Get Out More
Get more out of lifeAdventures in Play
What would playgrounds look like if children could build them themselves? Maybe something like The Baui, an adventure playground in Hamburg, with its huts, towers, bridges and ladders that the children had created from scratch. I’ve just got back from a study trip with Meynell Games, looking at play and playwork in Germany where I’ve been inspired by some truely great practice. At these construction playgrounds children are given wood, tools, nails and free reign to build the playspace as they chose. The concept is not unique to Germany. There is one, The Big Swing, not far from me in Eccleshill, Bradford, but its the only one I know of in West Yorkshire whereas in Hamburg and Berlin there seems to be one in every neighbourhood. Thousands of children and young people are able to spend all their free time hanging out in these freeform playgrounds that they’ve made for themselves.
We visited a wide range of play settings and saw the importance these city cultures place on quality play opportunities. The school playgrounds we saw were not designed by children, but the landscape architects had consulted with them first and incorporated their ideas into the plans. What results in an exciting space that offers engagement and challenge; 7ft walls to jump off, steams to play in, hillocks to roll down and secret hiding places where the teachers can’t see you. It’s enough to send the Health and Safety Officer into meltdown, but its actually had a positive effect on accident rates; there are more accidents but they are a lot less serious i.e. bruises and grazes not broken limbs and concussion (a fact duly noted by their insurers). When you think about it, when all you have to play in is a rectangle of tarmac you’re more likely to climb the walls that surround it or run across it at full tilt to find some level of challenge. As may people are now recognising, taking managed risks is important to gain an understanding of ourselves, stretch our abilities and consequently learn to challenge ourselves in other areas of our lives. If children are wrapped in cotton wool and don’t learn to manage their own risks, as young adults they may play it too safe or take unacceptable risks through a poor awareness of danger.
There are some brilliant examples of exciting and challenging playspaces in the UK but the ubiquitous primary-coloured swings/slide/climbing frame combination is all too familiar wherever you go in the world. Having grown up with these we might ask ourselves ‘what’s the harm in fixed equipment and safety matting?’, but the trouble is we also grew up with playing outdoors, building dams and dens and generally running free whereas today’s children are much more supervised. The school playground or the park offers the most free play many children get, so we need to make sure it offers variety, risk, challenge and flexibility. We need a wide range of materials, heights and surfaces, we need loose parts which can be arranged and rearranged according to the game and most of all, we as adults need to feel confident in allowing children to managing their own risks. Its time to stop playing it safe.
Inspired to write
At parents’ evening last week I was flicking through my daughters’ literacy books. Story after story concerned adventures in the woods; getting lost and having to build a den to sleep out, meeting bears and other wild animals, cooking campfire teas for fairies. Some of the inspiration for this writing must have come from their experiences at forest school. Working in schools, I often hear teachers say that pupils are struggling with writing, not over pencil skills, phonics or spelling, but because they don’t know what to write about.
As a child I was an avid reader of Enid Blyton stories. My siblings and I would roam the countryside looking for Famous Five style adventures. (Once we did find some stolen treasure, but that’s another story). We built dens and campfires and cycled or walked for miles only coming back when we were hungry, but these days children have nothing like this freedon. Our worries about traffic and stranger danger mean we keep our children where we can see them. TV and computer games keep them occupied indoors and experiences outside the home are often prescribed and controlled; dance classes, swimming lessons and visits to the shops. There seems little space and time for children to play freely and invent their own stories, so its no wonder some are not inspired to write. Read the rest of this entry »
Glorious Mud
How muddy is too muddy? Forest school programmes run all year round and given our British climate we are lucky to be able to experience a wide range of weathers from hot and sunny to damp and rainy, often all in the same day. We’re outside a good chunk of the day so whatever the weather is doing, we feel it first hand and encounter its effects whether its slippy surfaces, a breezy fire or steam rising from your wellies. Last week I ran a session in the snow with some pre-school teachers and we enjoyed exploring the play possibilities it offered, such as making footprints and slides. I love the fact that the drama of the changing seasons mean that sites never look the same from one visit to the next. Read the rest of this entry »
The Sky at Night
I’ve been scanning the skies for any sign of aurora borealis, which was predicted to make a rare appearence above the UK this week. I’ve seen some amazing recent pictures taken up in Scotland. However a good helping of cloud and the ambient light pollution in our part Yorkshire are making sure the only northern light we can see is the orange glow of Bradford street lighting. This wasn’t the case when I was down in Herefordshire at the weekend. England’s least populated county has virtually no light pollution making stargazing on a clear night child’s play. Read the rest of this entry »
The Great Escape
I love Christmas, but as the big day gets nearer I start to wonder if I love the idea of it rather than the reality. Its such a busy time of year, with a month full of concerts, fairs, Christmas shopping and and trying to tie up work so you can take some time off. The joy of the season just seems to be lost when you’re stuck in a crowd at the overheated shopping centre listening to Slade on an endless loop. It would just be nice to spend some peaceful time with your family instead of rushing around ticking off lists.
We had this in mind when we proposed a family Christmas craft session in the woods. Read the rest of this entry »
Fighting Talk
Should we be encouraging children to fight? Both forest school programmes I ran this week slipped happily into war games without any injury or incident and all the kids seemed to relish the opportunity to attack, defend, chase and outwit their enemies in the course of a day playing in the woods. I never advocate people physically hurting each other, but it seems to me that the need to play war is as natural to children as den building and climbing trees and to deny them the opportunity is to deny an instinct that goes back to our evolutionary roots. Read the rest of this entry »
Staying In
I always think of autumn as a time of new beginnings. It doesn’t have the clean slate factor of 1 January or the bursting-into-new-life feel of spring, but there is something about the change of season from summer to autumn that feels like a fresh start. I suppose its all those years of going back to school in September that gets me thinking about the year ahead and significant changes in my life all happened in autumn. As this season has turned around it feels like a time of big change too. The Creative Partnerships creative learning programme I have worked on for the last 3 years has come to a close and I am now focusing all my time on developing my business, Get Out More. Up to now this has only been half of my income but now its time for the outdoor work to stand on its own two feet and be self supporting, so I’m working hard to build up my business. Great that I’ve picked the middle of an economic downturn to do this! Read the rest of this entry »
In the Green
Making things from the resources we find in the woods is a big feature of forest schools and coming from an arts background I like to bring a bit of creativity into the sessions. Last week I was at a holiday club in Bradford and enjoyed working with the kids to make natural pictures, willow sculptures and ‘boggarts’, woodland creatures made of clay. But the session we ran today was in a whole new league and a very exciting new development. At our last forest school in June some of the older boys asked us if we could use the tools more and create things from wood. So when I recently bumped into an old friend who told me he was getting into green woodworking, I told him about our St Ives forest school group in Bingley and he kindly agreed to come along. Jonas and Jim make very fine furniture (www.daedalianfurniture.co.uk) but in their spare time are enjoying getting back to the roots of wood working and discovering the pleasures of making pieces from green (recently cut and unseasoned) wood, without the use of powertools and electrical machinery. Read the rest of this entry »
Playing Out
I’m always amazed at how much creative energy children have. You don’t have to tell them to create something, it just happens naturally when you give them the space to be themselves. Wouldn’t it be great to come up with and carry out all these fantastic ideas when you got together with your friends in the park or pub, instead of sitting there chatting? The trouble is, how much time do we let children really be the directors of their own play before they’re told to stop it, put it down and come inside? Read the rest of this entry »
Growing Up in the Woods
When children are coming back to the woods again and again, you can really start to see how they have grown. We’ve been working with the same children at St Ives woodland every school holiday for nearly a year now and some of that growth is literal -they’re taller every time they come back! But much of the growth is from the inside as they demonstrate increased abilities to co-operate, communicate and problem-solve. Our St Ives group is very mixed in terms of age and ability but they all work together and help each other out. The really rewarding thing is seeing how much their belief their own abilities impacts on their belief in themselves. Read the rest of this entry »
