Outdoor nursery's future threatened by hand washing rules

Lucy White enjoys climbing a tree at the Secret Garden (reproduced with permission of Alex White)

I've written angrily before about common sense being flung out the window when it comes to "child safety". Despite my own over-anxiety as a mum, I realise that swaddling children in red tape is neither sensible nor effective.

I've recently been made aware of another example of over zealousness on this issue and this time it's personal because it affects some of my favourite people in the World.

My friend Alex sends her four year old daughter Evie to an outdoor nursery in Fife called the Secret Garden. Every Thursday, Evie and her classmates walk a mile and a half into the nearby woods and spend the whole day there. Her older sister, Lucy, who's six, went for 6 months before she started school last year. Alex says that she can see the benefits in both girls:

 I've found that they get a whole heap of confidence in themselves from challenging themselves and pushing their boundaries physically in the forest. There's a certain glow and a glint in their eyes that they've both had after a day in the woods, and it's not just a healthy glow from being outdoors - they shine from the inside! Secret Garden is a completly different experience to regular nursery - not only is it permanently outdoors, but it's truly child led, with the staff really just overseeing their activities - it's nomadic too with the children's input into which part of the woods they visit being highly respected.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the Secret Garden's existence is under threat because  Health Protection Scotland  has produced a report which states that children in an outdoor play environment should wash their hands under running water with soap several times a day.  These times include:

 after toiletting and nappy changing; before and after eating anything; before drinking; after sneezing, coughing, or blowing their noses; whenever the hands are visibly dirty; before going home. These seem to me to be guidelines which would be completely impractical in a classroom setting. Can you imagine a teacher with a class of 20 kids having to make sure that they all went off to the toilet to wash their hands with soap every time they coughed or sneezed or blew their nose? How disruptive would that be? The kids would never learn anything.

The thing about the forest is that there aren't many sinks around the place so the staff currently use things like hand gel and wipes to clean the children's hands. Given that they reach their woodland destination on foot, it just would not be either reasonable or practicable to expect them to carry water as well as all the things they need for the day.

For some years now, scientists have been concerned that our obsession with cleanliness, and shielding ourselves from every possible sort of bacteria, can do more harm than good. In order for children's immune systems to develop, they need to be exposed to germs.  

I came across this excellent article from the Guardian from a few weeks ago which makes the case for projects like the Secret Garden,, arguing that our obsession with cleanliness and our anxiety that there's a paedophile behind every tree harms our children because they're not getting the chance to learn about nature or about their ow boundaries. The article quotes naturalist Stephen Moss:

"Nature is a tool,to get children to experience not just the wider world, but themselves." So climbing a tree, he says, is about "learning how to take responsibility for yourself, and how – crucially – to measure risk for yourself. Falling out of a tree is a very good lesson in risk and reward."

When my husband was a little boy, he spent loads of time playing unsupervised in the forest. He'd disappear after breakfast and return home when he was hungry. He actually went, shock horror, collecting mushrooms because he'd been taught by his mum which were edible and which were poisonous. She was always delighted when he came back with a bag of edible fungi for their breakfast. I strongly suspect that he went from morning till night without washing his hands on more than one occasion.

One of my best friends and her brother were brought up on a farm and they used to disappear off with a picnic in the morning and re-appear at tea-time. They played unsupervised in streams, climbed trees and did all sorts of "dangerous" things that would make many modern parents' hair curl in fright. In contrast, my knowledge of the natural world is shockingly bad partly because I never had those opportunities as a child.

It's in response to concerns such as those expressed by Stephen Moss that the Scottish Government has been supporting the initiatives which encourage outdoor education.  I was amazed to find that there are learning resources which support outdoor learning even at secondary level. Have a look at the depth of information in  this Scottish workshop on biodiversity, suitable for teaching at all ages.

It would be grim if projects such as the Secret Garden, recognised as valuable by one arm of Government, was shut down by another. I think they need to look at the risks in the context of the benefits to the whole child. Otherwise they risk throwing the child out with the hand washing water.

And then there's the issue of parental choice. Alex feels her views, and her ability to assess for herself the risks and benefits involved are not being considered. She's made the decision to send her daughters to this nursery for a reason:

For me, this issue is highly frustrating as I am Evie's parent, I am aware fully of the risks and benefits of the Secret Garden, and I am making the informed choice to send her there. But that appears to count for absolutely nothing!!

I hope that common sense prevails and Health Protection Scotland and the Care Commission do not consign the Secret Garden, and other pioneering facilities like it, to history. I understand that they have a number of experts on their side willing to argue their case, which is encouraging.

If, like me, you want to support the Secret Garden, follow them on Twitter to keep up to date with what's happening and contact them to express support or offer help.