[TteFAboB]

Yes I'm joking.

But then I must ask in return, are you joking aswell? You've managed to resume all that crap in a damned 8-word sentence? I'm gonna start sending my posts to you as Private Messages so you can do this more often. If you assist me, I will... let me see... hmmm........ teach you how to kill somebody with a lapel badge! I learned it "off" Chuck Norris. Literally, Chuck Norris doesn't need to actually teach anything to anybody, just being on his presence is enlightening enough. I was wearing my "I heart Chuck Norris" lapel badge when I met him in Three-mile Island, so he must've seen it and that's the reason for this piece of knowledge to have emanated from him instead of what I actually went there to learn: how to grab and hold Comet McNaughty with my own hands to give me another chance of looking at it. Oh, he was there decontaminating the place by eating and drinking the radioactive stuff.

Originally Posted by Tchocky

Have you ever been punched by someone wearing a large gold ring?

Nope, have you? I've been slapped by a girl wearing a small ring once though. And I deserved it.

Or had a necklace pulled tight around your throat from behind?

Nope, have you? What if it was pulled tight from the front or sides, do those count too? What if it is pulled from above, or from below? Never had any of those happen either anyway. I guess the only case that doesn't count here is a pull from opposing directions at the same time because that wouldn't apply much if any pressure to the neck and perhaps even break the necklace.

There are legitimate H&S reasons to ban jewellery.

No doubt. Some people are allergic to nickel. They can only wear real gold stuff, contact with any allergic metal will give birth to a localized Krakatoa on their skin. All jewelry should be banned just to make sure this doesn't ever happen to any pupil. This is reason alone, afterall, it takes alot longer to get rid of allergic rashes/reactions than neck or face pain.

Of course there are other reasons, the appearance of pupils for example. Just like any school that requires a uniform, this school is perfectly within rights to be regulating the appearance of its students.

Of course they are. But if the cover-up was the case, then the end is legitimate but the mean is not. Would the mean qualify the end? Don't know. I wouldn't trust the people involved in the decision though.

But I need to get back to large rings and necklace pulling. It is possible for people to get punched by hands wearing large rings and for necklaces to be pulled tightly from any direction, you could even get your necklace stuck on the sanitary vase, depending on the length of the chain and the structure of the vase itself, after having your head dumped inside it by mean girls, heck, you could even drown if the necklace got stuck tight enough and if you couldn't keep pressing the flushing valve to lower the water level. It's also possible to get punched by ringless hands and for cheap necklaces to break at the slightest gentle contact.

It is also possible for none of this to ever happen. It's possible for the kids to never be punched in the face with large rings or at all and it's possible for them to never have their necklaces tightly pulled or even touched at all.

Do you know where I can find statistics about such cases? Or is this H&S policy based solely on one or two anecdotal stories and possibilities? Not that we should fall victim of Empirism, I would just like to know how the risk was assessed. The school has every right to dictate their policy as they see fit. On what kind of experience and with what intention the policy is based, however, seems not only to be unknown but impossible to discern, given the ambiguity of "Health & Safety". The perfect Health & Safety enviroment is an air-tight plastic bubble with anti-biological, chemical and radioactive filters. Not that being punched with large rings and having your necklaces pulled are much of a lesson (though it could be) but such a perfect bubble enviroment isn't much of a learning place either. Health & Safety isn't an autonomous element then and definitely not the guiding principle of a school. Why, then, is it used as if it were? If it's a matter of dress code, it's dress code, not Health & Safety.

But let's take it as a case of Health & Safety. Possibilities for possibilities I choose the optimist selection. Unless the pupils are complete bullying-maniacs and display hate, envy and aggressive acts all too often. If that's the reality then indeed there is no choice at all.

Look harder and you'll find school officials are some of the least "malicious" people around.

Oh I don't intend to say that many or most school officials are malicious. I limit that to this official in the event that he's lying or playing smart. It's nothing innate to the profession either, there are good apples and bad apples everywhere, maybe there are less bad apples around school officials than in other groups, I just loose trust easier and quicker than I gain it.