As education settings continue to evolve, the benefits associated with play have been highlighted, including the important element of risky play. While it is essential for schools to continue to prioritize safety, it is also understood that trying to eliminate risk from physical activity is not only challenging but can hinder the development of important and lifelong skills for students. This approach supports the Ontario Curriculum’s emphasis on play-based and outdoor learning opportunities, which are integral ways to nurture the whole child and prepare students to navigate the complexities of the world around them.
Research, including the Canadian Paediatric Society’s position statement, Healthy childhood development through outdoor risky play: Navigating the balance with injury prevention highlights the significant benefits associated with risky play, including its role in fostering physical and social/emotional health. Risky play is also often associated with activities outdoors or in nature because these settings offer many challenging and creative opportunities for physical activity. (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024)
Benefits of Risky Play
The Canadian Paediatric Society defines risky play as "thrilling and exciting free play that involves uncertain outcomes and the possibility of physical injury." (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024). This type of play is essential for children's physical, mental, and social development. Some key benefits include:
Physical Development: Enhances motor skills and physical strength through activities such as climbing, jumping, and balancing.
Social Development: Encourages teamwork, communication, and conflict resolution through group activities like team sports and cooperative games.
Social-Emotional Development: Builds resilience and perseverance by allowing children to navigate challenges in a supportive environment.
Emotional Regulation: Helps children manage fear, frustration, and disappointment by exposing them to uncertainty in a safe, supervised setting.
The Canadian Pediatric Society’s Position Statement also highlights the importance of being aware of the significant difference between a “risk” and a “hazard”.
- A risk arises in situations where a child can recognize and evaluate the challenge and decide on a course of action based on personal preference and self-perceived skill. For example, how high to go on a high ropes course or how fast to ski down a slope.
- A hazard is posed by situations where the potential for injury is beyond the child’s capacity to recognize it as such or to manage it. For example, an improperly anchored slide could topple under a child’s weight, or a rotten tree limb may break. (Beaulieu & Beno, 2024)
Exploring Opportunities to Integrate Risky Play in the School Setting
Risky play fosters physical, social, and emotional development while teaching students essential risk management skills.
Risky play in school settings should:
- Include Opportunities for Uncertainty and Risk Awareness
- Provide students with proactive strategies to prevent injuries and prepare them to make their own decisions and respond to injuries sustained during physical activity.
- Encourage Participation in Thrilling and Confidence-Building Activities
- Provide opportunities for students to participate in a variety of unstructured, student-led activities that include choice helping to develop self-confidence.
- Ensure evidence-based and mandated safety measures (e.g., helmets, life jackets/PFDs) are consistently in place.
- Consider Age, Ability, and Experience
- Allow student opportunities to lead activities, develop independence, decision-making, and risk assessment skills appropriate to their age and ability.
- Ensure effective supervision throughout all stages of the activity, giving students as much room to make their own decisions on whether to engage in risky activities.
- Teach Safe Decision-Making and Risk Identification
- Teach students to recognize risks and understand mitigating factors to manage those risks, then step back to allow student-led decisions.
- Foster an environment where students lead their play, are allowed to make their own decisions, are not pressured or coerced into taking risks beyond their comfort level.
By integrating structured supervision alongside unstructured, child-led play, proactive injury prevention strategies, and clear safety guidelines, educators can create a balanced approach - allowing students to experience the benefits of risky play while minimizing unnecessary dangers.
Using the Ontario Physical Activity Safety Standards in Education (OPASSE) to Balance Student Safety and Risky Play
In Ontario, the OPASSE provide safety standards for a wide range of physical activities that can help educators encourage and support risky play. OPASSE recognizes that all physical activities have inherent risk and uses a risk assessments/management approach instead of a strictly risk-averse approach.
Planning and preparation are important elements of unstructured play. To provide safe and inclusive opportunities for unstructured play it is important for an educator to be aware of and identify the potential risks along with the safety standards that can be used to help mitigate these risks. This allows for educators to include a wider range of physical activities that contribute to a student’s overall development.
These steps can help balance the selection and implementation of a wider range of physical activities while mitigating the inherent risks associated with the activities:
- Foster a Learning Environment that Encourages Student-Led, Unstructured Play and Risk-Taking
- Provide ongoing communication with students about the difference between risky and dangerous play, the importance of safety and the strategies to identify and monitor risk.
- Provide opportunities for students to develop the skills to assess and manage risks emphasizing problem-solving, decision-making, and safety awareness in physical activities.
- Provide students with positive reinforcement and constructive feedback, helping students understand how they can include risk management strategies in future activities.
- Inform students not to coerce or pressure students that may be reluctant to participate.
- Implement the Safety Standards and Tools & Resources Effectively
- Prior to an activity, assess the skills/abilities of the students and the potential risk associated with the equipment, facilities, and the environment.
- Provide time and opportunity for students to self-assess their skills/ abilities and comfort.
- OPASSE provides safety standards that can help identify the potential risks and mitigate risks associated with an activity.
- Conduct routine inspections of playing areas, equipment, and surroundings to identify potential hazards.
- Ensure that equipment is well-maintained and that the environment is safe for students to engage in physically challenging activities.
- Ensure that there is adequate supervision during all physical activities.
- OPASSE identifies different types of supervision for different components of activities based on the element of risk associated with the activity.
- Select Activities that are Age/Stage-Appropriate
- Ensure that the activities selected are age/stage-appropriate and provide incremental challenges to allow for students to gradually progress to more complex activities that include appropriate levels of risk and the necessary safeguards.
- Recognize that students will have varying levels of ability and comfort with risky activities. Allow students to self-assess and challenge themselves while also having the option to participate in less risky alternatives.
- Engage in discussions with students about what risks they’re comfortable with can help them make their own assessments of their skills, understand and respect the boundaries.
- Establish Open Communication about Risk and Safety
- Increase awareness of the benefits associated with risky play.
- Encourage students to identify, assess, and manage inherent risks associated with various physical activities. As well as reflect on their experiences and discuss what went well, what they learned, and the strategies that helped them manage potential risks.
- Communicate the elements of risks associated with physical activity with parents/guardians as well as the steps being taken to prioritize student safety.
Including these steps as part of the planning, implementation and review of physical activities can support educators to successfully encourage risky play while aligning with Ontario's Physical Activity Safety Standards in Education. This approach ensures that students achieve the benefit associated with risky play while minimizing the chances of injury and harm.
Risky play is not about exposing children to unnecessary dangers but rather about allowing them to navigate age- and ability-appropriate challenges in a supportive and effectively supervised environment. By aligning with risk management frameworks like the Ontario Physical Activity Safety Standards in Education and embracing insights from Canadian research, schools can create enriching experiences that promote safety, growth, and lifelong participation in a wide range of physical activities.
References
Beaulieu, E., & Beno, S. (2024). Healthy childhood development through outdoor risky play: Navigating the balance with injury prevention. Paediatrics & Child Health, 29(4), 255–261. https://cps.ca/en/documents/position/outdoor-risky-play