THE PLAYGROUND THAT ELF ’N’ SAFETY FORGOT
School lets pupils play VERY risky games – to help toughen them up
logs, hammers and handsaws are the stuff that health and safety nightmares are made of in today’s schools.
But one has embraced them as playthings for pupils – in a bid to return an element of risk to their everyday lives.
Amid growing concerns that the nation is raising a generation of snowflakes, the children of Richmond Avenue Primary and Nursery school get to mess around in the playground with everything from crates to planks, and from tyre swings to mud pits.
The ethos extends to classes indoors too, with scissors, staplers, cookie cutters, hole-punches and sharp- edged tape dispensers on hand.
Debbie Hughes, head of the school in shoeburyness, Essex, said the approach prepared youngsters not just for physical ‘rough and tumble’ but the mental fortitude needed to handle the twists and turns life would throw at them.
‘We have no idea what the future will bring for children, so we are building resilience into them,’ she said. ‘It’s making them ready for anything, to take risks, to think outside the box, not just follow the rules.’
leah Morris, who manages the school’s early years programme, helped introduce the risk element four years ago after a trip to see forest-type schools in Denmark, where children play in outdoor settings.
she said there hadn’t been any serious injuries since the policy was introduced and believes the number of bumps, bruises and scrapes suffered by pupils is no higher than other schools.
‘ Four or five years ago we’d have been consistently telling children “Don’t run with those scissors”,’ she explained. ‘ Now they do it automatically because they have been shown right from nursery how to be safe with equipment.’ Parents approved of the system at the school, which was rated ‘good’ at its last ofsted inspection.
Haley Cantwell, 40, who has two boys there, said: ‘They are much more controlled – even outside the school they evaluate their own risk and are very independent. If they fall over they get up and carry on but some of my friends’ children are more cautious. ‘It doesn’t always work and they will fall and bash their knees but they are a little safer the next time. They learn their own limits.’ The ethos reflects a growing concern that grown-ups have become too protective of their children, robbing them of essential life skills. schools’ attempts to minimise risk have included banning pastimes such as conker fights or playing ‘It’ and British Bulldog. ofsted chief Amanda spielman last year criticised the cottonwool culture, describing measures such as making children wear school high- trips visibility as ‘barmy’. jackets on Chris Mcgovern, of the Campaign for Real Education, said yesterday: ‘The problem is the health and safety brigade and lawyers. They have caused a climate of fear in schools. I’d applaud any school that would act sensibly.’
‘Fall over and bash their knees’