Health and Safety and KS1 & KS2 Curriculum.

Government Action

The Government determined that Health and Safety become part of curriculum in 2002 and defined that all pupils of should receive some 40 hours of H&S teaching before end of their schooling.

HSE has already produced materials which are being used to give a Basic Safety Induction to work for pupils going out on Work Experience from schools and colleges.

Safety has actually already entered syllabus in a fairly defined way and QCA have already produced a statutory statement and defined NVQ standards at higher levels, which are already used for qualifying members of HSE Inspectorate.

DfES have also played their part through their own expert tem and information delivered through Teachernet. National Curriculum for Health and Safety

The QCA statutory statement with regards to safety in curriculum states that it :

“applies to science, design and technology, information and communication technology, art and design, and physical education.”

In brief QCA has indicated that pupils must be taught whole range of concepts surrounding risk assessment and control including:

•Identifying Hazards and Risks. •Controlling and reducing hazards and risks. •Risk Assessment techniques . •To take care for their own and other’s Health and Safety.

The QCA have also issued guidance which was drawn up after consultation with HSE and this indicates that they have a view that RISK should be core of approach and they feel that teachers will have already introduced their pupils to concept of risk. The whole thrust of QCA guidance tells teacher to ensure that pupils are taught about risk at an appropriate level throughout their time in school. They see this as helping to ensure that pupils are better equipped to deal with risks with situations of uncertainty and change both in and out of school. QCA see main objectives of delivery of a Health and Safety curriculum as being a tool to ensure that pupils are able to: •recognise existence of hazards, risks and uncertainty in a range of contexts; •assess their own ability, and ability of others, to deal with different situations; •assess consequences when dealing with hazards presented to themselves and to others (for example, within school, environment, home); •seek advice from appropriate sources to minimise and manage risk; •understand that rules and regulations follow from risk assessment and help define individual and collective responsibility.

In addition already part of H&S is part of National Healthy Schools initiative for Primary Schools.

HSE and Curriculum HSE has set up a small Risk Education Team based in Central Expertise Policy and Support Division of Policy Group Directorate in London . Their stated intention is to: “influence degree to which risk management techniques are taught in schools and other educational establishments…..” They are developing four projects of which two are of interest insofar as curriculum is concerned.

•They seek to raise level f risk teaching in schools. •They seek to provide risk teaching materials for teachers and lecturers.

We can see that HSE has had a part to play in all initiatives regarding curriculum and has also addressed areas of concern, targeting primary school children in three sectors where deaths have occurred.

Thus Farming, Railways and Construction Sites all have had curriculum materials produced highlighting risks and unsafe behaviour and aiming to educate and modify behaviours.

These are looked at later in this section.

HSE Resources for Primary School

The resources provided for a Safety initiative within curriculum by HSE are very well produced and should be easily integrated into any Primary School syllabus. Stay Safe On Farm, Stay Safe Railway Safety, and Stay Safe Building Site Safety all contain, games, cartoons and puzzles to encourage children to think about hazards which exist in all these industries, and how to avoid them. These industries often act as a magnet to children who don’t understand dangers they present and treat them like playgrounds. This is also why special consideration needs to be given to ongoing construction or maintenance works taking place on school sites. Stay Safe booklets have been distributed at schools across country, and can be ordered free of charge from HSE Books on but access to pdf versions are given below. •Stay Safe on Farm - Leaflet with puzzles and colouring exercise suitable for Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/staysafe.pdf •Stay Safe Railway Safety - Stay Safe Railways a website for Children to Learn about being safe and keeping safe around Railways This is a Multimedia Game/Scenario type program with a safety theme suitable for Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/education/railway/index.html •Stay Safe Building Site Safety - This has a series of comic strips/Posters and colouring exercises with game type questions and completion exercises – suitable Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/misc447.pdf •You will find other items which may be integrated in Resources in Headteaher’s Safety In addition HSE has also produced videos aimed at parents, teachers and older children to raise awareness. A four minute video Open Farms Healthy Children, is available on HSE’s web FREE site www.hse.gov.uk/campaigns/killfields/ecoli.htm which ensures parents, teachers and others are aware of hidden risks of picking up E-coli from animals.

The video Safe! – Helping children to stay safe on farms, which has been distributed to all Local Authority education departments, also shows children hazards that exist on farms. Copies of 'Safe! - Helping children to stay safe on farms' price £20.00 + VAT, are also available for purchase from HSE Books, Other Resources - Emergency Services.

Whilst HSE and DfES and others all have a central part to play.

http://www.swaneducation.co.uk

Head Teachers - Managing Health and Safety in your Primary/Infant School.

What you need to know.

If you read nothing else about Health and Safety read this. It’s about 1500 words long but it summarises what you need to know about managing Health and Safety to satisfy laws and regulations as they affect your school.

Changes to Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations(1999) (MSHW) as laid out in Regulations and their Guidance have made specific requirements and laid a responsibility on School dutyholders to manage Health and Safety in all UK Schools.

They need to do this by managing within a system. This is School Safety Management System(SMS) and every school should have one.

The head teacher as person with responsibility for a school site is a dutyholder as described in H&S laws.

What actually are dutyholders?

•Dutyholders are people with control over school safety. They are people who face enforcement action in event of anything going wrong. oIn main these are Employer and Headteacher. oIn any event Headteacher is person in control of site and a dutyholder in any school. The main duties of Employer are to provide resources and a framework of policies and some specific procedures and then to monitor and audit how H&S is implemented and managed.

Governors in Community schools have control over budgets and need to support head teacher, who is person responsible for site, and main site dutyholder but they are not dutyholders per se.

Who might action be taken against?

•The Employer, this is LEA, Foundation and/or school whoever may be regarded as employer under H&S law. The Employer can be an individual or like an LEA or school which is a Body Corporate for purposes of safety law and its’ enforcement.

o Non employer individuals as well as school may be subject of enforcement if they do not carry out their duties. This could apply to some Governor, Directors and/or Trustees and any individuals who may be dutyholders, as far as they exercise function of employer in Foundation, Private or Voluntary Aided Schools.

o Employees, Visitors and Contractors could also be subject of enforcement if they do not carry out their duties under H&S Law. This could apply to an individual who tampered with safety equipment or put someone at risk by negligence or incompetence.This could even be a pupil in a Secondary School who acts maliciously or in a grossly negligent way.So anyone on school site might be considered liable, except for children below age of criminal reponsibility.

However,it is Head Teacher who is main dutyholder and their main duty is to implement policies/procedures of Employer and manage Health and Safety on their site.

What are requirements to manage safety?

•The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations(1992 - 9) defined that all schools needed to manage safety. To do this any school needs to have a system for carrying out its’ H&S duties and also for reviewing safety matters in case situations change within school .

This is School Safety Management System (SMS) and this a whole school issue and staff,governors and pupils need to be part of, and contribute to this system.

• The SMS needs to be used to manage safety actively as part of School’s normal operations. Having an SMS and operating it is part of normal work of school and should be accommodated in resources and budgets within school framework.

The SMS is framework within which school needs to address all its’ Health and Safety duties.

What are main H&S areas which Head Teacher needs to consider as duties?

•Risk Assessment - The School needs assess all its’ risks and put control measures put in place to reduce them. This means that a Risk Assessment System needs to be part of school SMS. Risk Assessment need not be overcomplicated but Risk Assessments need to be done by a COMPETENT Person.This means:

"A person with suitable, knowledge, skills, qualities and experience to carry out their taks without risk to their own health and safety or that of others." (Lord Cullen - Piper Alpha Report).

This person could be a teacher who has been deemed competent by virtue of their experience, GTC registration and experience. So a Science qualified member of staff is best person to carry out any Risk Assessment based around Science activities.

Equally a staff member who has taken many trips can carry out a Visits Risk Assessment.

What counts as adequate experience? How many trips is enough or appropriate?

This is a matter for your school SMS to define but, a competent person should always be appointed following a logical system and IN WRITING.

If you have not got in-house competence(a matter of judgement) you will need to call in outside assistance, applying same criteria to any outside consultant.

Has someone from an industrial H&S background enough competence to help you carry out a Risk Assessment for a Educational Visit? Probably not.

Your SMS needs to define how and when you should review and change risk assessments and what criteria you need to adopt for various actions. And remember, it is no earthly good adopting model Risk Assessments unchanged. All Risk Assessments must be pertinent and apply to your school and its' specific conditions.

•Training - H&S duties also mean that School needs to train and give information /instruction to its’ staff and some visitors. These H&S training duties mean that school needs to be able to deem staff competent to play their part in system.

It also means that school must deliver job specific training and/or instruction. The main areas of training defined by regulations and good practice include:

* Induction for all new staff and for specified visitors and contractors

* Basic Safety Requirement defined by your School SMS and which is sufficient H&S Training for staff to enable them to operate safely with awareness of duties,responsibilities, main hazards and risks and to enable them to play their part in School SMS.

* Job specific Safety training and Instruction - Training to enable member of staff to carry out their job role safely. e.g COSHH familiarisation for Cleaning Staff who use chemical cleaning agents.Instruction in a new piece of equipment and how to use it safely.