas for where to take a group of kids.

On a serious note, I'm glad the school got a hefty fine. In recent years there's been a recurring problem in Vermont, of overconfident skiers going "off piste" and ending up lost and freezing in the mountains. Nowadays they usually have cell phones and usually get rescued at great trouble and expense, and recently they've started to be charged for a service that's usually free when it's really an accident.
 
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bruto said:
Of course it's a cheesy response, but it is true that there have been worse ideas for where to take a group of kids.

On a serious note, I'm glad the school got a hefty fine. In recent years there's been a recurring problem in Vermont, of overconfident skiers going "off piste" and ending up lost and freezing in the mountains. Nowadays they usually have cell phones and usually get rescued at great trouble and expense, and recently they've started to be charged for a service that's usually free when it's really an accident.
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In this case, it was the cellphones that were the problem! The teachers leading the expedition, as it were, having taken the group of children up to the summit were using their smart phones for GPS guidance. The children who were mostly wearing school shoes with non-rubber soles making the going very slippery for them, especially as they were on a challenging gradient, and in thin lightweight clothing, hardly suitable in a wintry climate which can change very rapidly, with sudden downpours of rain, didn't even have the elementary requirement of a full body waterproof outfit in their back packs.

Problem with the GPS smart phones: it was unwittingly to the teachers taking the group to a very steep twenty metre drop! Somehow the Mountain Rescue Team got wind of this debacle and raced to the rescue, providing steps for the traumatised children who were slipping and sliding all over the place, getting everybody down safely.

Apparently, it is not unknown for wet-behind-the-ears teachers taking the school groups down caves...forgetting that, hey, GPS-signal cuts out deep inside a cave...DOH!
 
I recently read an absolute horror story that happened some years ago in Scotland which ended up with most of the children dead. These ones were lucky to be rescued.

I'll see if I can find the story.

ETA: Google first hit. The worst mountain disaster in British history, (BBC). Cairngorm plateau disaster (Wikipedia).

It happened in 1971, when I was about the same age as the senior pupils involved, in November, and five school pupils and an inexperienced 18-year-old guide died. The BBC article was written because the 50th anniversary of the disaster was last year.

You'd think some lessons might have been learned by now.
 
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The British habit of not taking big hills and weather seriously is long-standing.

I lived and worked in Snowdonia for a time in the early '80s and can recall several occasions of seeing folk heading off up a snow-covered Snowdon in stillettos or trainers and T-shirts. Not to mention someone starting up Crib Goch (cf Striding Edge on Helvellyn) without realising that they were heading on to an exposed, very rocky ridge on quite a windy day.

It's been a thing for most of my life, even before GPS and phones 'cos folk just used AA road maps...
 
Rolfe said:
I recently read an absolute horror story that happened some years ago in Scotland which ended up with most of the children dead. These ones were lucky to be rescued.

I'll see if I can find the story.

ETA: Google first hit. The worst mountain disaster in British history, (BBC). Cairngorm plateau disaster (Wikipedia).

It happened in 1971, when I was about the same age as the senior pupils involved, in November, and five school pupils and an inexperienced 18-year-old guide died. The BBC article was written because the 50th anniversary of the disaster was last year.

You'd think some lessons might have been learned by now.
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Sigh. “The only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” (Georg Hegel)
 
It's damn near impossible to set out on a UK school trip without a written 'risk assessment' that's stored in the school records. People need to be prosecuted over this jaunt.
 
When I was in school our class got taken up a mountain on a hot day, were led off the path, got lost, but luckily made it back down by retracing our steps. All with no water.
 
At my school it was mostly the people doing Geography or Botany who went on these 'field trips'. There wasn't the same emphasis on Health & Safety then. No mobile phones or GPS. On the other hand, people knew how to use a ordinance map and compass, and the teachers leading it orienteering enthusiasts.

We had cross country running, which was actually around the back streets, after running through a few parks. No supervision, so most people just walked. No-one came to look for you. Parents didn't worry where you were.
 
Orphia Nay said:
When I was in school our class got taken up a mountain on a hot day, were led off the path, got lost, but luckily made it back down by retracing our steps. All with no water.
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I was a member of a paramilitary youth organisation from ages 7-10. From time to time we did "wide games" in the woods. Memorably during one game of hide and seek, a friend and I hid ourselves so well that we couldn't be found. Even when they got our parents to call for us we were like "Rookie tactics, you're not going to get us to give up our positions that easily".

It was well after dark (which at that time Oop North was probably after 11 pm) before we were coaxed out of our hiding spot.

Fortunately our parents didn't go ballistic.

Vixen said:
At my school it was mostly the people doing Geography or Botany who went on these 'field trips'. There wasn't the same emphasis on Health & Safety then. No mobile phones or GPS. On the other hand, people knew how to use a ordinance map and compass, and the teachers leading it orienteering enthusiasts.

We had cross country running, which was actually around the back streets, after running through a few parks. No supervision, so most people just walked. No-one came to look for you. Parents didn't worry where you were.
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Sometimes I think that human reaction to threat and stress is almost like an autoimmune disease. The safer things actually are, the more worried we get about them. In today's safe, anodyne, Western world parents constantly fret about their children but in previous days or in other parts of the world they have more free rein.

Then again, young people today have threats and stresses that we never had. There was never any fear that a youthful indiscretion could follow me round for the rest of my life or that bullies from around the world could make my life a living hell. :o

On balance I think that older British Gen Xers like me timed it pretty well. We missed the post-war austerity, got to benefit from the emergence of computers and digital technology yet still had social and economic mobility and free university education.
 
Vixen said:
A school has been fined £35,000, after a group of schoolchildren had to be rescued by a mountain rescue team.

One thirteen-year-old girl made her own way down the mountain in the dark.

They had the wrong shoes and wrong clothing on.

Daily Telegraph
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I don’t see anything in the story about them being “rookie teachers”. It says they were “inexperienced at climbing”, but doesn’t seem to say anything about their level of experience as teachers.
 
Our geography teacher was obsessed with dragging us up mountains. But it happened in June, and he was alert to the risks. (He was an experienced mountain guide and used to go mountain guiding in the holidays.) I recall a bunch of idiots who had an idea to take a different route up Goat Fell being hauled back with extreme prejudice. I also recall everyone being rounded up and returned to base half way up Ben Lomond because the weather deteriorated. Where we had to sit in someone's garage for several hours waiting for our bus to come back for us. Fortunately I had brought a book of jokes with me and spent some time reading these aloud to the assembled company.

I remember a path from the summit of Goat Fell leading north along the Mullach Buidhe with a precipitous drop to the Coire nam Fuaran on our right and I just looked on the OS map and frankly OMG. And somebody dropped her bag and one of the boys climbed down into the corrie to get it. And the way we descended to Corrie itself isn't even marked as a path and the contour lines are really close together, and I can see now how I took the seat out of my jeans by sitting down on the grass and sliding down. But we all got to the bus and back to the pier at Brodick for the boat back to the mainland in one piece. I think our teacher knew what he was doing.
 
Rolfe said:
I recently read an absolute horror story that happened some years ago in Scotland which ended up with most of the children dead. These ones were lucky to be rescued.

I'll see if I can find the story.

ETA: Google first hit. The worst mountain disaster in British history, (BBC). Cairngorm plateau disaster (Wikipedia).

It happened in 1971, when I was about the same age as the senior pupils involved, in November, and five school pupils and an inexperienced 18-year-old guide died. The BBC article was written because the 50th anniversary of the disaster was last year.

You'd think some lessons might have been learned by now.
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That was my first thought when I saw the thread title.
 
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Rolfe said:
Our geography teacher was obsessed with dragging us up mountains. But it happened in June, and he was alert to the risks. (He was an experienced mountain guide and used to go mountain guiding in the holidays.) I recall a bunch of idiots who had an idea to take a different route up Goat Fell being hauled back with extreme prejudice. I also recall everyone being rounded up and returned to base half way up Ben Lomond because the weather deteriorated. Where we had to sit in someone's garage for several hours waiting for our bus to come back for us. Fortunately I had brought a book of jokes with me and spent some time reading these aloud to the assembled company.

I remember a path from the summit of Goat Fell leading north along the Mullach Buidhe with a precipitous drop to the Coire nam Fuaran on our right and I just looked on the OS map and frankly OMG. And somebody dropped her bag and one of the boys climbed down into the corrie to get it. And the way we descended to Corrie itself isn't even marked as a path and the contour lines are really close together, and I can see now how I took the seat out of my jeans by sitting down on the grass and sliding down. But we all got to the bus and back to the pier at Brodick for the boat back to the mainland in one piece. I think our teacher knew what he was doing.
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The only time a teacher tried to take us up a mountain was my differential equations professor. Which is odd now that I think about it.
 
Actually the precipitous drop was on our left. I typed without checking against my actual hands.

OT. I'm told some people find left and right as obvious as up and down. Is this true?
 
Rolfe said:
Actually the precipitous drop was on our left. I typed without checking against my actual hands.

OT. I'm told some people find left and right as obvious as up and down. Is this true?
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Changes with age.

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,
"And your hair has become very white;
And yet you incessantly stand on your head—
Do you think, at your age, it is right?"
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One of my dear departed Dad's favourites.
 
malbui said:
I used to hike regularly around the area of this disaster in the Black Forest:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_Calamity

Still upsetting to read even now.
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I couldn't believe this bit:

The day prior to the group setting out, Keast was warned by the Freiburg tourist office staff about an approaching storm in the area and reportedly stated "The English are used to sudden changes in the weather."
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wiki

And it goes onto say that the group was 'waist-high' in snow yet Keast persevered, with a group of 14-year-old schoolboys?

I can't believe he was not charged with gross negligence in the care of children or even manslaughter.

The snow was getting deeper above the Kappel valley and the group was struggling to move forward. The Schauinsland summit that they had planned to reach still lay ahead, but moving in the waist-deep snow was difficult.
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ibid
 
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