Although schools have many unique issues, the principles underpinning health and safety duties are the same across the board and need not create excess red tape and a headache for those with responsibility for safety. Among the challenges that set education apart from most sectors is the presence of a relatively small number of employees compared with a large number of non-employees, most of whom are children.
Some laws are general in their nature, for example, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Education (School Premises) Regulations 1999. Others relate more specifically to aspects of school life, including the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 and laws regarding child car seats and seatbelts on coaches.
As school life is characterised by a huge variety of activities taking place in a wide range of settings, keeping abreast of legislation and guidance can seem tricky. Management of contractors, fire safety, asbestos, school trips and minibus safety are just some of the issues requiring attention – and are subjects about which the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) often receives questions.
Reasonably practicable
The overall responsibility for health and safety lies with the ‘employer’, which will depend on the type of school in question. Employers are required to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of their employees and anyone else affected by their actions.
Employees have responsibilities too, and must take reasonable care of their own and others’ health and safety, cooperate with employers, carry out activities according to training and inform the employer of serious risk.
Even when health and safety is the Local Education Authority’s responsibility, it is good practice for schools to draw up their own policies. See Health and Safety: Responsibilities and Powers (available at: www.teachernet.gov.uk/wholeschool/healthandsafety/responsibilities/) for advice.
Pupil responsibility
We must not forget, too, that the pupils themselves have a responsibility to ensure their own and others’ health and safety, so it makes good moral and business sense to build health and safety education into the curriculum. This not only helps pupils to stay safe while in school but helps them to develop an understanding of risk and how to manage it as a general life skill.
Setting a policy is a great opportunity to make health and safety a whole school issue that is owned by everyone – teachers, other staff members including lunchtime supervisors, office workers and facilities staff, and importantly, pupils.
RoSPA advises schools to think about setting some key policy objectives to:
• provide a healthy and safe environment
• help children develop increasing responsibility for their own and others’ safety on and off-site
• minimise the potential for injuries
• develop safety rules
• deal with injuries should they occur
• address children’s specific needs.
Promoting H&S
When developing a policy, try to focus on encouraging a school ethos that positively promotes safety and health. Find out what the children know and understand about safety. For example, you could involve them in safety audits, surveys and research projects as well as in planning aspects of the curriculum, e.g. to coincide with Child Safety Week (June 2012) and Walk to School Week (May 2012).
Consult the school council, and remember to seek the ideas and views of non-teaching members of staff. Look for opportunities to link your policy to other initiatives, such as local healthy schools initiatives and the development of a school travel plan.
The overall aim of your policy should ensure that you are teaching safely, but also teaching safety. In this way the school can fuse safety management and risk education and help to create a risk management ethos within the school’s overall culture.
The hidden killer
One of the “hidden” health and safety issues – and one that is still a big problem – is the presence of asbestos in schools. Any building erected or refurbished before 2000 is likely to contain asbestos, so there are few schools in the UK that are unaffected.
The dangers of asbestos are well known, but RoSPA makes no apologies for repeating them: the consequences are serious and long lasting and the diseases caused by exposure are particularly unpleasant.
Asbestos is made of very fine fibres, which when inhaled can cause serious diseases. Around 4,000 deaths each year are attributed to four main diseases caused by asbestos: mesothelioma (which is always fatal); lung cancer (almost always fatal); asbestosis (not always fatal, but it can be very debilitating); and diffuse pleural thickening (not fatal).
Management and knowledge of asbestos is crucial, as it only presents a danger if it is damaged or disturbed. Provided it is sealed and is not releasing fibres into the environment it is not likely to be a danger to staff and pupils. But it is vital to ensure that any contractors, such as plumbers, electricians, joiners or builders, are aware of the dangers and equipped to deal with the problem. When people work on asbestos, for example during maintenance or refurbishment, it is vital that the proper controls are in place.
Slips, trips and falls
Slips, trips and falls is another key issue, within schools as well as in the wider working environment. Across the UK as a whole in 2008/09 more than 10,000 employees suffered a major injury as a result of a slip or trip at work, while more than 4,000 employees suffered a major injury as a result of a fall from height.
Most slips occur in wet or contaminated conditions and most trips are due to poor housekeeping. The solutions are often simple and cost effective. A suitable assessment of the risks should identify the controls needed to remove the hazards. RoSPA’s advice for schools is to:
• prevent contamination
• manage spills and cleaning regimes
• install effective matting systems
• ensure suitable footwear is worn
• look at the design of the school and the activities taking place in each area
• ensure the school environment is maintained regularly
• lay appropriate flooring
• ensure adequate lighting
• provide effective training and supervision for teachers and pupils.
The Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) Shattered Lives campaign highlights the fact that slips, trips and falls are easily preventable and could save a lot of pain, time and money.
Managing stress
Work-related stress is a major issue in schools, and is not an illness – it is a mental state. However, if stress becomes too excessive and prolonged, mental and physical illness may develop. A person experiences stress when they perceive that the demands of their work are greater than their ability to cope.
A total of 13.5 million working days are lost in Britain each year to work-related stress, with each case of stress-related illness leading to an average of 30 days off work. In schools, this isn’t a simple case of lost productivity, this absence impacts on children’s education.
The problem cannot be overstated, with 237,000 new cases of work-related stress, depression or anxiety reported in the year 2007/08, and 442,000 people in the UK reporting work-related stress at a level they believe is making them ill.
Good management is a key ingredient in preventing and managing workplace stress, and there are good training courses available to help managers tackle the problem.
A good place to start preventing and managing stress in schools is to:
• accept that work-related stress might be a problem for employees
• understand what work-related stress is as well as the relationship between work and home stress
• listen to employees and take action on findings
• set expectations with staff so they understand what can and cannot be done for them
• make time to tackle stress properly – try using the HSE’s stress management tool (available from www.hse.gov.uk/stressstandards/)
• ensure staff are aware of available support should they experience work-related stress (e.g. teacher support network: www.teachersupport.info).
It is much easier to prevent work-related stress in the first place, than to tackle an existing problem, particularly if further ill health follows on its heels.
Getting the balance right
Incorporating safety education in the curriculum would be a valuable aspect of your policy, with the aim to equip pupils with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to enable them to recognise hazards, assess and manage risks according to their ability and deal with risky situations safely – lessons they will build upon throughout their lives.
When staff properly understand and are trained in health and safety management, they will see that it is not characterised by the mass of red tape that is so often suggested to be a barrier to carrying out important and fun activities within lessons and on school trips.
Remember, good health and safety management is not about eliminating risks completely and banning activities, it is about striking the right balance – keeping risks within tolerable bounds, spending enough to make things safe enough, including judging the risk of doing something against the cost of not doing it.
If the benefits of doing the activity are considered first, it puts into perspective the safety issues you might need to overcome.
Advice and information
Schools are not alone in managing health and safety; there is a wealth of advice and information available from organisations such as the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the HSE. There is new guidance on learning outside the classroom (‘Departmental advice for health and safety in schools’ on the Department for Education’s website), subject-specific support for teachers through their subject associations e.g. Association for Physical Education, and new Ofsted guidance highlighting safeguarding in lessons – ensuring that not only is the standard of teaching good, but that the standard of health and safety within each lesson is also good.
Membership of a safety organisation such as RoSPA can provide a network of support for schools, helping them to negotiate what can be seen as a minefield.
For more information
www.rospa.com
The government has announced £15 million to expand its attendance mentoring programme to reach 10,000 more children and cover an additional ten areas.
The majority of schools are meeting the previous government’s expectation that schools should deliver a 32.5 hour week by September 2024.
On a global scale, 6.3 million years of schooling are being lost every year by children with poor sight.
A report from Ofsted has revealed that primary schools are having to teach infants how to communicate, as they struggle to make friends or cope with lessons because of speech and language difficulties.
In order to prepare young people for their future, oracy should be the fourth “R” of education – of equal status to reading, writing and arithmetic, according to a new report.