Introduction

Knight (2006, DES) suggests ‘In a challenging environment children will be able to test their abilities, learn from their mistakes and stretch themselves further to develop their physical and mental skills’.

This project  looked at the outdoor environment and the development of risky play and if it does supports children’s all-round development. It takes into account current documents and guidance, parental, children and staffs views. We used My world outdoors, Out to play and Froebelian approach – outdoor play and explorations. Scotland’s Outdoor Play and Learning Coalition Position Statement believes ‘ It promotes mental, social, and emotional wellbeing by helping to reduce stress, increase self-esteem and confidence, develop emotional resilience and build children and young people’s confidence in their own capabilities and ability to manage risks and deal with uncertainty’

’Risky play may be a means of encouraging children to confront risksas challenges that can to be mastered rather than events to be feared (Sandseter & Kennair, 2011; Tovey, 2014). The ability to manage risks and the accompanying fear or adrenaline is an essential survival trait’ (Sandseter & Kennair, 2011).

The enquiry matters as it is an area of development within the nursery and we want to ensure that we develop the area to the highest quality we can ensuring safety for all. My purpose in undertaking such a project was to develop our nursery environment to create an effective, stimulating, learning environment. As stated in Out to Play:

‘Children will read the physical landscape and perceive play opportunities in their own way. You need to develop routines and ways of working that create a nurturing environment. It should be a constantly evolving space that changes in line with children’s interests and needs. Putting the SHANARI indicators at the heart of our practice and decision making not just as you plan but as the setting evolves. Staff need to reflect and ensure the space is always a motivating and challenging learning environment. Actively involving children in creating the learning environment and making the ethos of your setting evident to all’ (Scottish Government, 2018).

We want to support staff, children and families into a way of play and learning that has been curtailed due to COVID. I want to help develop confidence in all that we enable risky play without placing children in danger. Risk taking is exhilarating and we want, need children to be able to do so safely. Risk taking is good for children: taking risks is exhilarating, and children want and need to take risks. Our role as adults is to make sure we enable this, without placing them in actual danger. It is essential to evaluate the hazards honestly, not just focusing in on the worst-case scenario, but also considering the likelihood of serious injury and what children will gain by participating in the activity. https://early-education.org.uk/taking-risks

Context

We are a new local authority build with a relatively flat area outdoors. It has a mixture of grass, soft tarmac and a mud area for digging and use in the mud kitchen. There is an open gazebo used for sitting and reading and a hobbit hut that is used as a well-being retreat, wooden planters filled with a variety of plants and a small slopped grass area that we are considering for an allotment.

Our staff team including the management team are new to working together and our early years practitioners are mainly newly qualified. We hoped this project would give the team a concrete focus and begin to develop a joint pedagogy developing us further as a team. We opened in the midst of COVID 19, where every day normal experiences were not allowed. Children had not been exposed to going to the park, soft plays or baby/toddler groups. We noted that children were not meeting their developmental milestones through observations and parents were unsure of allowing children to take part in play that involved risks. We discovered this through consultation with our parents about risky play and experiences offered at nursery.

Our outdoor area comes straight from our playroom and we are hoping just to allow free flow play from the indoors to the outdoors. We want to create lots of opportunities in the outdoor environment that encourage the children to be challenged at all levels. We want to ensure that our ethos, policies and pedagogy relate to the indoors and outdoors being one environment.

Methodology

I had to consider how staff, parents and children would react to this project. I wanted to be able to offer support, guidance and information to all stakeholders to try and make this a positive experience for all.

I worked with staff to create mind maps for introducing risky play, What is risky play? what ways does risky play support children? Challenges of risky play? I wanted to take staff with me and to do this allowing them to share their thoughts and opinions and be involved from the start was important to me.

I sent individual questionnaires to parents by email to gather thoughts and views on risky play. I gave paper copies of a questionnaire to staff to complete .I wanted to gather lots of thoughts and opinions and the easiest way to access this was by emailing to all parents, many parents prefer being able to complete paperwork this way and will hopefully allow me to gather a greater range of feedback.

The focus group of children were given consent forms for parents to read and sign. The children were chosen as were key children to the staff that were participating. I had spoken to staff who had shown an interest in participating with the research project thus deciding on the children.

I observed the children at play and completed a mind map with the children about play and about changes made to nursery environment. I had wanted to gather the children’s thoughts and views on our nursery environment. These children arrive every day wanting to have fun, feel safe, learn, play with friends and explore, I wanted to know that we were providing what they wanted.

I decided that to display my findings I would use a floor book, as it would appeal to children and adults. It would contain the mind maps, the results of questionnaires, photos of the outdoors, children’s drawings and thoughts.