Weight of School Bags
National Parents Council post primary are concerned about the weight of school bags.
Health and safety are of paramount importance, yet the Minister stated in a recent debate that she refuses to legislate. Workers are not expected to lift heavy weights yet our children lug overloaded school bags on one strap, as research suggests most will not wear the schoolbag correctly. Teachers often favour text books which cover several aspects of a subject, consequently these books are heavy. The problem could be solved if schools provided lockers, a second set of school books, and considered all these factors before setting home work. The Minister has left the schools to manage the problem locally. Teachers should consider the consequences of selecting too many books from different educational publishers. While National Parents Council is aware some schools do their best to keep the weight of schoolbags down, from past experience the issue will come up again and remain unresolved.
NPCpp recommend that Parents advise their children about organising their books according to the timetable and home work.
Some European countries have legislated to control the weight of school bags. However one weight for all school bags will not be a sensible solution, as children grow stronger through their school years. National parents Council is concerned that Parents have not voiced their opinion on the weight of school bags.
December 3rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm
The obvious and sensible alternative is the WHEELIE BAG/CASE (as used by pilots and legals). I’m aware that wheelies are especially anathema to male students and unless all students are required to use such bags then this issue will never be resolved.
As this issue has been ongoing with no outcome it might be time to take a national approach in the new year …. possibly under patronage of Parents Councils. However I expect with current downturn that many will consider this issue merits limited attention in the coming year.
As wheelies are so unappealing to our youth it might be worth considering a national art competition to redesign and decorate such wheelies as a way of raising awareness, image and status of same. (sneakers (then plimsoles) were once rather unappealing before redesign and redecoration reinvented them). Competition could be post card sized which could be submitted online and posted on your website, possibly
Carmel P
December 16th, 2008 at 6:37 pm
I contacted my daughters school about this mather and never rercived any call back after four calls , i am thinking of sueing the school or the minster because of her back pain mybe then something will be done then, when it opens the flood gates like the army deafness !!!
May 4th, 2009 at 1:20 am
Another solution I can offer is to put all resources online. I have started by putting First Year Junior Cert’ German online. A lot of what the teacher needs to teach German is online. The computer contains the content, records and corrects the students activity. This to me is the way forward.
No bags, no books, no backache.
July 24th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Thanks for this article, it is very interesting.
I have mild scoliosis, and found carrying a school bag filled with books and folders caused me a lot of pain. I know the best thing for me to do would have been to wear the bag higher up, with equal weight on both sides, but as a teenager, your health is sometimes secondary to looking ‘cool’.
Now that I’m a grown-up I write a blog and manage a Facebook group on bags & would be really interested to find out more on school bags and back health - so thank you for posting this useful article!
September 10th, 2009 at 10:00 pm
My 12 year old daughter started Secondary school last week. Today her New School fell apart- It weighed in @ 1 1/2 stones. It is just terrible, Surely there is no need to have to carry A4 Harrback copies for every subject every day, but the teachers insist……..What can we do as paretns, This subject has been brought up every year in our Parent Councils meeting of which I am a member of 2 secondary schools at which the Principals are present and yet nothing even seems to change…..Except for our Children’s Spines…..
September 19th, 2009 at 10:13 am
When my daughter was in first year, her bag some days weighed over one and a half stone and being 5 stone, she could not carry it.. It meant that she could not walk to school everyday, I had to drive her and collect her.
Some days, they would have to carry their heavy school bag, their sports bag their lunch and an art portfolio! The school made no allowances or any effort to alleviate this problem, but expected all to have the required books or else they would be penalised with a green slip.
I did contact Mary Hannafin at the time and I received a nice standard reply saying to use a locker and that in the future they may computerise some of the subjects, in other words washing her hands of the subject!
Of course they use lockers, but what with school coats, school bags, sports bags lunches etc, the books dont fit! I was so annoyed by this, as they were doing annual screening for scoliosis in the school, but nobody was addressing the real problem for bad backs!
The only solution was buying a second copy of all books in 2nd year. I really wish the dept for education would take some responsibility for this as it is damaging to our childrens health.
September 25th, 2009 at 10:17 am
therre is a related and important issue here concerning the shameful, expensive&wasteful, and environmentally unfriendly practice of changing of books in each subject every year, rendering it impossible to pass them on to upcoming siblings&others; this is especially important in these recessionary times when we Parents are struggling to get by.
September 27th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
my concern is not only the weight of schoolbooks but their cost too. I am wondering when the npc is going to get seriously involved on this issue as it is a national disgrace. books are routinely updated in a way that it is impossible for teachers to use the old and new editions side by side. this removes all choice away from the parents as to whether they will buy the new edition or stick with a second hand old one. usually the updates are utterly unnecessary and could easily be covered in a moment or two by the teacher in class. I recently threw out 3 “old” religion books. they had been updated!!!! I was appalled at the sheer waste of paper and money. these feelings of outrage I share will all my friends who are parents particlularly of secondary school children. Obviously the book publishers operate in an entirely unregulated fashion which has become so familiar to the citizens of this country. i would appreciate a response to this rant!
October 21st, 2009 at 2:07 pm
I am very proud of our school principal, as she has gone to a lot of work in setting up a pilot programme with the educational company in ivestigating the possibility of students accessing their textbooks on line instead of carrying these very heavy bags home.
January 7th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
I have 5 kids, two going to the local Community School. As they are about to return to school following the xmass holiday break I decided to weight them and their bags. In both cases the results where the same i.e.
Child: 73.5 kg
10% of body weight, which is: 7.35kg
(as per the government recommended maximum weight to be carried)
Bag Weight: >>>>>>>>>> 14.4kg <<<<<<<<<<<
Result: The bag is twice the recommended maximum
Questions:
1. As a parent of 5 kids, what am I suppose to do about this … hold my child’s education back by reducing their homework … get serious please, this is a most serious issue!.
2. Are kids protected by ‘health and safety’ or only use adults?
Note:
We have been using “Wheelie Bags” for the last three years because it was obvious to me that the kids needed them because I found the bags heavy for me to be carrying in and out to the car during loading and unloading. The reason I became concerned was because the bag is a dead weight much like a small bag of cement which set of alarms in my mind as to what the ‘Health & Safety’ aspect of all this would be…
I used a digital scales (i.e. Wii-Fit) so no cheap scales used to capture these weights.
Your thoughts and comments please…
April 29th, 2010 at 11:26 pm
This is an absolute disgrace. This is the first year that I am experiencing this problem for my 10yr. old son. We have gone from walking everyday to school to driving because of the weight of his schoolbag. I have raised the issue countless times with the teacher who is resentful of my insistence to keep the weight down and blaming my son for over packing his bag. He has dyspraxia. I know the other children in the class are carrying equally heavy bags and parents are frustrated as they keep getting the same argument that the homework needs to be done, and if the bag is too heay then it is up to the child to unload some of the books.
I don’t find it acceptable that all of these books need to be brought home every night for homework, surely teachers can titrate the amount of work that the children have to do or condense it to handouts.
It is unacceptable to expect children to carry a load that as an adult you would be prohibited from doing in most work places due to Health and Safety Regulations.
I do not think that “Wheelie” bags are any solution either as you have to twist and carry a load, which is worse for your back.
I can’t even believe that I have to justify this case to adult professionals……mad!
May 5th, 2010 at 9:08 am
I blame much of it on the publishers, who produce books for the entire 3-year Junior cycle instead of just one book per year ( and similarly in Leaving cycle). Surely they could split them in two or three? Making books available online would be great for those who have decent broadband - unfortunately we haven’t got that yet. However there was a pilot project run in a couple of Dublin schools making the school books available electronically - it would be great to roll that out to all schools.
I have tried
- buying wheelie bags - too many stairs for her to carry it up - defeated the purpose
- buying second copies of text books - when you have 3 children it gets very expensive and very confusing
They all have lockers but get homework in most subjects most days. The lockers are often in rooms that they can’t get into when they need to so they have to keep the books with them anyway. the school bags which were €50-60 each broke early on.
I dearly wish this issue was taken seriously - it must be causing long-term damage to our children’s backs.