‘No bubble wrap here’: Inside the Sydney preschool where kids are encouraged to take risks

It’s the one daycare in Sydney where scratches are a badge of honour, and dirty street puddles are made to be jumped in. Welcome to bush school, where kids literally get their hands dirty.

It’s the one daycare in Sydney where playing with sticks is encouraged, scratches are worn as a badge of honour, and dirty street puddles are made to be jumped in.

This is the idyllic world of Bush Preschool, smack in the middle of suburban Sydney.

For ten years now, the principal of John Brotchie Nursery, Rebecca Andrews has been running the program.

Once a week a group of up to 40 preschoolers make the trek from their Botany daycare to a sliver of bush hidden nearby.

On their way, they pass smelly water canals, graffiti-strewn stormwater drains and a busy highway.

Pictured are Louie 5, Caitlin 5, Banjo 4, Hanna 4 and Boston 5, from John Brotchie Nursery School at Botany is a public preschool that has a Bush School every Wednesday in a local park. Picture: Tim Hunter.

It’s only a ten-minute walk, but it will take these kids about an hour. That’s what happens when you still have childlike wonder, and the journey is as important as the destination.

They stop to pick up feathers (sniffing them to see if they belong to a bin chicken), jump in muddy puddles and crowd around the site of a decomposing bird.

“A lot of our children live in smaller houses, some of them don’t have backyards. When we were growing up, we used to play on the street and come home when the street lights turn on,” says Rebecca.

“Kids don’t do that any more. They go to organised sports, they go to swimming lessons or karate or football training, but it’s not free play. That’s what this program provides,” she said.

It’s a chance for children to play in a very natural environment.

“Sticks are our favourite thing to play with. It’s about risky play. Bush School is about teaching kids how to take calculated risks and think about the consequences of their actions. We climb trees quite high and play with sticks,” she said.

One of the highlights of the trip is “Puddle Street.” An industrial dead-end road, littered with rubbish and potholes. It’s a street most adults would complain about and call for council upgrades.

A preschooler at John Brotchie bush school jumps into a puddle. Picture: Emily Kowal

But these kids love it, leaping into the dirty puddles. They leave streaked with mud, and twinkles in their eyes.

“We are very proud of how dirty we are when we come home. The first thing we do when we get back to John Brotchie is take our shoes and socks off and see how dirty our toes are,” said Rebecca.

Children at John Brotchie Daycare jump in puddles. Picture: Emily Kowal,

“We often get scratches but we are quite proud of those scratches and grazes because it means we have been adventurous and tried new things,” she said.

“I doesn’t matter what community you are in, there is somewhere that you can find some natural places to play. We are walking through the dingier streets of Botany, but we are coming to a lovely natural space.”

A highlight of the walk is signalling for passing trucks to honk their horns.

Rain, hail or shine, these kids go to bush school. In the ten years since Rebecca initiated the program, she has only cancelled once, when the temperature reached 38 degrees.

“It’s an all-weather program, we embrace all weather and seasons and the children get to experience that. They learn that if they are hot, they need to take their jumper off… it’s about independence, it’s about resilience,” she said.

There’s no bubble wrap here. Kids are encouraged to climb trees, take risks and accumulate scratches.

“There’s no bad weather, just bad clothing,” she said.

The children pause on their trip to peek through fences to try and spot a decomposing bird.

“We love dead things at Bush School. We found a dead ibis, we have been watching it for weeks and weeks to see what happens,” explains Rebecca.

The said bird body is missing, and the kids toss around theories of where it could have gone.

“They popped it to heaven,” says one kid. The others nod in agreement. Makes perfect sense.

When Rebecca explains it has likely decomposed, their eyes light up — another bush school lesson learnt.

Parents “love” that children are allowed to engage in risky play including climbing these stick huts.

When they finally reach the “bush” — a small nature reserve sliced in between a highway and warehouse, the kids leap into action, clambering up trees, building tree houses and rough-housing on a swing.

Kids who are normally quiet, open up, free to talk in this space.

“Outside the gate, we hear those children’s voices. The children who might be a little bit quieter inside our gate, outside the gate they have an unhurried time, and we hear their voices. “Their parents hear their voices. They talk a lot more about what they did at Bush School than sometimes what they did inside the gate at John Brotchie,” says Rebecca.

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Originally published as ‘No bubble wrap here’: Inside the Sydney preschool where kids are encouraged to take risks