safety procedures

Unit 27 P4/M3

The Howard SchoolSafety ProceduresThe Howard School must follow these procedures to ensure the safety of students and staff, these procedures are in place to identify, monitor and resolve potential risks so that the school environment can be a non-hazardous one with minimal issues.

Visitor ProceduresAlthough visitors may be in the school to either help or visitor students we at the Howard School have procedures so that we can track the visitor’s interactions. Visitors are required to sign in at reception and wear a visitor badge, as well as this they should provide a signature and identification so we know who we are letting into the school. The reason for this is that if an emergency should occur we would be able to notify the correct authorities of the identity. The procedure is in place so students know that the person is visiting and therefore cannot mistake them for a teacher, students are advised to notify reception of unusual people not wearing a visitor badge.

Missing ChildrenThe Howard School takes a register using e-portal to ensure the presence of students, in the event of a student not being present without a given reason the school will know within the first 15 minutes of the class starting. If the student was present at the period before the teacher would be able to tell that the student could be possibly skipping class and would need to prompt further into the situation.

Student IdentificationStudents are given a uniform that they have to wear so that they can be identified as a student at our school, in other schools staff are given uniforms but here we just provide the staff with an ID badge and a dress code. As sixth form students are not required to wear school uniform we provide them with a student ID. They do not have to have these on show although if asked they may need to provide their ID to a member of staff. At The Howard School students sometimes feel uncomfortable and try to rebel against uniform and for that reason we have strict penalties in place for not following this rule.

FireFire accidents are not uncommon in some schools and we at The Howard School want to make sure that in the event of a fire that all the students would be safe. We have regular fire drills that test the student’s evacuation skills to ensure that in the event of a real fire the students would be safe. During these drills students have to line up in lines related to their form class and the register is taken in a calm manner.

Miss Johnston Lewis Appleton

Unit 27 P4/M3

Security LockdownAt The Howard School we have procedures in place if we see a potential threat; we have lockdown procedures to protect students and staff from these threats. The time when we may require these procedures is when a violent crime has been reported near the school, a dangerous high profile person is spotted in the area or if there is a threat from something such as a shooting, the likelihood of this happening is very unlikely but it is necessary to think ahead just in case.

Building RulesThe Howard School has to make sure that they have guidelines for safe building, this means providing a building for the school that is both safe and secure, this includes the type of materials that can be used to construct the building and for example the type of paint used. Electricity and water should also be safe to use, The Howard School also has to follow the codes set by the EU-OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) as well as those provided by the National Education Association.

Activity RulesThe school has to make sure that any equipment used for activities is safe such as art supplies and science equipment, this means there are rules in place for the handling of items, guidelines for usage, preventing things such as running in hallways and also includes subject specific rules such as safety for sport.

Risk Assessment procedureA risk assessment has to be carried out when there is a possibility of a risk, the purpose is to assess the potential frequency and severity of an event happening such as a fire in classrooms. This of course is a major thing but there are also minor things such as hot drinks. The hazards are split into categories so the assessor is able to organise their findings.

FormatThe header of the document will contain what the risk assessment is for, whether it is a regular general class room assessment or a school trip assessment. A reference number and date is also required, this is so the document can be filed correctly. The location and person assessing will also be required. Finally in the header the potential persons at risk will be required.

ContentAfter this there is the actual risk assessment information, first of all there is a column of identified hazards, then next column contains six different severity categories; negligible, minor injury, major injury, single death, multi-death, multi-offsite. The next column contains six different probable frequencies; improbable, possible, occasional, fairly frequent, frequently, certainty. There is then a column for “risk score” which is the severity score multiplied by the probable frequency. The next


Unit 27 P4/M3

column states that scores of 9 or above need further immediate assessment. The final column is for any further comments that are necessary. The identified hazards are categorised into the following; fire, slips trips and falls, burns, use of chemicals, falls from height, electrocution, strangulation, suffocation, choking, noise, crushing, cuts, strain, and eye damage.

Best practiceThe risk assessments for general classrooms are to be carried out regularly with any scores over 9 being addressed immediately to prevent the risk and dangers of causing harm to students, staff or visitors. Risk assessments are to be carried out on occasions where the students will be leaving the school premise as the school is still responsible for their well-being and has to ensure that they are kept safe from potential dangers, in this case one possible risk could be a car crash.

Recommendations

From looking at my results taking the risk assessments on the four specified locations I have come up with a list of recommendations that would improve the current situation and alleviate any possible risks in the future. I will categorise these recommendations according to each location a risk assessment was carried out on.

HallA possible risk is that the fire escapes are located at the sides of the hall and are usually covered by chairs during an assembly which makes it possible that these could be inaccessible during the event of a fire accident. The location of the doors does not need to be changed, the chairs need to be made more compact and have fewer of them so that the escapes will work as they should. The access to open or high level windows poses a possible risk so it is recommended that specialised hooks and poles are used to operate these windows, this means that the person does not have to be at a height in order to operate it and prevents the person possibly falling from a height and causing injury.The use of steps and ladders to turn off ceiling projectors poses a risk, while the projector can be operated with a remote some parts such as opening the dust cover will require this, clearly this poses a risk as the ceiling is fairly high, there isn’t much that can be done about this but it is possible to lower the height of the projector at least slightly or to take extra precaution in terms of safeguarding the steps or ladder. There is an issue with extensions and multi adapters, on the stage area of the hall there is a large amount of hanging extension leads, clearly these wouldn’t be here during a show but it does pose a possible risk of tripping and should be improved. One way this could be done is to mount plug sockets into the wall.

Sixth Form CanteenOne possible risk is the fact that if the fire alarm was to sound it may not be heard, this is due to the high noise levels in the canteen due to students talking and even if the alarm is in the canteen it still may be hard to hear. One possible way to fix this is


Unit 27 P4/M3

to either reduce the noise levels by asking students or to also have a visual way to show there’s a fire such as a flashing light.The noise is also a major concern because it means that staff may not be able to tell something important to the students as they would not be heard, it isn’t a risk as such but is something that still needs improving, one way to do this could be a mounted speaker on the wall that would be associated with a microphone somewhere in the school, this would allow the staff to be heard.The hot drinks do pose a potential threat as they are fairly hot and the containers are not well insulated, this could cause a student to be burned even if its through their own actions, an easy way to fix this would be to lower the max temperature the drink machine can give and possibly spend a little extra for more insulated cups.

Business RoomA major issue is the fact that the business room has no fire exits, many other classrooms around the school have a fire exit and the business room is located as such that it may be difficult to get to the fire exit. One way to prevent this happening is either to install a fire exit or to provide other means such as a large operable window since the room is on the ground floor.Another factor related to fires is the fact there isn’t a fire alarm close by to the business room which may make it hard to hear it if it were to go off. This is a huge risk as it may prevent the students and staff even knowing there is a fire and could potentially put lives at risk. One way to fix this would be to install a fire alarm close by.

ELCNo noted concerns at this time.
