The Legal Part To Risk Assessments
Risk assessment is mandatory under the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS). All settings and practitioners must take “reasonable steps to ensure children and staff are not exposed to risks” and settings are required to demonstrate how they manage the risks that are identified. You will no doubt have risk assessments for other areas of your practice such as personal hygiene/nappy changing, fire or food preparation, and outdoor play is no different.
Include all outdoor areas within your risk assessments since many accidents involving children occur outside. Part 3.74 of the EYFS concerns the safety of children on outings saying providers “must assess potential risks or hazards for the children, and must identify the steps to be taken to remove, minimise, and manage those risks and hazards. The assessment must include consideration of adult to child ratios.”
The EYFS does not specify that risk assessments should be in writing. In fact, it states that a risk assessment for an outing “does not necessarily need to be in writing; this is up to providers.” However, there is a statutory duty for practitioners to demonstrate their assessment of risks so best practice would encourage all risk assessments to be recorded on paper or electronically to provide evidence that the setting did identify and manage risk properly.
What Is Special About Outdoor Play?
As early years practitioners, you will already understand that there are many benefits to so-called ‘risky-play’ and outdoor explorations as well as risks. So, there is a balance to be struck between allowing children to take risks and keeping them safe from harm. If practitioners are too overprotective, the learning opportunities are limited, but if they are not cautious enough, the potential for long-term harm is very real.
Benefits And Risks Of Outdoor Play
These include:
- Health and well-being – fresh air, natural light, and physical movement contribute to a child’s overall health and well-being and healthy lifestyle. Playing outdoors can reduce stress, improve cognitive development and support physical development whilst sunlight provides a natural source of vitamin D, crucial for maintaining healthy bones, muscles, and teeth
- A connection with the natural world – playing and exploring outdoors can help encourage respect for nature, cultivate environmental awareness and foster lifelong interests
- Social and emotional development – children can play with other children, develop social and problem-solving skills as well as teamwork, emotional intelligence and independence
- Curiosity – being outdoors creates endless opportunities for ‘awe and wonder.’ It might be seeing a new animal, hearing a new birdcall or experiencing a new weather phenomenon
- Creativity – many great poets, artists and musicians have been inspired by the natural world as nature stimulates curiosity and imagination
- Risk-taking and confidence – when children have the chance to challenge themselves and take limited risks, they learn to appreciate their current physical abilities and how they can challenge themselves safely to do more, gaining confidence in the process
Risks associated with outdoor play include:
- Minor accidents – young children often fall over, scrape their knees and elbows, or bump into other children or other objects. Most of these minor accidents result in temporary, minimal injuries which heal quickly resulting in no long-term damage
- Weather exposure – whilst the sun can be beneficial, it can also be dangerous, so children need to be protected using clothing and sunscreen. Exposure to other extreme weather may need appropriate clothing and footwear
- Equipment failures – all equipment should be checked and repaired regularly
- Traffic and travel – children need to be adequately supervised around traffic and on public transport
- Missing/lost children/stranger danger – these are serious risks that must be prevented and all risks assessed properly
- Sickness or illness – there are many things in the natural world that are poisonous or can cause harm or allergic reactions
- Risk of serious injury or death – some activities could potentially lethal if proper precautions are not followed. These can be everyday events such as crossing the road, or more one-off activities such as visits to lakes and beaches
How To Conduct Risk Assessments
There are four main aspects to risk assessment. These are:
- Identify hazards
Look at all outdoor equipment, spaces and activities and identifying any potential hazards, for example, ill-fitting gates/fences, loose paving slabs or broken pieces of equipment. - Assess the risks involved
Think about who could potentially be harmed (children, staff, parents, visitors), what the outcome of the risk might be (e.g. sun-exposure, broken bones, death) and evaluate the risk as either low, medium or high. - Set up protocols and actions needed to minimise risk
Identify the things you need to do to minimise risk. There may always be some risk involved, but this should be mitigated to be low in every case and you should not go ahead with outdoor activities if you cannot reduce the risk to this level. Examples of actions you can take include ensuring the correct staff:child ratio, wearing high-visibility jackets, role-calls or training children/staff on how to use equipment safely. - Review and update
All risk assessments should be reviewed regularly, at least once a year and always where there are changes to personnel, equipment or spaces.
Involve your parents as they may be instrumental in minimising risk such as providing suncream and adequate clothing and pay special attention to children with SEND.
Remember too that there is a balance to be struck between safe risk-taking in outdoor play to help children’s development, and there will be ways you can encourage safe risk-taking. These include:
- Use of proper safety equipment (helmets, knee/elbow pads, safety mats)
- Insistence on correct clothing (correct shoes, long sleeves)
- Model and teach safe practice
- Model bravery and resilience (demonstrate balancing, climbing safely)
- Talk about feelings such as feeling anxious to try new things and encourage participation
- Work safely within the limits of children’s physical and developmental abilities
- Praise effort and stress the importance learning from mistakes
The great outdoors is fun. Just make sure it is safe fun!
