Schools ‘wrap pupils in cotton wool’
Chief inspector warns that modern health and safety policies leave children badly prepared for life
CHILDREN are being denied the chance to develop “resilience and grit” because of teachers’ overzealous health and safety policies, the chief inspector of schools says today.
Amanda Spielman says schools must stop trying to “wrap them in cotton wool” because it leaves children illprepared for the challenges of later life.
Schools have to do more to “distinguish between real and imagined risk”, she says, adding that Ofsted will now train its inspectors to ensure schools are not rewarded for overbearing policies.
Ms Spielman, who took over as chief inspector in March, says children must stop being forced to wear hi-vis jackets on school trips “like troupes of mini-construction workers minus the hard hats”.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Ms Spielman says an “over-cautious culture has developed in our schools” that is holding back children and limiting their experiences.
This “deprives children of rewarding experiences, of the opportunity to develop resilience and grit and which makes it hard for them to cope with normal everyday risk”.
Ms Spielman cites examples of schoolteachers popping children’s balloons because they were deemed to be dangerous. In another case a sports day was cancelled because of “dew on the grass”. Ms Spielman has now ordered officials to prepare new guidance for inspectors this September which will ensure they only focus on actual safeguarding of vulnerable children.
She says: “I want Ofsted to make sure that schools are properly focused on pupil safety but that it doesn’t come at the expense of opportunities to broaden and enrich young minds.” This over cautious approach can “obscure real safeguarding issues. Every minute spent enforcing a ban on conkers and yo-yos is a minute away from tackling the multitudes of real issues we know schools face”, she says.
She adds: “My message to schools is this: keeping children safe from harm should always be your overriding concern, but in doing so, make sure you distinguish between real and imagined risk.
“Trying to insulate your pupils from every bump, germ or bruise, won’t just drive you to distraction, it will short change those pupils as well – limiting their opportunity to fully take advantage of the freedom of childhood, and to explore the world around them.”
Safeguarding is part of Ofsted’s schools’ inspections and is used to assess leadership, the impact on the personal development, behaviour and the welfare of children. Next month more than 1,800 inspectors will take part at sessions titled “When is safe, safe: what really matters” around the country.
David Green, a director of think tank Civitas, said: “Three cheers for Amanda Spielman for drawing a distinction between the real and imagined dangers children face in school.”
Frank Furedi, a sociology professor at Kent University who originally coined the term “cotton wool kids”, added: “It’s great that the chief inspector recognises the damaging consequences of the safety-at-all-cost and risk averse regime that prevails in far too many schools.
“However it will not be easy to overcome worse-case thinking about physical activities in schools.”
In the run-up to the summer holidays, the streets around Ofsted’s offices were awash with eager young children on school trips. Like scores of children before them, they came into London to learn about their nation’s capital. What marked these children out from the generations that preceded them were the hi-vis jackets they were sporting, now standard issue for many school trips. They looked like troupes of tiny construction workers, minus the hard hats.
Now, I understand why schools might find it convenient to spot their pupils easily, but the message these jackets sends about youngsters being at risk makes me uncomfortable and more than a little sad. Children around the country walk to school every day without hi-vis jackets. Why do they suddenly need them on a trip to the library, zoo or museum? And surely if every child in the street is wearing one, they are less useful than a school uniform for keeping track of a group?
These jackets are one of the more visible examples of good intentions creating an unnecessarily riskaverse culture that does nothing for children’s development and learning. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) does sterling work reviewing strange decisions made supposedly in the name of health and safety by overprotective schools. One school profiled by the HSE’s “myth-busters” panel was so fearful of the dangers of air-filled balloons at an event that they insisted they were all burst and thrown away. Another primary school cancelled its sports day because of that grave menace, “dew on the grass”.
That strikes me as simply barmy. Schoolchildren have been sliding around on muddy fields for centuries, yet in this case they missed out on the end-of-term fun (and exercise) of sports day because of an overzealous approach to health and safety.
Of course we need proper attention to safeguarding and to genuine health and safety risks. There are rules and processes that the Government rightly insists be followed. No one is suggesting ignoring fire safety or background checks on staff. But over the years an over-cautious culture has developed in our schools, one that too often tries to wrap children in cotton wool. It is, I am sad to say, a culture that deprives children of rewarding experiences, of the opportunity to develop resilience and grit, and which makes it hard for them to learn to cope with normal everyday risk. It’s also undoubtedly a major factor in the growth of childhood inactivity, as children are deterred from more vigorous outdoor exercise in favour of “safer” indoor activity.
Being honest, I have to admit that Ofsted hasn’t always got this right. We know inspection has sometimes seemed too much about tickboxes and worrying about things like the proper height of school fences. Making sure children are safe at school is, of course, an important part of our work, but I want to be sure we look at the right things in the right way, without going overboard. I want Ofsted to make sure that schools are properly focusing on pupil safety, but that it doesn’t come at the expense of opportunities to broaden and enrich young minds.
That is why new training later this summer will remind inspectors what safeguarding is really about. It will ask them to focus on what schools are doing to identify children potentially at risk of real harm; how these children are being helped; and how they manage accusations and other serious problems with staff.
We want school leaders to make decisions based on their experienced judgment, rather than feeling the need to invent and then conform to excessively prescriptive policies. This isn’t just because we think an overly cautious approach to health and safety limits young people’s experiences, but also because it can obscure real safety issues. Every minute spent enforcing a ban on conkers and yo-yos is a minute away from tackling the multitude of real issues we know schools face.
So my message to schools is this: keeping children safe from harm should always be your overriding concern, but in doing so, make sure you distinguish between real and imagined risk. Trying to insulate your pupils from every bump, germ or bruise won’t just drive you to distraction, it will short-change those pupils as well – limiting their opportunity to fully take advantage of the freedom of childhood, and to explore the world around them.
I look forward to seeing more eager young faces on school trips after September. I just hope fewer of them will be auditioning for Bob the Builder.
READ MORE at telegraph.co.uk/opinion