“The bottom line is that accidents are failings,” said Stuart McGregor, director of operations at the National Alliance of School Premises Managers, addressing a crowd of leaders at the Schools and Academies Show in London. “Something’s gone wrong.”
McGregor has worked in this area for over 20 years, investigating hundreds of school incidents. As a word of warning, he recalled a number of accidents in schools that ended in fatalities, affecting children, staff and even passers-by.
So what should leaders be doing to ensure the best health and safety practice? McGregor outlined a list of priorities that schools often overlook.
Health and safety tips for school leaders
1. Think about contractors
“Contractors are one of the biggest risks,” McGregor said.
He explained that schools must select their contractors - be they builders, maintenance providers or anyone else - appropriately by carrying out checks on their health and safety policy, risk assessments, competence, training and qualifications.
“Don’t be complacent,” McGregor warned, adding that it’s not enough for a school to say, “We’ve used him for a decade,” or to point to a local authority or another school that have, without doing their own new checks.
If a Health and Safety Executive inspector were to visit, a school should be able to show evidence of those checks. “You should have a folder on contractors,” McGregor added.
2. Grading risk management
Thorough risk assessments are vital, but McGregor warned against the growing trend of scoring on a “risk matrix of 25”, rather than using the more commonly understood “high”, “medium” and “low” ratings.
A numerical system provides too many grey areas, so a back-to-basics approach is more useful here, he advised.
3. What needs reporting
Since regulations were updated in 2013, schools have a statutory duty to record certain kinds of accidents with the Health and Safety Executive within a certain time frame, depending on the incident.
But not every accident needs to be reported, and many schools seem to report “for the sake of it”, McGregor said. This is a waste of time - and could lead to more important things being missed.
4. Dinnertime dangers
While play equipment and PE lessons are widely recognised areas of risk, one area that is often overlooked is the dining hall, McGregor said, He described how cutlery and food that’s dropped on the floor can be trip and slip hazards.
With this in mind, he advised that extra attention should be given to lunchtime risk assessments and the required preventative measures, such as staff clearing up as soon as possible - not just after the lunch session has ended.
5. Culture change
It might be commonplace for a teacher to stand on a chair to open a window, or to balance on a table with a staple gun to fix their latest display to a wall. But McGregor said that proper health and safety compliance means eliminating these kinds of behaviours.
It is on leaders and health and safety managers to ask, “Why are you doing that?”, he said. “You’ve got to change that culture. If you stop someone from doing something that’s unsafe, you may save someone’s life. That’s what it comes down to.”
6. Leaders’ responsibility
With that in mind, an audience member asked McGregor what a leader should do if a member of staff does not comply with regulations.
“If you’ve got procedures in place and they’re not following the procedures, that becomes a management issue,” he said, adding that it would be different if you hadn’t inducted them or shown them a risk assessment.
This situation is fairly common, McGregor added, especially among more “old-school” staff who don’t feel the need to follow new policies. But if that’s the case, a leader should not stand still. “There must be changes around the culture,” he concluded.
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