They are also more available to a school to a school as a local resource.

The Police have long visited schools delivering talks and demonstrations for Drugs, Personal Safety and Road Safety for pupils of Primary age.as have Fire Service who are always willing to co-operate with visits and Fire Safety presentations.

Ambulance NHS Trusts, Red Cross and St.John’s are also resources along with private Emergency Ambulance firms who are often under used by schools.

If Emergency Service presenters are sufficiently well briefed and pupils are appropriately prepared a community approach can be taken to risk by using such resources.

An excellent example of this has just been released.

The RNLI have a Youth Section at http://www.rnli.org.uk/young.asp which gives access to a wide range of resources including

All Aboard – KS 2 Resource with poster and teacher’s notes plus activities and a KS£ resource which may be of use since it covers beach visits etc called Get on Board.

The Coastguard (Maritime Coastguard Agency –MCA) and Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) have teamed up to make young people aware of dangers near water.

They have produced an interactive CDROM entitled MAYDAY for KS2 pupils. This is an extensive resource with CDROM as well as information, activity cards and teacher’s notes with ideas for follow up projects. MAYDAY is structured so that it can either be used with groups or by individuals and has a wide range of activities which ends in a “Round Britain Yacht Race.”

As well as helping in selling “risk” message and thus linking directly to Health and Safety Curriculum pack is linked to KS2 in Humanities, Environmental Studies, Literacy and Numeracy, ICT, Citizenship and PHSE.

This is a FREE resource and is divided into five sections:

1.Staying Safe – an ideal piece of pre visit instruction which helps children to recognise risks when they are near sea. This part of resource also introduces Beaufort Scale, Shipping Weather Forecasts and idea of maritime charts and maps. 2.Rescue! Uses Scenarios to encourage children to use their judgement to make risk based decisions to help other people. 3.Crew – This introduces children to people who risk their lives to help others on sea and looks at how they are trained and what motivates them. 4.Safer by Design – Children find out about PPE and wider range of safety equipment used as control measures when a calculated risk is taken by those who face “angry sea” to help save lives. This section also has some interesting Numeracy work based on speeds of helicopters and boats in rescue situations. 5.Round Britain Race – In this section children plan and take part in a race, choosing equipment, planning routes as well as choosing their team. This section supports KS2 Humanities and PHSE as well as H&S.

Further information from Liza Linscott (RNLI) 01202663217 or Julia Gosling (MCA) 020380329401 Other Resources The following organisations have produced information and which may be of interest and which can also be mostly accessed form HSE website. 1.HSE has produced resources which may be integrated directly within curriculum e.g statistics and all of their resources for use in classroom may be found at their education site at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/education/resources.htm these include HSE produced resources above and access to following.

2.ROSPA have produced a FREE set of Information sheets with notes and activities for Key Stages 1-4 on “Dangerous Substances Everywhere” and a wide range of other resources at http://www.rospa.com/education/pdfs/dangerous_substances.pdf

3.A CDROM produced by HSE for Middle and Secondary Schools identified as for use with 11 -14 Year olds might be of interest for more able Year 6s it is entitled “Human Torch” and is a “X Files” type investigation into factors surrounding a (hopefully) hypothetical case. More information may be found at http://www.hse.gov.uk/education/humantorch.htm Curriculum and Lesson Planning

Other ways of involving children in safety process and them being involved revolve around actual process itself.

•Learning to identify Dangers(Hazards) and Risks(Likelihood of Danger leading an accident) •Learning to do Risk Assessments. •Reviewing existing Risk Assessments. •Writing Accident Reports. •First Aid •Learning to reduce and control risks – e.g Swimming •School Council Representation on School Safety Committee. •Inspections for monitoring and Audit •Setting School Safety Targets. •How much does an accident really cost? Could be adopted to form basis of some numeracy see.HSE Booklet in Resource The integrated approach suggested by QCA in its Guidance may suggest ways in which some of above topics be introduced via lesson planning process. Pupils will need to learn terms Risk, Hazard, Control measure as soon as possible and have a secure foundation as regards their definitions. This means that lesson plans need to reflect this and integrate safety within planning other lessons, which should be seen as opportunities. Almost any lesson or behaviour in class can be taken for identifying and highlighting dangers or hazards discussing what could happen in different circumstances and how likely these risks are to lead to an accident and what control measures need to be taken to reduce this risk.

There is no doubt that integration of safety within curriculum is a valid approach and such view of value such an approach shared by HSE, Government and “great and good”.

DfES have produced a Safety Education guidance for teachers which outlines good practice, this may be found and downloaded from:

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/docbank/index.cfm?id=1314

Best advice is that school needs to adopt a “whole school approach” to Health and Safety in curriculum and it will be clearly seen that this approach is what National CUrriculum already dictates.

Dr. Paddy Swan is a qualified teacher with senior management experience in UK schools and colleges. He also has almost 25 years safety experience in industry. He has developed over 100 online and multimedia safe systems training solutions. Paddy is the author of School Basic Safety for Classroom and Support staff for UK schools and the Headteacher's Safety Management Toolkit at http://www.swaneducation.co.uk

* They must be made school specific. * They need to form part of School Safety Management System.

•Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) – Flowing from school Risk Assessment System control measures will be identified and some of these e.g for school cleaning, will indicate that PPE needs to be used for some operations. The school needs to ensure that PPE is available, in good condition and that employees and pupils wear it and use it properly. It should also be regularly inspected and inspections recorded and equipment updated and replaced as necessary. If PPE is provided to pupils for use in school or on visits e.g buoyancy aids for water based activities, or mountaineering gear for adventure based trips, children need to be clearly instructed and know how to use it and it should be in good condition.

•Managing Safety – The Head teacher and any Governing Body, whether it is Employer or not, has a duty to ensure that safety is properly managed in school and this means : that a SMS is in place and it works. that all Risk Assessments, Policies, Procedures etc are appropriate to specific circumstances of school.

Children and Safety:

Because of intersection of laws like Children Act and various Education and Medical Acts, H&S in schools is actually far more complex than it is in industry.The clear imperative for any teacher or school is primacy of safety of children.

This also brings into play professional duty of care of teacher and school to do no harm through carelessness and/or negligence.

This taken in round means that level of care and supervision given to younger and more immature children needs to be greater than that given to older, more mature children. However, every teacher knows that some Year 5s can be be more mature than Year 6s.This is where teacher's professional competence intersects with Risk Assessment, Polciies and Procedures. Every day in controlling class teacher's are making ongoing Risk Assessments in maintaining discipline and adequate supervision. All that H&S does is to provide a framework in which to operate which allows them to justify their actions in case of a accident or incident. By providing this framework school protects, itself, its' staff and its' children.

Staff and Governors and SMS

• Whether or not Governing Body is Employer it still carries out its’ duties by oversight of SMS and actively checks by monitoring and auditing School SMS and ensures that it fits school’s circumstances. The Employer Governing Body as a dutyholder would have additional legal responsibility of providing policies and specific procedures together with resources to manage safety.

•The Regulations point out that it is good practice for a Governor to be appointed to have responsibility for Health and Safety and its’ management in school.

•There is a requirement under safety law and regulations for School Staff to be consulted in matters which affect their safety.At present this often done through teaching Union Reps.This is fine but it tends to discourage whole staff to participate in SMS.

A good way for this to happen is to enlist staff and pupils in a School Safety Committee which helps to run, and is part of, School SMS.

Accidents do happen?

Health and Safety compliance need not be a major burden. It simply needs to be put in place because accidents do happen and if they do they should be approached using a safety approach to learn from them and as opportunities to review Risk Assessment and reappraise control measures.

Accidents can be to pupils, staff or visitors/contractors and can result in litigation and/or prosecution. Accidents to children which have ended in litigation against schools have often been unsuccessful if accident has been shown to be a result of play.

The view taken by courts seems to be that play is necessary for a child’s development and sometimes this can result in accidents but school need not take undue or unreasonably costly action to avoid all accidents at all costs.

Even for accidents caused during horseplay courts have indicated that negligence or extreme recklessness needs to be demonstrably proven.

Reasonable safety is concept which is benchmark to judge response to safety matters against and provided school has reasonable systems in place which indicate that it is managing safety and using good practice it should be secure.

Prosecution and enforcing UK Safety Law.

HSE is body which inspects and enforces safety law.

Approximately 25% of all prosecutions for breaches which HSE made over last 5 years were attributed to breaches of management duties under Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations.

Having said that action by HSE involving enforcement action against schools is rare and prosecution rarer still. There are approximately 80 breaches per year in Primary Schools.

Accidents are not so rare unfortunately and approximately 11,000 accidents were reported in Education under RIDDORS (3 day accidents) in 1999/2000 of which about one third were due to slips and trips.

Finally

Provided a school follows good practice and rules no one is likely to be at risk from enforcement or legal action.

That Staff, Governing Body and individual Governors need to support Headteacher in carrying out their duty under law and co-operate with any Employer is a given.The Head Teacher also needs to respond to H&S requiremnts of employer and law.

They can do this by ensuring that safety is managed in school under a Safety Management System. This ensures that school is in compliance with regulations.

The whole school needs to be seen to be playing its’ full part in any school Safety Management System.

The Employer and Governors by oversight and target setting, monitoring, auditing and reviewing, and ensuring that resources are available to help head manage school H&S. The Head Teacher by managing and implementing and overseeing SMS. The Staff by cop-operating, consultation and assistance in implementing systems. By doing this and everyone playing their full part that school overall safety will be improved and accident levels drop.

Dr. Paddy Swan is a qualified teacher with senior management experience in UK schools and colleges. He also has almost 25 years safety experience in industry. He has developed over 100 online and multimedia safe systems training solutions. Paddy is the author of School Basic Safety for Classroom and Support staff for UK schools and the Headteacher's Safety Management Toolkit at http://www.swaneducation.co.uk