The latest edition of JPIL contains an article by Tim Petts about the liability of teachers for accidents at school.

This follows on from the talk that he and Angela Frost gave at the 2016 12KBW Personal Injury Conference about PI claims by pupils and teachers, which they repeated for PIBA a few months later.  In the article, Tim looks at the way that the courts have developed the standard by which teachers are judged for accidents, from one where they are judged by the standards of a hypothetical parent with a very large family to one where they are judged as professionals rather than substitute parents.  He analyses the case law relating to risks and supervision: teachers are not expected to watch every pupil for every second of the day, and are not expected to wrap them in cotton wool and prevent them from coming to any harm at all, but they must act reasonably in the knowledge of the children in their charge and the activities they are carrying out.  A follow-up article, looking at the liability of schools for accidents on trips and activities away from school, is planned for later in the year. The Journal of Personal Injury Law is published by Sweet and Maxwell in association with APIL.