LTL senior early years advisor Jacky Brewer said, 'With all the pressure to sanitise our environment, it is no wonder we have lost sense of the importance of engaging with the natural world, bugs and all. When I do training in early years settings, particularly about children under three, I often have to say "nobody died from eating an earthworm".'
Unless practitioners had grown up in a rural area, those under 30 often had little or no experience themselves of the importance of outdoors for development.
Her comments follow remarks in an interview with Horticulture Week by the Natural History Museum's Dr Mark Spencer, who claimed that primary teachers would struggle if natural history was on the national curriculum.
Dr Spencer said, 'Teachers are often terrified of the natural world, scream at the sight of insects and tell the children don't touch. The whole point is to engage them, but when people are frightened of handling soil, then we have a problem.'
Ms Brewer added, however, that the early years sector is leading the way in encouraging children to go outside, as practitioners are starting to embed participation in a child-initiated curriculum and are following the children's lead.