ABSTRACT
Teachers and coaches in schools work in a social environment that incorporates a climate of fear and anxiety. This is prompted by sporadic but poignant events and now characterises not only many school policies and practices but also the thoughts and behaviours of those charged with working alongside students. Since the Aotearoa New Zealand [ANZ] 1 Government introduced Tomorrow’s Schools in 1989 (Taskforce to Review Education Administration, 1989) which devolved governance to individual school Boards of Trustees, there has been an increasing culture of managerialism in all schools in ANZ. Part of this self-governance landscape includes the management and assessment of risk for activities and events that fall inside and beyond the school gates. Secondary schools in ANZ endeavour to offer a full and stimulating array of experiences for their students, both within and beyond the formal curriculum. Many of those experiences fall within physical education and school sport and by their very nature are associated with human physical contact. But decades of government and policy manoeuvring towards a regime of heightened risk prevention have resulted in an overdose of risk aversion and a perceived need for caution in many schools (Brown & Fraser, 2009).
