Why Risk is Essential in PlayBy Joanne Law on 26/09/2013 in Playground Design

We live in an increasingly risk adverse 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 advises, it is worth taking time to unwrap the red tape and discover the benefits of good risk.

What Makes a Good Playground?

Trim trail play area, The Bowes Museum

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 therefore 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.

“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”Sam McGeever, Infinite Playgrounds

The Benefits of Risk

Children seek chances to challenge themselves and develop their own abilities. Vvgotsky, the famous pedagogist said “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), which 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 that are life long skills.  

“Children need a level of risk in their play 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”Helen Law, Infinite Playgrounds

Waterplay Stream, The Rising Sun Country Park

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.

Therefore 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 statement is the philosophy behind our playgrounds.

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 whereas bad risks have no play benefits and are difficult for children to assess or judge.

Taking ability appropriate risks when climbing

Good risks would include play equipment that encourages children to climb, clamber, and balance, for example, helps 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.

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 as 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.

“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 our natural elements such as our climbing trees.”Sam McGeever, Infinite Playgrounds

 

Waterplay Stream, New York Primary School

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, allows 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.

“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 open-ended in order to develop with children, supporting and scaffolding their natural ability”Helen Law, Infinite Playgrounds

Play landscaping with rubber safety matting

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 parents.

Unfortunately confusion about the standards has influenced a focus on avoiding risk rather than promoting benefits.

Co-operative water play

Good health and safety practice is primarily about common sense; using everyday experience and an intelligent application of the European guidelines to creating 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 adopt an intelligent understanding of the standards whilst challenging children in a away that is appropriate to their needs.  Every playground should be different and special in their own way.  This is the ethos of Infinite Playgrounds and is reflected in our motto, “Making playgrounds special”.

Risk Assessments

Children playing with the log flume water play stream

Risk assessment is an often 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).

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, and 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 it’s “recognition that risk can be creative and exhilarating, whist 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.

Climbing Structure, Childsplay Nursery Newcastle

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 ability, developing with the child as they start playing on a smaller scale and gradually develop their ability both physically and imaginatively.  Children learn how to not only recognise risk but also to 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 behind the corner and 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.   An illustration of this would be the playground design for Childsplay Nursery that consisted of a large climbing structure and more details about this can be found out here.

Natural Climbing Structure, Seaton Deleval Hall, The National Trust

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 recognize that you can never make everything completely safe and that a balance is needed between risk and fun.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) (www.hse.gov.uk) also 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.

The World is Full of Hazards

Appropriate Risk Taking

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.

“Wrapping children in cotton wool is having a negative impact on children’s play opportunities and their more general freedom to explore and encounter the world” (Robin Sutcliffe and Adrian Voce, 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 experimental and exciting way, 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.

About Joanne Law

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