Risk and Benefit in Outdoor Learning

The framing that works

Not risk assessment but risk benefit assessment. Every activity has a hazard and a benefit, and removing the hazard usually removes the benefit with it.

A knife has a hazard. It also has the benefit of a child learning to handle a sharp tool, which they will need to do at some point in their life, ideally supervised rather than unsupervised at fourteen.

What to write down

Hazard, who is exposed, what could realistically happen, what reduces it, who is responsible, and what the benefit is.

The benefit column is the one usually missing, and it is the one that lets you defend an activity rather than only justify it.

The risks people worry about

Insects, dirt, mud, strangers, plants, water. Some are real and most are managed by ordinary supervision.

The risks that actually cause harm

Heat and dehydration, which are underestimated almost everywhere warm. Sun. Falling objects, including fruit in the tropics. Traffic on the way there. Water, always.

A risk note that covers heat and traffic and omits stinging nettles is a serious document. One that does the reverse is not.

The evidence on managed risk

Children who are never allowed to encounter risk do not become safer. They become less able to judge it, and the judgement has to be learned somewhere.

How to present it to a school

Bring the note unprompted, before you are asked. Doing that signals that you are not going to create a problem, which is what is actually being assessed.

Related

Keeping Children Safe Outdoors and One Adult, Twenty Five Children.