Physical freedom at school

[2to3]

My kids go to a school that follows the scandinavian system. They spend lots of time outdoors all year and are allowed to run around, get muddy, hide in the bushes and climb trees. Is this unusual compared with an English primary school, or does it vary? We're debating changing them over at some point, but them having physical freedom is really important to us and I get the impression health and safety rules maybe wouldn't allow for this sort of activity.

Moved from overseas to UK and the difference physically for my children is astounding. I get the feeling our school is caught up in H&S. In winter they spent many consecutive days inside due to the snow, rain and H&S.

Each year group, when overseas, had their own play equipment / climbing frame, flying fox, rope ladders etc. Everyone talks about being developed academically but I feel more could be done to develop children physically (with this there are other benefits such as emotional wellbeing, concentration and so on). I used to love that the children would all go to the school oval for 15 minutes after registration to prepare them for the day ahead. Perhaps this still isn't the type of physical freedom your kids are used to but it's still way more than the UK in my experience.

To balance it out though there are things that schools in the UK do very well and we use our free time to be as active / outdoorsy as we can.

In my dc's last school, things like doing cartwheels, handstands and such were prohibited.
I can't imagine tree climbing would be actively encouraged tbh.

I know in our school it sometimes isn't the school or children that scupper more outside activity, but the parents. Many parents don't send their children to school suitably dressed for the weather conditions - rain, snow or shine.
When their DCs scuff their new shoes, have wet socks, graze their knees etc, the parents are straight to the HT and writing to the governors.

I think the extent of such freedom depends a lot on the school and is well worth asking about when you look around. Ours is on quite a big site, built into a hill, with a little bit of "woodland" (scrub, really) along one side. The woods get used during class time for forest school-type activities, but only once in a blue moon. There is a trim trail, which is used on a rota - one class at a time - not a general free-for-all. When we had lots of snow, sledging was positively encouraged, which surprised me.

Personally, I'd love it if they did much, much more than the above. But I think their school is less H&S-obsessed than many

"I get the impression health and safety rules maybe wouldn't allow for this sort of activity."

No but it's a good excuse isn't it
You will probably find parents attitude is the biggest obstacle .
We've spent a lot of time and effort developing our outdoors, planting trees, developing wild areas, log piles, two allotments, outdoor classrooms. We do woodland school activities and our children do survival training which involves building shelters, trapping and cooking their own food, building bridges and rope swings and working together.

We work closely with www.thrillsandskillsforlife.com/Skills/Skills/bushcraft_north.html ( from nursery to Y6)

We do Forest School in YR and KS1 in the local woods. Children climb trees, cook, use tools, wallow in mud - stuff like that.

Talk to school's you are considering, but also beware that a change of head can change things. DCs school spends a lot of time outside, another school bought 30 pairs of Wellys so every child goes outside even in wet weather, a local private school lets kids climb trees and refused to paint white lines for "climb no higher".
A lot of things which are blamed go health and safety seem to just be a very risk adverse head/teachers.

My family are from Germany and there the schools are definitely more outdoorsy than here.

BUT I completely agree with the PP who said that it has a lot to do with the kids not having suitable clothes with them! Firstly the uniform system here means a lot of kids are in skirts/shorts etc even in cold weather and as a nation, we are just not all that good at kitting our kids out in bad weather!

In Germany every kid owns a rain suit (and probably a snow suit) and they put these on over their clothes to go out. They usually take their outdoor shoes off in school and put on "slippers" for indoors too which means they can get muddy as much as they want.

My Scandinavian and German family and friends are often appalled at what we send our kids out in. Wellies in snow, no waterproofs, bare legs in winter etc etc.

My kids school drives me mad
Not allowed outside at all if it's raining, or looks like it may rain
Not allowed on grass if it's wet (were in uk it's usually wet)
Small paved area for play
No skipping ropes (or indeed skipping)
No running
no jumping

My 2 dd have been ok as usually go on park b4 school
We wait to see how ds copes on September

Parents need to stop sueing when Tarquin or Kyle falls over and breaks his arm on the yard because he was ... running.

I get the bit about parents attitudes. When one boy fell out of a tree and broke his arm last year, his mum said several of the teachers had thanked her for not blaming the school. She said she'd rather her son goes to a school that allows tree climbing and risk a broken arm than one where no risks are allowed. Some of the other parents might not have felt that relaxed about it. Good to know it varies from school to school.

I'm sorry to go a bit off topic, but mrz, trapping and cooking their own food?

What do they trap?

Pigeons and rabbits but they also ate worm omelette

at worm omelette. Sorry but bleurgh!

They actually asked for seconds and thirds ... not sure I would eat it no matter how hungry ... our lovely DH bravely tried it ... her class were really impressed.

I'm impressed-that's one thing mine definitely have not done. But they'd love to though