Remember conkers? Kids would gather those fallen horse-chestnuts littering the ground in their spiny green cases. Holes were drilled, strings or laces threaded, and battle commenced.
You don’t see conkers much nowadays. Perhaps children prefer more sophisticated digital battles on screen. But only a few years ago, newspapers of a particular persuasion regularly lambasted primary headteachers for banning conker-fighting on grounds of health and safety.
My childhood was punctuated by crazes for conker-fighting or making paper aeroplanes: I remember being constantly told off and warned, “You’ll have someone’s eye out with that!” Health and safety culture was yet to be born: but there was a lot of adult telling-off about the potential for ocular injury - not that I ever witnessed an eye poked out.
You’ll see where I’m going. Snowballing. Where does your school stand?
I’m with ASCL general secretary Geoff Barton on the subject. Like him, I never presume to tell heads what to do: but, also like him, I reckon snow, the cause of miserable journeys to school and work, conversely offers endless fun for kids. Perhaps I was lucky (again like Geoff), having sufficient space to turf students outside to enjoy snowman-building and epic snowball fights.
Some colleagues would disapprove, warning of eye-damage (plus ça change) and observing (accurately) that, by the end of lunchtime, everything gets a bit out of hand. Little ones would be reported as cold, wet and tearful: so I’d don hat and coat, venture onto the field and break it up. But, hey, it only lasted a couple of days: the fun was over for another year.
That was my choice - and heads must be allowed to make those choices. So I felt sorry this week for Ges Smith, a headteacher in Dagenham, East London, who didn’t want his pupils snowballing, on health and safety grounds: keeping the rule simple, and therefore enforceable, he forbade pupils even to touch the snow.
BBC Radio 4’s PM programme put Mr Smith up against a primary head with the opposite view. For all his cogent reasons for his ban, she saw snow as an opportunity for fun and exploratory learning. The media like a confrontation: these two were too wise for that. They disagreed courteously, having made their own professional judgments.
One similarity struck me powerfully, however. In their first sentences, both mentioned health and safety and risk assessment. Indeed, Mr Smith, at pains to stress the adventurous learning opportunities his school affords, proudly cited his pupils’ tobogganing down a Venezuelan mountainside. That was impressive: but he spoilt it for me by outlining the need for thorough risk assessment - and a medical team on standby.
And that’s my point. Any statement we heads utter nowadays (I’m as guilty as any) tends to list risk, health and safety, regulation and compliance. We’ve been beaten into line, finally cowed and henceforth compliant.
And not only heads. When I liberally permitted snowballing, some teachers complained that I was putting those on snowy playground duty in an impossible position. “Would I be held responsible?” came the query. Fair question. When anything goes wrong, in today’s world someone must be blamed. (Where there’s blame, there’s a claim!) Whatever the word accountability once meant, nowadays it also includes carrying the can and the final destination of the buck.
No wonder we’re risk-adverse in schools. Shining examples remain of heads who, despite the pressures, offer fantastic adventurous and outdoor education, high-level contact sports, even building cars and racing them.
But it gets more difficult every year. Even if a head wants to be brave, their teachers’ representatives may block them. It’s not about the kids, but about what happens to us if something goes wrong. The threat is real, and rather depressing.
So don’t knock the head who bans snowballing: nor criticise the one next door who encourages it. Heads have to make their choices, and should be supported, not pilloried.
Dr Bernard Trafford is a writer, educationalist and musician. He is a former headteacher of the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle, and past chair of HMC. He is currently interim headteacher of the Purcell School in Hertfordshire. He tweets @bernardtrafford
To read more of his columns, view his back catalogue
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