Incase you missed the announcement, we can’t play “Crab football” anymore.
(I actually had to Google this to find out what it was - only to discover I have never played it. I mentioned it to my 7 year old who routinely plays this at school as part of her PE lessons!!!)
Anyways, apparently it’s lead to some injuries, it’s too high risk and it’s not in ACP300 - so we can’t do it.
Now, if I’m not mistaken, star jumps aren’t in ACP300 either. So I’m taking them out of my warm ups for sport. Actually… warm ups aren’t explicitly listed either… so I’m removing them too… and if I can’t do warm ups then I probably shouldn’t do sport - because my risk assessment says that I need to do warm ups. I should probably axe my AT sessions too on this basis.
Sometimes I wonder what will be left of this organization - especially if we’re banning things which are included as an activity for 7 year old primary schools kids.
I am a primary school teacher and play this sort of thing in PE lessons with the kids. It uses a soft ball and is no more dangerous than playing catch.
I’d be interested to hear what ridiculous injuries have happened that actually resulted in it being so dangerous that it needs to be banned.
If my cadets choose to play this primary school game, i’m not going to stop them. On my head be it as people say.
I look forward the the wrath the HQAC Safety Centre may bring down on me.
Blimey Crab Football I havnt played that since I was at school in the late 60s and early 70s. So its been banned by the intelligentsia has it.Warm ups too.If they ve banned warm ups though wont that increase the chances of injury to cadets.After all thats the whole point of warm ups isnt it to prepare your body and muscles for physical activity.Coming soon to an inbox near you cotton wool rolls to wrap cadets in.Wait ! wont they be in danger of suffocating?
I think it’s been banned by the very opposite of the intelligensia…
Cross thread pollination perhaps, but I think HQAC should be relocated to the eastern half of Damascus - such exposure would bring about solutions to any number of problems.
Interesting thread here. It seems to me there are 2 possibilities. Either the Civil Servants at HQ RAFAC have invented a risk associated with crab football, which the mighty intellects of Air Cadet Central have picked up as a fraud, or the Accident Report forms submitted by every ATC Sqn have highlighted repeated incidents involving injury to cadets from crab football, and the comments above are sad and delusional.
Injuries are part of life. That’s what makes you robust. You can see it in the quality of recruits entering Training these days. Gone are the days of bumps and bruises and climbing trees, it’s all about xboxes and hurt feelings.
You can’t and shouldn’t wrap up everyone and everything in cotton wool.
Unless of course you want good little worker bees that are risk averse, don’t have initiative and can’t think for themselves without a flow chart.
Although my money is on it being a massive knee jerk reaction and bum covering exercise. Where people who get paid to make decisions can’t be bothered or don’t want to challenge anything, so it’s easier just to ban it.
I don’t think the comments are sad and delusional - I think trying to ban a game which is evidently safe enough for thousands of primary school children across the country is sad and delusional.
Instead of banning something, why not offer advice to minimise injury? Why not put out example risk assessments to show people where they’re going wrong? Even worse, trying to say “it’s not in acp300 specifically listed so we can’t do it” is idiotic. As someone else mentioned we don’t have warm ups listed specifically. We don’t have “making teas and coffees”, “cleaning”, or any number of other every day “activities”. Does that mean we shouldn’t do them either? It’s ludicrous and is opening them up to a huge query about exactly what we can do.
It would be interesting to know what injuries primary and secondary school’s report?
Our PE teachers use this when the weather messes up the planned outdoor stuff. Crab football is one of our house competitions, as it doesn’t need kids who are necessarily sporty, unlike the normal football.
Given the school hasn’t banned it and believe me they are touchy about H&S given it’s a OFSTED fave to pick up on.
What are the injuries that cadets have been suffering at squadrons that they don’t seem to at school.
Picking up injuries in sport is part and parcel of sport and injuries in general are part of just being alive. I’ve seen a parent get excited about their children getting an injury on cadet activities and I’ve known cadets who have had head injuries and broken limbs and the parents have been oh well it happens.
As said you get the impression that HQAC H&S bods haven’t been having much to do, so pick on something for the sake of it.
Are the H&S awards due soon, so they need something to get one?
