Dispelling the myths around health & safety

Attainment and behaviour are very much at the forefront of education today and as our independent survey about school trips and red tape revealed in 2010, teachers feel that school trips have a lasting impact on both. Canvassing the opinions of over 500 teachers nationwide, our survey carried out by Opinion Matters also confirmed that teachers believe school trips add value to education, bringing subject teaching to life and provides vital social and cultural benefits.

Health and Safety Standardisation
To make it easier for teachers to take students on school trips and manage all the associated health and safety requirements, we set up the STF in 2003. Back then, school trip providers were largely left to their own devices. Each adopting their own health and safety procedures, this made it very difficult for teachers to compare and choose a provider.

As part of our mission, we created industry standardisation and made ourselves the single point of contact for teachers needing unbiased advice on school trips and health and safety. Since then, a membership system has been developed whereby teachers who book a trip through an STF member gain complete peace of mind from knowing that its members – the companies they book their school trips with – adhere to a rigorous Code of Practice and Safety Management Standards.

Today, the STF continues to do a fantastic job as a not for profit promoter of good practice and safety in school travel and in my current role as UK School businesses MD at TUI Education, I continue to be a strong supporter of this.

Dovetailing this, the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom’s (LOtC) Quality Badge scheme also gives schools the confidence to incorporate more learning outside the classroom into the curriculum.

New Guidance
TUI Education has been closely monitoring the health and safety legislation for many months, and when the Common Sense, Common Safety government review came to the fore during the latter part of 2010, our survey found that 89 per cent of teachers believe that government legislation hinders the planning of school trips, therefore confirming our beliefs that a step change was needed to reduce red tape in line with the coalition’s overall ethos, allowing teachers to choose more freely the methods they adopt to enhance students’ education.

As a replacement for the guidance advice called Health and Safety of Pupils on Educational Visits (HASPEV 1998) and Health and Safety: Responsibilities and Powers (2001), in July the Department for Education released the significantly slimmed down eight page health and safety guidance document called Departmental advice on health & safety, together with a school trip consent form which schools can ask parents to sign when a child enrols at school, covering a student’s participation in activities where consent is required during their time at school.

Clearing the Confusion
The Department for Education claims the revised guidance makes clear that a written risk assessment ‘does not need to be carried out every time a school takes pupils on a regular, routine local visit, for example to a swimming pool or museum’ and that it also tackles ‘myths and teachers’ fears about being prosecuted’ by making the law clearer and clarifies that parental consent ‘is not necessary for pupils to take part in the majority of off-site activities organised by a school, as most of these activities take place during school hours and are a normal part of a child’s education.’

We welcome any measure that makes it easier for teachers to book school trips. The new guidance makes reference to the importance of assessing and managing risk and although the laws that underpin it remain the same, it does offer some clarity by reminding teachers to take a ‘common sense’ and ‘proportionate’ approach when organising activities. The Health & Safety Executive’s Tackling the health and safety myths statement supports this view, advocating: ‘Those running school trips need to focus on the risks and benefits to people – not the paperwork’ and choosing a provider with an LOtC Quality Badge is one way of benchmarking effective risk management. Masterclass Sports Tours, SkiBound and World Challenge have all met the strict criteria needed to be awarded a LOtC Quality Badge.

TUI Education believes that this simplified guidance will at least in part help us and other education businesses by encouraging teachers to organise school trips.

So where do we go from here? Working to enhance the life chances of children, young people and adult learners and improve their lives, Ofsted’s inspection framework has changed to reflect our expectations of schools and education since it was founded almost 20 years ago.

As learning outside the classroom provides a powerful means to improving attainment and reducing levels of poor behaviour, moving forwards, I would like to see Ofsted incorporate school trips in its inspection framework. I also hope that school trip providers will continue to drive high standards in health and safety and feel sure that local authorities and the Council for Learning Outside the Classroom will work closely together to make the process of choosing a provider as simple as possible.

For more information
Web: www.schooltravelforum.com and www.tuieducation.com