As a centre owner/provider, your main focus is safety, health and wellbeing of the children while they are outdoors at the service.
Therefore a close review is required during the design and construction phase is fencing and barriers and more importantly, external boundary/play area barriers. We generally recommend the 1.8m high solid timber lapped and capped fence; however, this provides a more enclosed outdoor space and doesn’t allow children to view the centres surroundings.
We are now seeing a lot of different fencing styles, i.e. a picket, palisade, vertical balusters, these provide a lot more open space and viewing however need to meet strict guidelines in regards to both the building code of Australia – i.e. Pool fencing code as well as taking into account department guidelines with finger, head and foot entrapment as well as footholds / climbing risks.
Tip:
The use of external audits is a great way to carry out a risk assessment on these elements however the true quality is that all they are designed and built correctly the first time around and there is no need to rely on audits or inspections after completion.
On this page it shows a variety of fencing image options that we have used on our centres.