Why don't they let the kids play out in the rain?

[mumnosbest]

I teach F1 and 2 and we have to provide outdoor activities whatever the weather. The kids all bring wellies and waterproofs and love playing out in the puddles (even though sometimes us teachers don't).
DS is in Y2 further up school and on rainy days comes out hyper after being kept in all day, jumps in every puddle on the way home and goes straight out to play in the garden.
If we have to allow our younger more delicate little darlings to play in the rain/snow/wind, then why can't the older kids. I'd happily provide waterproofs, Y2s can dress much more quickly than F! and 2s. Are the KS1&2 teachers just nesh? (ducks and hides)

Well in my school, despite the rain we're having, I tried to take a class for a short walk to the library. 5 out of 29 had NO coat at all. Around half had non-waterproof coats/ no hoods or brolly. Shoes for girls were invariably ballet pump style and some boys had holes/ canvas plimsolls etc.

We are reasonably affluent if you're wondering.

That's why we stay inside, as we'd need double the amount of people on duty to supervise the 25-50% inside with totally unsuitable clothing. In the event of children being dressed properly I'd much rather be stood outside under my massive gold umbrella and at least 6 layers than facing the stress of bored children making huge amounts of mess to clear up and attempting to roam corridors and pretend I can see through walls whilst trying to watch children in many rooms. Or watching another bloody old bear video with them.

As a teacher I would far rather stand in the rain than have them in!

I live in an affluent area and 5 out of 29 without a coat would be fairly normal.

Our school has the children out in ALL weather, but saying that, our school stays open through 4ft of snow and also provides all-weather clothing and wellies to any children who haven't got them on the day since the weather here changes by the minute. We had snow yesterday btw. It was raining so hard at one point u had to change my pants when i got home from school and I was wearing suitable clothing :o

We have fundraised for totally waterproof kit for Forest School (YR.KS1) and children go out all weathers except high wind and lightning. (The wetter the weather, the better the clay to play with in the woods! We had to hose them down yesterday when they got back to school!)

teacherwith2kids if you want a recommendation for waterproofs, these are brilliant:
dungarees
jacket

DD2 at nursery and is out in all weathers . DD1 is KS2 and is kept in, she'd be fine but I've seen loads of children walking to school this week without coats or wellies despite the rain. I don't see how you could allow a class out when many of them would just get soaked. I don't get it, why would you allow your child to be soggy all day at school?

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not up for that many parenting awards but I do manage to put mine in raincoats and wellies when it's raining or if rain is forecast later in the day.

I picked dd1 up from CM's one evening last week and she was perfectly dry, two or three of the other children were steaming a bit - one had to walk home in trainers that were still wringing wet.

On reflection, I think there is one good reason for no coat/wellies... "If you won't put your goddam coat on you can just bloody well get wet then [anger]"

my kids get dragged out in the rain at their school in whatever they come in

we are discouraged from bringing in wellies etc as school has a vortex for belongings where almost everyone i know has lost more than one item of clothing-ds has even lost socks!

umm am pretty sure you dont catch a cold from getting wet, its a virus tha makes you ill.

i have had a similar debate in aibu on my own thread aibu to think they CAN go outside for PE even if its raining?! as in my ds1s high school they have not been doing pe if it rains, they have even stayed in and watched films such as james bond instead i am pleased to report that plenty said YES they can go out and do PE in the rain but there were some posters who didnt want their little darlings getting wet (rolls eyes)

seriously my kids get wrapped up, my ds2 is 9 and not a fan of a coat, he has an extra thick jumper but changes it if he gets wet, his choice, tho i always pack a waterproof in his school bag so he has the option, we have plastic storgae boxes in ds3's cloakroom specifically for wellies and ds2 has space under his peg to put a pair of wellies.

i was thrilled the day i turned up when there was snow and instead of being in lessons the whole school was out on the field, teachers, ht etc and they were building snowman, playing on sledges and a part of the field had been marked out for snowball fights for those that wanted to throw snowballs!

Love those waterproof clothing links mumblesmum. Great to get a class set. I know some children have appropriate clothing, but very few, so we would need a full set.

Then I did the calculations ...
£682.50 for a class set of dungarees
£742.50 for a class set of jackets
= £1425.00 per class
Four full classes per year X 3 years (Infants school) = 12 X £1425 = over £17,000 + wellies.

Wow! Can't see school or PTA funding that

You forgot to factor in the cost of storage facilities and drying rooms.

I don't think a school would pay tax - take off 20%. Maybe they would do a discount for a bulk order... If buying a full set, buy one set per year, or have a push on proper clothing and start by buying a half class set?

We there's a will...

liveinazoo my son lost 2 pairs of trousers in a week ...it happens annoying especially when other parents don't return what is clearly not their property but hardly a reason to keep children indoors.

www.nhs.uk/Livewell/coldsandflu/Pages/Preventionandcure.aspx

Getting cold or wet

The only thing that can cause a cold or flu is a cold or flu virus. Getting cold and/or wet won?t give you a cold. However, if you are already carrying the virus in your nose, it might allow symptoms to develop.

our dungarees look very similar but didn't cost anything like that price!
Our wellies were a pound a pair

yes my kids lose stuff at school as well, i always make sure its clearly labelled but we dont always get it back, it is a pita but its part of school life, we are currently down a pair of trousers and a jumper

i am pretty sure you can get all weather stuff cheaper than that ^^ we have had some for the boys that wasnt that expensive and if a school are buying in bulk, or even several schools getting together then they should be able to wrangle a good discount, plus they may get away without paying tax as another poster has said.

i just think kids SHOULD be out even if its wet, cold, snowy etc, we live in the UK the weather isnt perfect all the time and as long as children are dresed appropriately its fine. i spoke to a mum at a toddler group about this and she was saying in norway etc they children are out for a minimum 2hrs a day even in proper bad weather, snow etc, they all have fleeces and waterproofs etc and its fine, i do think that some in the UK have a bit of a wimpish attitude to the weather, children wont melt if they get wet!

We take about 90 children to the woods every week (YR and KS1) in groups of 15. We bought about 10 sets of the smallest size, 20 sets of the middle size and 10 sets of the largest size, making 40 sets in total (so £50x40 - £2000). We put all money from any KS1/YR venture into it (nativity, cake sales, sponsored activities) and the PTA gave us £1000.
We have been doing FS every week for the past two years (nearly 3000 child trips!) and have only had to replace 5 pairs of dungarees. They are brilliant. No water gets in at all.

Oh and they're roomy enough for winter coats to fit inside the dungarees, so in the winter the children are toasty warm AND bone dry. We haven't had one complaint about the cold....ever.

Mumbles, as i say, we have one class set of waterproofs for forest school, which are brilliant - but the leader takes them home to hose down and dry as we can't even dry a class set at school as we literally use every inch of space about 3x over (the corridor / library / spare clothes store / intervention area / photocopier and printer area for example .... 5 functions for an area less than 20 feet long and about 6 feet wide at its widest point!)

For the whole school to go out at playtime we would need 100 sets ....

And at least 100 sets of wellies.

And space to dry 100 sets of wet waterproofs....

Sorry, that's me going off at a tangent as usual - getting overly enthusiastic again! We don't use them at playtime! We just let them wear their own stuff then. We have 40 sets for the use of 180 KS1/YR children ONLY at Forest School.
Just ignore me!!!

When we have planned outdoor activities we go out in all weathers except strong wind, or if the activity is unsafe (trimtrail if icy).

I'm not convinced, for all the costings above, we should spend limited school resources and space on hundreds of wet weather clothing sets. More critically, we have limited lunchtime staff cover-so we either need all the children in or all the children out. We can't have an indoor and an outdoor group, unless we employ extra lunchtime cover permanently to handle the days when there is wet weather.

So, unless ALL the children are appropriately equipped to go outside and then come in again, no children go out. If they were all so equipped, I can't think of a single member of staff who wouldn't rather have outside.

I work at DS's school as an MTA.

If its drizzle we expect the children to put coats on and go outside- if its chucking it down we have to endure wet play in classrooms.

When you ask a class full of children to put coats on you can bet
2 will say they do not have a coat

• one really will not have a coat

-a 3rd will have left their coat on a bench in teh playground all morning and it is now sopping wet, inside and out. -a 4th- 10th will have a coat, but not coat that is waterproof, or has a hood. -11-20 will refuse to put their hoods up, even tho they are girls with long hair, now wet and ratty. 21-29 will get on with playing football, or chase and will quickly have sodden trousers/ tights/ skirts as they fall dramaticly to the ground and die a heros death/ save a goal. -number 30 will be a child who walks to school and appears 10 minutes later dressed in waterproof trousers, coat and wellies. Sadly there is only ever one of these children per class.

This means that even in drizzle they return to class rather damp socked. If its raining much harder than drizzle All 30 would be wet through below the waist in 5 mins and have to spend the rest of the day in wet clothes.

We have something like this www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/7058316/c_1/1|category_root|Garden+and+DIY|14418702/c_2/2|14418702|Sheds%2C+greenhouses+and+storage|14418827/c_3/3|cat_14418827|Plastic+sheds+and+storage|14418828.htm to store wellies of course it means some don't end up with matching pairs but no one seems to mind or come to any harm.

We have exactly the same type of thing for Forest School wellies - that's one part of the kit that we don't have a problem storing.

It's just the prospect of 5x as many pairs, plus the 100 full body waterproof suits - which is what we'd need for the whole school to go out in the wet at playtime - that I can't see how to store.

Interesting thread. I wish they would go out more in the rain too. DS listened open mouthed when I told him that in Sweden they play out in the rain all the time with the "no bad weather, just bad clothes" idea. The whole system is set up for it though, parents have to provide the clothing and I think there is a drying room. It is not an option not to have the clothes! We need a change of culture...tricky!

ours fold up into small packs and fit into units like this www.mesdirect.com/Content/Files/images/legacy/TTS/EY00615.jpg in the entrance porch