Helen Martin: Avoiding risks is no education

THE problem with government promises isn't just that they so often fail to be kept, but that by the time any of them come good, someone else is probably in power and you've forgotten who set the ball rolling.

Amid the confusion that was the last general election, I distinctly recall David Cameron vowing to get rid of excessive health and safety legislation and restore the old-fashioned value of common sense.

Nowhere is excessive cotton-wooling more prevalent than where it involves children. And, dare I say it, teachers.

We all know some teachers who find it difficult to switch off when they leave the classroom and enter adult society; those for whom professional and personal boundaries are so blurred that they treat everyone as if they were six. They have delusions of authority over their peers, and most particularly parents, who they seem to regard as useful breeders; fine for providing a supply of pupils to sit in their classrooms but woefully inadequate at raising their own offspring without the guidance of a BEd.

We've had stories of bans on conkers, cycling short distances to school, charity sales of home-baking and now, in Edinburgh Academy no less, a ban on footballs.

Instead, pupils - including some 18-year-olds - are to kick about in the playground with soft balls or tennis balls (while being allowed the real thing on the pitch - where presumably the school thinks the presence of a teacher or ref magically excludes all possibility of danger).

In the defence of the academy, perhaps it fears that litigious parents will make a fuss if a pupil is injured by a football. I say "if" because senior deputy rector Deborah Meiklejohn has admitted: "As far as we know there have been no injuries."

So I wonder, which kill-joy was gazing out of the staff-room window at break time, nibbling on a digestive, when they caught sight of some kids having fun with a ball, as generations have before them, and suddenly decided it was hazardous?

It's the sort of ruling one might expect from a loony-left local authority in London, not from a Scottish independent school. What happened to the character-building cold showers, the fatiguing cross-country runs and the sort of regimes we've always associated with pricey independents, that turned boys into men? The academy never set out to be a Tom Brown's Schooldays model, but it has hockey, army cadets, not to mention football activities and a sturdy rugby reputation. Its original remit might have been to provide a classical education, and particularly Greek, but it's hardly known for wimpishness.

And it would be interesting to know how many injuries caused by footballs had occurred since its foundation in 1824, let alone the apparent absence of them in living memory.

It's not alone of course. Some other schools, both state and private, have similar bans (one or two probably more concerned about broken windows than broken bones). Society is full of people who want to over-protect kids and mollycoddle them, stop them climbing trees, walking to school on their own, accidentally skinning their knees and blacking their eyes, or losing a gym shoe.

Life can be dangerous at times. Minor injuries are part of childhood, whether we like it or not. Learning how to weigh up risks, avoid pain and being winded by a football, or knowing how to head one without causing yourself concussion, is all part of growing up.

Perhaps many teachers are risk-averse. They've chosen a career based on learning, one that depends on timetables, curriculums, marks and diligence rather than taking a chance, doing without the certainty of a degree as back-up, sticking their neck out or having the self-confidence to take a leap of faith.

But some kids will be tomorrow's explorers, entrepreneurs, artists, sports stars and others whose success depends as much on instinct, courage and thriving on risk, as knowledge.

Even Scotland's Children's Commissioner Tam Baillie asked: "How can a child learn to avoid accidents if they are not given the chance to take risks and put their learning into practice?"

Kids are - or should be - active and adventurous. They ice skate, ride horses, learn to dive, rollerskate and do all manner of things that carry inherent risks and can never be one hundred per cent safe, mostly because their parents sensibly let them and probably encourage them. Let the parents decide if footballs are dangerous.

The best teachers and the best schools - of which Edinburgh Academy is certainly one - should be above the silly health and safety excesses despised by David Cameron, especially those for which there is absolutely no evidence of need.