Park protectors - Kindy kids’ concerns spark council re-think

The discovery of potential play hazards in a local park by a group of kindergarten children has prompted a Council rethink. In the course of their regular Nature Connection park explorations, Springlands Kindergarten students have uncovered several health and safety concerns, which have been passed on to the Marlborough District Council.

Springlands Kindergarten children go to nearby Sheps Park for educational and play time in nature, and it was there that students uncovered exposed nail ends in neighbouring fences and waratah fence posts in bushes and around trees.

The ensuing request to remedy the situation has made Marlborough District Council’s Parks and Services team rejig how they assess health and safety in the region’s public parks.

“We go for safety walks and pick up rubbish before we play around the park and found these”, said Hugo. “Having the nails ends and waratah posts here is dangerous, so we told teachers and keep away from there when we come”, added Wolf.

Marlborough Kindergarten Association’s Gwenda Jones says the health and safety issues discovered by the students comes from the Nature Connection protocols of safety walks ahead of sessions and the kids’ explorative nature.

“Most visitors to the park will stay on the grass or pathways, but having our kids do these Nature Connection lessons, going and connecting with open spaces and playing through the bushes, they see all sides of the space.

“We tell them that if they see anything to let us know as they get more confident coming back to the same spaces, and so this meeting has literally come from their recommendations.”

Springlands Kindergarten teacher Christine Loye loved that the kids had a sense of danger and had a sensible reaction. “It’s part of our teaching to get them to observe and tell us everything they see, whether it’s nuts, fruit, flowers, mushrooms rubbish or in this case, nails and waratah posts, so everyone can learn about what they find in their local environment.

“We do the same Nature Connection time in McKendry Park too and people may think it’s just playing and picking up rubbish, but it’s great to see for the kids that the Council is taking their concerns seriously.”

Parks and Services team member Rachel McKenzie was impressed by the kindergarteners and said the kids have her thinking about how they can improve park audits. “We do health and safety audits on our parks, but this morning has really opened my eyes to looking through our youngest ones’ eyes ... while it’s just nails slightly too long, these kids find it serious enough to say something about.

“With the waratah at the base of the tree, that would have been as part of holding the tree up when it was originally planted by the Shepherds before they donated the land as a park but gone unnoticed between floods and mulching since then so it’s a great find.

“We’ll look at park audit changes because of these kids, which is really quite cool,” Rachel added.