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A sensible approach to risk

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August 26, 2025

Outward-bound type holidays.

BY CHRIS SOUTHWELL

In response to Pauline’s Place, The Informer 12th August page 2, I would like to relate some of the events of my 34 years as a sports’ teacher, mostly at a girl’s school in London.

In 1977, a year after I joined the school, we took a group of girls and boys aged 10 and 11 to North Wales for an “Outward Bound” type of holiday. Two relevant incidents occurred as we went for a tramp around Snowdon 1085m. First: we were going up a steep grassy section when a 10-year-old girl lost her footing and started tumbling down the mountain. Fortunately, one of the adults was about 15 metres below and caught her: a little bruised, but no real harm. Later that day we were all clambering up a cliff face. As we went, I and another teacher called to the group above us to take care as they were showering us with earth and pebbles. At the top, the group waited for everyone to assemble, as the last person, a teacher, stepped off the huge boulder that everyone had climbed onto as they reached the top. It dislodged and went crashing down the cliff.

In 34 years of teaching there have been about half a dozen serious injuries – a broken collar bone, a wrist fracture, a lacrosse ball hitting a girl in the mouth (before mouthguards were recommended). This last example turned out to be fortunate, as when the dentist examined her teeth the following day, they had been knocked back into the position he was about to give an orthodontic brace for, which was rendered redundant. The only one giving long term problems was the wrist fracture.

I took three groups of girls on lacrosse tours of New York State. The first in 1991 was organised by a tour company, no mishaps and an excellent trip. The girls were accommodated in homes of the various pupils of the schools we played against. No vetting of the accommodation; we just enjoyed wonderful hospitality added to which we came home undefeated!

The second trip I organised in 1999; we stayed in a country mansion belonging to a sister organisation of the school’s founders. We travelled from JFK to the residence and from there to all the venues in minibuses hired from ‘Nearly New Rental’. Again, no problems and a great trip including going white water rafting in the Adirondack Mountains on the river Moose, level 4, which was the limit they would take groups of 13, 14 and 15 year olds on.

Then at the turn of the millennium everything changed. Health and safety, best practice, risk assessments, and child protection took over. In the education sector the phrase that kept occurring was ‘If it saves one child from…….’ If it saves one child from bruising their knee everyone in society can suffer the restrictions some new best practice dictates.

Then in 2005 I took an even younger group. Like the second trip I organised it, but this time it had to be fully risk assessed. Pages and pages of paper trail were produced by me for the event. When the health and safety officer went through it with me, I pointed out that the previous trip we had gone into the mountains and had stopped to play in the snow. He said that sort of thing is no problem you just dynamically risk assess. To which I responded that that was what I had been doing all my career, and no one had come to any serious harm. I was criticised for many things on that trip none of which were my fault, for instance the Health and Safety officer said I should not fly to New York and immediately drive a minibus full of children to a venue 2 hours away. So I had to hire a coach to take us and rent minibuses from a local company near where we were staying – Rent-a-Wreck!! And that’s what they were, I was criticised for their quality – Whose fault was it?

The net effect of all of this was that I took early retirement because of the agro and mindless adherence to this attempt to create an antiseptic environment in which no child could ever come to harm. There was no longer any room for spontaneity. For example, I was teaching Religious Studies to a group of girls, and we came to the chapter on the Russian Orthodox Church. It came to mind that Moscow Road was about a mile from the school, and I was a minibus driver. I could take the girls to the Church in Moscow Road, and they could see a Russian Orthodox Church in the flesh. AHH but. I would have had to do a risk assessment and get it approved by the Safety Officer. I would have had to send a letter to all their parents to get permission to take them off site. That letter would have had to be approved by the head teacher…….. We didn’t go!

I will end with a sensible approach to risk. The Headmistress of a primary school wrote to the parents saying, ‘In the grounds of the school are trees, it is our policy to allow the children to climb them if they wish. If this is a problem for you do feel free to take your children away.’