Minor scrapes are part and parcel of giving children the opportunity to test themselves in a challenging environment. Gayle Goshorn finds out how nurseries maximise safety and maintain the right approach.

Children need challenge - but how do you provide it while keeping everyone happy about safety? It seems that every publicised accident at a nursery brings a health and safety panic to the fore, just when headway is being made against over-protectiveness and risk-averse attitudes.

While nursery managers strive to take a positive attitude and use their professional judgement to provide appropriate challenges for children, they have to accommodate the views of both parents and staff.

At Childcare4U, which has nurseries in Marlow and Beaconsfield, managing director Karen Richardson-Scarfe says it can be a difficult balancing act.

She recalls the worst case she ever had of a worried parent - 'someone who asked if we could bubble-wrap the decking and put bubble wrap around the wooden stairs. I thought they were joking at first. But I always explain that our perspective is that children need to learn to manage risks themselves, and the children who don't take risks are the ones who have the most accidents.'

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