Health and safety as a culture

Would you be comfortable walking an inspector round your school, delving into your practices whether this be your induction process, management of risk assessments, or simply the way you communicate the latest information? Phil Burton explores 

Read the full article below or read on page 30 in our September magazine

Alongside the newly announced HSE asbestos inspections, and the ongoing COVID safety measures schools are expected to maintain, are we needing to see a greater focus in the education sector and how we manage this area of our schools? If you are hoping to achieve excellence in this area here are a few things to help you on your way. 

Firstly – H&S is all about culture – everyone should be invested in ensuring you have great practices and that people follow the rules. Culture is shaped by your own experiences and your school’s appetite for risk. The benchmark is set by your trustees, governors and leaderships team who should all be saying the same thing and challenging behaviours where they fall short. (Hopefully this is a rare occurrence).

Secondly – look after your people – an excellent induction will deal with most of the key areas but, when I travel around, this seems to be something that is not well done across schools. Ensure you have a robust process which covers all the key areas of H&S. Ensure you also get a signed copy to say they have not only read, but have understood, the content – for me, a person can ask the same question a dozen times to make sure they understand the concept.

As part of looking after your people ensure that the training is suitable and sufficient for their role.  Many business managers and site managers are undertaking NEBOSH training to demonstrate their knowledge of the subject.  It would also be good to have premises officers undertake the IOSH Managing Safely course and to have other staff conduct a simple 10 question quiz around key areas of H&S every year. This provides great evidence of ongoing CPD in the area.

Thirdly – Keep records – sadly this seems to be the way of the world and you must keep records of all training and compliance checks; there are a lot of things out there to help with this. It is up to you how you manage this – whether totally online, paper-based or a hybrid of both.  I prefer a hybrid approach, with routine daily and weekly tasks recorded in my one-stop-shop log book and annual statutory inspections recorded on an online platform. My biggest tip is to ensure that someone is checking the checker at least every three months to make sure they are doing it right.

Finally (for now) – monitoring. Do a termly inspection of the school and record it. Have a governor focus session each term looking at a key area of H&S (fire, Legionella, or maybe ask the children what they think).  Where you can, bring in the experts; have the local authority do a termly focus inspection with you. Remember the day-to-day inspections too; it all counts.  Once you have this information create an action plan which is reviewed by the appropriate committees so you can show how you are ticking off these issues.

H&S is a key and vital part of school life, ensuring everything remains legal and compliant – and safe. You really do not want to be sat with a HSE inspector (it is not a pleasant experience even if you do everything right).