Late October does its best to test a nursery. The path to the gate is slick with wet leaves, pickup will happen in the dark once the clocks go back this weekend, the garden is half puddle, and somebody has proposed a pumpkin-carving activity with a completely straight face. If your risk assessments live in a ring binder that nobody has opened since spring, this is the fortnight it starts to show.
The legal footing is worth restating plainly. Every early years setting has duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the welfare requirements of the EYFS: a safe environment for children, staff and visitors alike. But the law was never asking for a heavier binder. It asks you to think, to act, and to be able to show your thinking afterwards.
A risk assessment is a decision, not a document
Strip it back and the process is short. Spot the hazard. Judge who could be harmed and how badly. Decide what you’ll do about it, then actually do it. Write down enough to be useful later, and review it when something changes rather than when the calendar says so. The document is the receipt for the thinking; it was never meant to be the point.
We see settings with beautiful twelve-page assessments for the annual coach trip and nothing current at all for the thing that actually causes most accidents: the everyday environment, changing slightly, week by week, season by season.
Autumn writes its own hazard list
Walk the setting this week with seasonal eyes. Wet leaves and mud where the buggies park. Doormats that surrender by 9am. The slide that’s fine in July and a skating rink in November. Portable heaters coming out of storage, trailing leads and demanding their clear space. Candles in pumpkins, a lovely idea at home and a firm no in a nursery. Darker pickups, which change how well drivers see the car park and how well parents see the step.
None of this is an argument for cancelling outdoor play. Children need the outdoors more as the days shorten, not less. It’s an argument for managing the risk so the play carries on: proper footwear, a five-minute morning sweep of the garden, gritted paths when the frosts arrive, and staff who feel able to flag a problem without filling in a form in triplicate.
Culture catches what checklists miss
The strongest safety tool in any setting is a team where everyone notices, everyone mentions, and nobody assumes somebody else has dealt with it. The apprentice who casually mentions the wobbly gate hinge on her way past the office is worth more than any audit, but only if mentioning things is welcomed. That culture grows from managers who thank people for flagging hazards instead of sighing at the extra job, and from monitoring and review that treats safety as ongoing housekeeping rather than an annual ordeal. Serious incidents also carry reporting duties under RIDDOR, a topic in its own right, but one every manager should know the basics of.
Our Health & Safety and Risk Assessment in Early Years course covers the whole picture at Level 2: your legal responsibilities under the 1974 Act and the EYFS, how to carry out, record and review a risk assessment, common hazards indoors and outdoors, an overview of RIDDOR reporting duties, and how to build the positive safety culture that makes all of it stick.
Turn risk assessment into a habit, not a binder
This Level 2 course covers your legal duties, practical risk assessment and safety culture, with an NFAQ-accredited certificate as evidence for compliance and Ofsted.
Half term is nearly here, and for many settings that means a quieter week. It’s a good moment to walk the building, retire the assessments nobody believes in, and replace them with a handful the whole team actually uses. Your February self, standing on a gritted path while the children stomp happily through the frost, will be glad you did.