Staffing Outdoors

[Guest]

Our outdoor play area has been revamped. We now have french doors from the classroom into the playground. Our head says we dont need to have a staff member outside now as we can see the children from the classroom. However i'm a bit weary - what do others do?

[Susan]

I think if your head says this is ok, you should go with it but whether or not you need an adult out there will depend on the way that you are using it and the activities that are being offered.

If you are free flowing, you will need to adjust your staffing to reflect the needs of the children and if the children need an adult to extend their play the obviously you will need an adult outside!

[alis2son]

And who will be the first parent to sue the school for neglect?

 

I think that its all very well for the Head to take responsibility but its on your consience if it goes wrong and thats not vey fair. I would find out where Ofsted and health and safety stand on this before making a decision.

[Deb]

Will watch this with interest as we are about to have the same thing, french doors to outside. We are a pre-school so a bit different but I was wondering if it would be OK to have only 1 member of staff outside!

[Guest Wolfie]

I would definitely want a member of staff outside if there were children outside, I would consider that they weren't being properly supervised without one.

[Andreamay]

Deb

we are a pre-school with doors to outside and we stick to the ratio so if 8 or less 3-4yr olds out there then one member ok but staff will come and go as the children do.We do limit the children though because it isnt a particular big garden and we found 24 children out restricted how they played.

[Marion]

We used to work without an adult outside unless it was for a focused activity and never had an accident then we got new governors who insisted there should always be an adult outside and since then we have had two! We are due to get an enclosed gazebo built (doors and windows) and the governors argue that a teacher working with a group of inside the gazebo is "outdoors" while a teacher working in the classroom with the same view is "indoors"! Work that one out!! :(

[Guest]

I have an enclosed courtyard off my classroom (no french doors, just an ordinary door and medium height windows) and ofsted have been in and said it's perfectly ok for children to be out there on their own. The majority of time there is an adult out there but if 29 of the chn are inside and one out it means that myself and my NN can stay inside with the majority rather than one of us going out with just one child. Although I do find if we do go out with just a couple of chn then the majority of the chn tend to follow. My chn are Reception age. I do think that this is reasonable as accidents happen to chn inside and outside and depending on your classroom you will not always be able to see all your chn at any one time so I do not think that chn being out on their own for short periods is a problem. My indoor area is very large with lots of almost mini-rooms which the chn absolutely love but it does mean I cannot possibly see all chn at any one time so I do not see any difference with them being outside on thier own for short periods. If I had an extra adult I would certainly have somebody outside all the time but I find this impossible with just two of us.