Health and safety is often bemoaned as the cause of a mollycoddled generation. Some see the relentless efforts of teachers to foresee as far as possible the risks of the day to day as time consuming and often unnecessary. Dame Judith Hackitt, Chair of the Health and Safety Executive, wishes in no way to detract from the value of rigorous health and safety, but has echoed the industry detractors slightly in highlighted a new problem created by our protective culture.
In a speech to the Royal Academy of Engineering, Dame Hackitt explained that coping with danger and identifying risk is essential to the development of the child and should therefore have a place within education; ‘we have reached a point where people expect to be looked after. We need to look out for ourselves and take responsibility for risk, not leave it to others.’ She continued to highlight how ‘excessively risk –averse’ environments perpetuated in schools stifle children to the point that they are not prepared for life beyond the playground.
Tree climbing, boisterous games and conkers should all be permitted as they allow children to learn how to assess for themselves the danger of their activities, how to regulate their own behaviour and monitor risk. Dame Hackitt explained how nonsensical initiatives designed to protect children could actually create ‘young adults who are poorly equipped to deal with the realities of the world, […] unable to discern risk from trivia, not knowing who they can trust or believe.’
Schools, she asserted, were forming future liabilities for the workplace through denying children the chance to form the basic skills of safety judgement and responsibility.
This position supports the efforts of the HSE to dispel the myths of the industry and reduce the top-down bureaucratic approach sometimes championed in education. The HSE is finding itself forced to intervene more and more in individual cases of overzealous school health and safety initiatives – such as the banning of tumble turns in swimming pools, the outlawing of frilly socks as a tripping hazard or the fact that one in four schools now forbid the game of tag.
The ridiculous measures of some institutions, Hackitt argued, belittle the hard work in the sector elsewhere and contribute to the creation of generation which may be their own worst enemy on leaving the protective arms of the education system.
Handsam can help you to establish a grounded approach to health and safety on your school trips with our risk assessment guidance and trip planning system. Or if you would like to test your students in an alternative environment, explore our outdoor education destinations.
