50 things a girl should do before she turns five

School’s list to encourage kids to switch off their gadgets

IT’S enough to give some overprotective parents palpitations.

A leading girls’ school has come up with 50 activities that their pampered daughters should have accomplished by the age of five – and many of them involve getting outside and getting their hands properly dirty.

Even better, none of them appear to require a TV, laptop or smart phone.

Parents planning to send their offspring to the £10,000-a-year Burgess

Hill Girls in West Sussex will be presented with the to- do list which includes flying a kite, digging for worms, making mud pies, building a den and dancing in the rain.

It is designed to get the nursery-age youngsters off their screens and experience fun activities, many of which are outdoors, instead.

Former Burgess Hill pupils include This Morning presenter Holly Willoughby and tennis champion Andy Murray’s wife Kim.

Figures show that more than one in five children are overweight or obese by the time they start primary school, rising to one in three by secondary level.

The list, which is not a condition for getting a place, also includes having a water balloon fight, skimming a stone across water, baking a cake, jumping on a bed, rolling down a hill and hunting for a four-leaf clover. It will be sent to all prospective parents. Headmistress Liz Laybourn said: ‘In a nutshell, we hope that this programme will get girls off iPads and up trees!

‘We also want to encourage the boldness that our girls are known for.

‘From a very young age, we see girls who display fearless and curious personalities but as they become teens there is a tendency for some of them to adopt a more cautious outlook, take less risks in their learning and fear failure.

‘The programme is about taking that bold early learner and encouraging her to stay that way.

‘Dancing in the rain, rolling down hills, star gazing and all the other fun activities in our list encourage the innate curiosity and love of discovery in little children,’ she said.

‘At Burgess Hill Girls, getting stuck in is our mantra. The willingness to try new things gives young girls a fantastic platform for when they start school. We hope our list will inspire girls and their families to get out and explore the world around them.’

A UK study commissioned by the National Trust found that children spend four hours a week playing outside compared with their parents who spent 8.2 hours outdoors.

The Trust has its own list of 50 things for children to do before they turn ‘11 and threequarters’, including climbing a tree, building a den, playing pooh sticks, hunting for bugs and going stargazing.

Last year, former education secretary Damian Hinds unveiled a plan for all primary age children to complete a small ‘bucket list’. The youngsters tick off activities each year before they move on to secondary education.

‘Get girls off iPads and up trees’