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.
September 9th, 2010 at 11:30 am
The concept of bringing school books to and fro is out dated and lame.with access to computers there is no need to be hawking large volumes of books out of school.With a little cooperation with school and parents.homework could be programmed through computers,so easy access can be had by all.this would keep the bulk of books in class,and the required books for research could be aquired without too much hassle.A wath dog scenario could be set up by both teachers and parents to observe this practice does not get out of hand.
September 12th, 2010 at 9:45 pm
“NPCpp recommend that Parents advise their children about organizing their books according to the timetable and home work.” - This is good advice, there is no need to lug all those books to school and back every day, most can be left at school overnight.
September 13th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
My daughter started first year recently and uses her school locker as much as possible. She has just packed her schoolbag for tomorrow and has asked me to feel how heavy it is.
She weighs 39kg and the bag weighs 9.5kg - just over 24% bodyweight!
Her schoolbag is a reasonably big backpack with wide straps. The books are already showing signs of wear from being constantly stuffed in and out of a full bag. These books cost over 300 euro in total.
Her Irish and History books are in her locker and her cspe books, several workbooks and dictionaries are in a shelf in the house here, not being needed tomorrow. So this schoolbag covers barely 60% of the Junior Cert course content.
For comparison, I’ve just weighed a set of textbooks which covered at least 80% of a Science degree back in the 80s. (I bought most, but not all of the recommended texts) These books rarely travelled to college as we made use of the library there.
They weighed in at 9kg, less than the weight of my daughter’s schoolbag.
The Government, the publishers and, I suspect, most of the teachers are not interested in the long term muscle/skeletal damage that this is most certainly doing to this generation of young people. In my view, the weight and size of these textbooks is unnecessary and is driven primarily by the greed of the book publishers.
September 18th, 2010 at 5:54 pm
Awesome! I have been looking for information on this all week. I really wish that people would write more about this. Greatly appreciated
September 24th, 2010 at 10:45 am
If the way that books are compiled could be changed. that may help. for instance instead of binding books, they could be bought loose leafed and kept in a master folder. then a student could just pick out the chapter they need for their homework and only carry these home.
the weight of the school books has resulted in walking and cycling to school not being viable options for getting to school. this is in direct contrast to government policy for encouraging walking and cycling in which they hava an organisation dedicated to, An Taisce Greenschools.
October 5th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
please could someone tell me what are the recommended school bagweight guideline for a 1s yr secondary schoolgirl? my girl carrys between 1st 5lb and 1st 8 every day! surely this cant be allowed!
July 15th, 2011 at 5:05 pm
I was really eager to learn something more precise,not just how to reduce the number of books or what type would be more effective.How much weight a child can carry on her back?How much does it really vary according to age,sex or the body weight,these are my question.Unfortunately I didn’t get any answer.
It would be even better if a specialized person like a pediatrician or a an orthopedician dealing child problems answered all those queries.
Manzur
October 14th, 2011 at 11:45 am
This morning my son, who weighs 37kgs, had to carry a 10kg bag to school. He is in First Year in Secondary School. He has a locker. They have a homework club in the school. He wants to walk to school. He would like the freedom of it. His bag has wheels on it, and he doesn’t mind using them, but I cannot let him do so. The paths to the school are rough and damaged, due to building work being carried out in the area. The bag will not wheel properly under these conditions and it bumps and turns over, causing more strain. When he gets to school, he has four flights of stairs to get up to his locker. He maintains that he only brings home the books he needs to finish his homework (as he never gets it all done in the hour of homework club), and he brings the books from home that are needed that day. Anything that is not needed is left at home. Like so many stories above, his new bag is already ripped from the amount of books being forced into it. Also, as above, he will bring lunch every day and some days he will have gym gear or extra equipment needed for certain subjects.
As so many of you have said, I also have to drive him to and from school as I cannot allow him to carry this weight every day. I have talked to the teachers and the Principal, and while they are sympathetic to this problem, they find it hard to do anything about it. Surely there could be some case for using tablet type computers. The books cost so much. I have paid out €493.83 so far, just for his books and stationery, (his school uniform, school bag, gym gear etc are in addition to that). Could a piece of computer hardware be that much more expensive?
I know it would take some organisation, but we don’t all have to re-invent the wheel. There are some good ideas here, if we could only get the teachers to go along with them. The idea of using sections of books (changing the way they are bound), or teachers using photocopied sheets for homework purposes (God knows they charge enough for photocopying). I can see that the problems are the same, year in year out, and nothing is done. This morning one teacher I talked to about the weight of the bag said “He’ll just have to grow some muscles”. Great. This child is 12 year old. He is only a little lad at present. He hasn’t done any major growth spurts yet. Hopefully that will happen soon. In the meantime he is no Charles Atlas and cannot carry that bag around all year and not expect injury as a result. There has to be some way to make a change to this situation, for the sake of all our children.
October 15th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
I have started a campaign page on Facebook to collate information on this subject call “lighten the schoolbags”, I am happy to work with anyone who wants to do something about this issue. I have had a relatively positive response from the school who feel this is an important issue but haven’t been able to get it resolved. I believe the onus is on the Dept. of Education, HSE, Health & Safety Authority and the Child Protection Dept. to make a policy decision which will lead to legislation and action on this. I also believe that the Publishers presently have the most to gain from having heavy schoolbags. There are electronic copies of all schoolbooks but the publishers give these freely out to the teachers but not to the students.
October 15th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
Sorry, I forgot to add my contact details which are:- Ted Bradley, Ballyhea, Charleville, Co. Cork - 087 2171089 email dromcollogher@gmail.com
November 2nd, 2011 at 3:12 pm
It is easy for me to compliant about this problem and expect other to take action, so I am trying to find ways of lighten my daughters load (just under 2 stone). Firstly I am lobbying the government to take action and you can help me by “like”-ing my facebook page, “lighten the schoolbags” and then I am scanning my daughters books and creating electronic copies. This maybe illegal but what the publishers are doing is dishonest as they are fully aware of the issue of the weight of book and have been for sometime. The old Cicero saying comes to mind “Cui bono” who benefits!