Last updated: May 2026
Review date: May 2027
Children need to learn how to keep themselves safe in a variety of different situations and it is important that we work closely with them to enable them to manage their own risk. If children aren’t taught the skills from an early age they will not be self-reliant when they are older.
This does not mean we need to put them into dangerous situations or give 2 year olds scissors to run around the nursery with … it simply means we need to risk assess each of the children depending on their age and stage of development and think about how we can teach them to look after themselves through direct teaching and sensitive interventions.
Think carefully about the risk vs benefits of activities we plan for the children. We all know that thrown sand can cause a lot of problems if it goes into children’s eyes, but we do not put the sand pit away due to this, we teach the children not to throw the sand through gentle interactions and consistent messages and we supervise them, reminding them if they forget. In many instances, we will risk assess as we go and decide during the day that the benefits of a particular game outweigh the risks in a carefully set up environment. For example, our children can tell you that if it’s raining they will need to wear wellies before jumping in puddles and put their rain coats on; they know that spiky leaves will hurt their feet so they should wear shoes when playing outside.
It is essential to know each child very well and to understand what makes them tick: what is their individual capacity for recognising and dealing with risk? This is part of the Characteristics of Effective Learning – knowing how each child learns and using that knowledge in our planning.
We are also aware that if children are not exposed to risky play or challenges at home we might need to spend more time with them teaching them in more depth about risk before allowing them to, for example, run off to play hide and seek or pick up autumn leaves on a nature walk.
Relationships with parents/carers is key. It can be very distressing when children have accidents and we need to take every care to ensure their safety but parents also need to recognise that even in the best outstanding setting, sometimes children fall and hurt themselves. Part of our job as a key person for each child is to explain this to them.
To support older children to learn about risk and to manage their own risk, we need to teach them their own names, the names of their parents and their home addresses. They should be taught, for example, who to approach if they are lost in a busy shopping centre and how to recognise and ring 999 from various types of phones. This teaching is usually done alongside school, with planned activities to learn about stranger danger. In the nursery, traditional stories in books such as ‘3 little pigs’ and ‘Hansel and Gretel’ can support children’s understanding of strangers and how to be safe when on outings. It is important to put children in charge of their learning… ask them lots of open- ended questions which encourage them to think carefully about different scenarios and how to keep themselves safe.