Why Risk is Essential in Playgrounds
Infinite www.infiniteplaygrounds.co.uk
Infinite Play Article One : Infinite Challenge
Playgrounds
Why Risk is Essential in Playgrounds
New York Primary School, North Tyneside
We live in an increasingly risk averse world but is this healthy and when can a little risk be good? Playgrounds in particular are wrapped up in health and safety, however as Infinite Playgrounds believe, it is worth taking the time to unwrap the red tape and discover the benefits of good risk.
What Makes a Good Playground? Firstly, it is important to look at what makes a playground a good place to play. Good playgrounds are about creating the right balance between risk and safety. This means playgrounds should have the objective of challenging children to develop confidence, problem solving-skills and their physical abilities whilst protecting children from dangerous, unnecessary risks.
Play spaces offer children fresh air, exercise and a multitude of learning opportunities. It is so important that they are properly built, maintained and supervised and not vandalised or damaged so that children can continue to be inspired and educated through play.
Children exploring a natural play structure.
Playgrounds should emphasise the natural, imitating the environment, helping children’s imaginations to grow and expand through play. An aspect of playground design is about allowing children to take risks without compromising safety.
The Benefits of Risk Children seek chances to challenge themselves and develop their own abilities. The pedagogist Vvgotsky states, “In play, the child is always behaving beyond his age, above his usual everyday behaviour; in play he is, as it were, a head above himself.” (Play and the Psychological Development of the Child) This supports the idea that there is an educational benefit to risk and allowing children to challenge themselves. Children need to learn how to manage risk and begin to develop risk management strategies in order to challenge their ability and help move them on to their next level of development. As adults we are there to ensure that there are not unacceptable risks or ones that children cannot assess themselves, whilst scaffolding their development.
Witton Gilbert County Primary School, County Durham
Children learn how to manage their own risk.
Hollow Ponds, Epping Forest, London
In an increasingly protected world where children do not have the opportunities of the generation before to play out in the streets, playgrounds are one of the few spaces where there is the potential for exciting play. Playgrounds allow children to challenge their own abilities in a self-directed and safe way. Hazards can present opportunities for learning that would not otherwise be available, as children learn to recognise and respond to risk.
There is a clear argument for calculated risks in play areas, for instance exciting play trees allowing children to test their climbing abilities. As Play England recommends, “Children and young people need opportunities to experience challenge and excitement in their play.� This should be the philosophy behind every playground.
Children experimenting with different levels of risk.
The Difference Between Good and Bad Risks It is important to distinguish between good and bad risks as not all risk is beneficial. Good risks challenge and engage children and are easy for children to assess. Bad risks have no play benefits and are difficult for children to assess or judge.
Good risks would include play equipment that encourages children to climb, clamber, and balance, for example, and help children to develop physical co-ordination. Changes in height help children to overcome fears gradually and at their own pace. Opportunities to explore, build and use role-play enhance their creative and imaginative skills. Dangerous and unnecessary risks are those that lack any play value such as hard surfaces, sharp edges, weak structures, things that don’t work properly or have gaps where fingers or other body parts can get stuck. Developing gross motor skills on trapeze handles.
St Joseph’s R C Primary, Newcastle
In other European countries, where the same safety standards apply, playground design appears to offer children more challenging play opportunities. This implies that U.K. providers sometimes find it hard to distinguish between good and bad risks in play. We should not be scared of creating opportunities for physically challenging adventures and encouraging child-led learning, however providers have a responsibility to ensure that play spaces are free from bad and unnecessary danger. Exploring limits and trying new experiences is an essential part of becoming an adult and minor injuries are a common part of this. We often overemphasise these minor causalities, but grazed elbows and bumped knees are a normal part of childhood. Children have a growing ability to assess and manage risk and this ability tends to be underestimated in adults. How often have we heard parents shouting ‘be careful!’ as their children climb higher? Children enjoy risk taking but they also naturally regulate their exposure to good risks as they learn to handle uncertainty and danger.
Natural play climbing structure, Seaton Delaval Hall (National Trust) Northumberland
Playgrounds should be built in a way that allows children to manage risks and become independent learners. This leaves the traditional idea of play equipment behind and moves forward to exciting and challenging spaces for children to play, with managed risk that is justified by the high play value children gain from natural elements such as our climbing trees.
Hollow Ponds, Epping Forest, London
What Makes Playgrounds Safe? Although playgrounds should have opportunities for risk, they should also protect children from unacceptable harm, so what makes a playground safe? They should be built with durable materials that won’t fall apart or be adversely affected by the weather. Gaps and spaces should not be too small so that a child’s head, arm or any other body part can be trapped. Water, sand and stones should be carefully monitored and equipment must be carefully checked for damage or vandalism to prevent play spaces from becoming unsafe.
Age-Appropriate Design Playgrounds should be designed with the needs of the child in mind. Design should keep in mind the risk-benefit balance so that playgrounds genuinely challenge, engage and meet the needs of different children. They can be designed with specific age groups in mind with age-appropriate risks and challenges, however children will also adapt play equipment to make it more challenging to meet their needs. For instance, an older child may go down a slide head first to make it more exciting. When children aren’t challenged appropriately, they will often seek risks in more dangerous environments.
Open-ended play equipment such as play landscaping, water play streams or climbing trees allow children to adapt and develop their play environment to suit their developmental stages rather than limiting their play through ‘one size fits all’ playground guidelines.
Rope swings add challenge to a play area
A child experimenting with risk on a vertical net.
Play areas should challenge children to the limits of their own abilities; a child of three will access a playground very differently to a child of five or eleven years, and again differently for a confident child of three to one who may be more cautious or have a developmental delay. Therefore it is essential that play equipment is exciting and openended in order to develop with children, supporting and scaffolding their natural ability.
Bowker Vale Primary School, Manchester
Children of all ages exploring a climbing structure
Safety Guidelines Risk is an essential feature of playgrounds and satisfies a basic human need in us, so clearly there is a strong argument for risk in playgrounds. However access to risk is decreasing in playgrounds as authorities adopt an inflexible interpretation of industry standards. It is worth noting that BSEN standards are there as a guideline rather than a legal requirement and providers must decide on their own level of appropriate risk rather than simply reflecting the concerns of the most anxious parent. St Anthony’s C of E Primary School, Newcastle
Unfortunately confusion about the standards has influenced a focus on avoiding risk rather than promoting the benefits. Good health and safety practice is primarily about common sense; using everyday experience and an intelligent application of the European guidelines to create interesting and bespoke play spaces rather than mass-produced structures, which can be very limiting. The reduction of playground equipment to the same structures seen in parks and playgrounds around the country reduces learning opportunities; it is clear that a one size fits all application of the guidelines does not work. Playgrounds often avoid features that may enhance play value but that stray from the standards. For instance, trees, logs, boulders and landscape gradient features are rarely seen these days in playgrounds, however they are a common feature of the best European playgrounds. The dangers of playgrounds all becoming boring and the same is clear and we must work towards developing innovative and bespoke playground equipment that adopts an intelligent understanding of the standards whilst challenging children in a way that is appropriate to their needs. Each playground should be different and special in its own way.
Challenge develops children’s self confidence.
Natural play climbing structure, New York, North Tyneside
Risk Assessments Risk assessment is an oft-used term in playground design, however what constitutes a risk assessment and what level of risk is acceptable?
The Department of Children, Schools and Families warns against wrapping children up in cotton wool, saying “childhood is a time for learning and exploring.” (DCSF 2008a)
Children will climb within their own ability.
Trapeze handles, Bowker Vale Primary School, Manchester
As we have shown, an aspect of risk is good. Therefore a risk assessment means assessing the risks of a play area and deciding what an acceptable level of risk is for your own setting; a common sense approach. Risk assessments do not mean that all risk should be removed, in fact there is a good argument for a medium level of risk. Everyday life is inherently risky and it is unrealistic to remove all risk. It is equally not good for our children to never come across risk and learn how to manage it.
The government formed Risk and Regulation Committee (formerly the Better Regulation Commission) has published its “recognition that risk can be creative and exhilarating, whilst also acknowledging that some risks need to be managed.” (BRC 2006).
Therefore what is important is that risk has been assessed and monitored to ensure it is not an unacceptable level of risk, and most importantly, that the play value of the playground equipment outweighs any risk it may carry. This risk / benefit assessment should form the basis of all playground design. For instance, climbing trees offer children challenging climbing opportunities however this risk is minimised by use of soft safety surfaces underneath and careful attention to detail when building to prevent head or limb traps. The risk is also justified through the play value as this type of structure also allows play on different levels and to the differing extents of a child’s abilities which develop with the child as they start playing on a smaller scale and gradually develop their ability both physically and imaginatively. On open-ended playground structures and installations, children learn how to recognise and manage risk in an appropriate way, feeling confident in their own abilities. This complexity of structure means that children have to think about how they will move and climb, what will be around the corner, how can they cross a space and what kind of journey it will be; it is not a simple up and over climbing frame where children move from A to B repetitively. Children develop their own strategies to climb and cross the structure and these develop in complexity as the children grow in confidence and ability. Rope swings develop coordination and cooperation
Child using climbing grips to enhance the challenge of steps.
In 2008 Play England published ‘Managing Risk in Play Provision: Implementation Guide’ which emphasizes weighing up risk and benefit in designing and building playgrounds and makes the point that over zealous health and safety policies and bureaucracy shouldn’t overshadow the importance of outdoor play to happy childhoods. Care providers, parents and children recognise that you can never make everything completely safe and that balance is needed between risk and fun. The Health & Safety Executive recognises the problem of overly bureaucratic risk assessment procedures. Crucially, the purpose of a risk assessment should be to improve play spaces by ensuring their continuing safety and not limit their capacity to be challenging and exciting.
Challenging climbing opportunities enhance play.
Trapeze handles, Bowker Vale Primary School
The World is Full of Hazards Generally speaking, the risks involved in playgrounds are significantly lower than those in everyday life; in the home, on roads and in public places for example. Robin Sutcliffe and Adrian Voce stated “wrapping children in cotton wool was having a negative impact on children’s play opportunities and their more general freedom to explore and encounter the world.” (Managing Risk in Play Provision) We must be careful that health and safety laws don’t prevent child-led, explorative play, which give children risk management skills and confidence that last throughout their lives. The world is full of hazards and children need to learn to assess and respond to them in order to protect themselves. Risks have value in that they can be an opportunity for learning and for this reason they should not be eliminated altogether. Although good supervision and teaching children how to play safely and interact with equipment in the right ways is important, building playgrounds that allow children to use play equipment in an experimental and exciting way, and making intelligent judgements about their own safety and well-being is equally so. We need to move forward to bespoke and creative playgrounds that embrace natural features and focus on play benefit rather than the avoidance of risk.
Helen Law and Sam McGeever Creative Directors
The Infinite Playgrounds Story We are the award-winning leading natural play specialists creating educational play areas from natural materials. As experienced artists working on educational projects, Helen and Sam recognised a need in schools for creative and natural play. This became the catalyst for exciting and fundamental questions about play and learning and the school environment. Key head teachers recognised the educational value and creative approach we could offer and in 2009 Infinite Playgrounds was born. Since then, we have worked in hundreds of settings nationwide, transforming playgrounds, based on the very latest educational research, leading the innovation changing playgrounds for the future. Together with visionary educators in schools, nurseries, children’s centres and public parks, we create interactive and beautiful designs and inspirational learning environments. Our schools know that Infinite Playgrounds are different.
About the Author Joanne Law Joanne was an Early Years teacher in an Outstanding primary school and children’s centre for several years. She now is our Company Manager and educational consultant. In addition to being a qualified teacher, Joanne has a specialism in Early Years and an interest in creative outdoor play. Joanne writes regularly about the benefits of outdoor learning and further educational articles can be downloaded from our website.
Moving playgrounds forward, making playgrounds special.
Infinite www.infiniteplaygrounds.co.uk 0191266 6508 / helen@infiniteplaygrounds.co.uk
Playgrounds