Wednesday 18 March 2015

Sciennes Playground Heights and Supervision/Safety

The Senior Leadership team at Sciennes has a strong, established culture of moving forwards by consensus. Our conversation about playground development continues.

We heard concern about different heights, particularly the wooden platform and jumping wall

We learned:
•`orientation' (above, below) and `trajectory' (jumping off, throwing balls) are important forms of play and development
• children need to encounter challenges, assess risk and progressively learn to master them
• adults can sometimes be over protective but we will not provide opportunity to climb too high (You will need to take them elsewhere for that!)
• our children are hungry for exploring height- watch them in the quiet area, or climbing poles or springing over picnic tables
• the platform design will not, and cannot, enable impalement on railings
• different depths are good for training eye muscles more used to flat ground and flat screens

We heard concern about safety and supervision

We learned:
• about play policies. Every child has the right to play and the right to be safe.
• to use class time to embed rules, expectations and practise physical skills e.g. jumping.
• Grounds for Learning can support development of a pupil led playground charter
• there should be fewer major injuries, including head injuries, but perhaps more grazes and bumps
• children will be out of sight at times, but escape is part of healthy, risky play
our excellent Playground Supervisors have received (and will continue to receive) additional training. They will be walking around the playground and can always be called upon. A member of the Senior Leadership Team will continue to be on duty in the playground at all breaks each day, a practice that we have established for several years now.
children will be mentored by teaching staff and Playground Supervisors in how to solve and resolve any 'squabbles', for example, being able to move on to different spaces and activities.

We hope that you are able to attend the Parent Consultation Evening on Thursday 19th 6pm-7pm and if you are unable to attend in person, please feel welcome to email your views to admin@sciennes.edin.sch.uk by Friday 20th March.

Link: Can a playground be too safe?
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/science/19tierney.html?_r=0

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