What Health and Safety Training do Schools and Colleges need?
Unfortunately, there is no simple list of the health & safety training which schools and colleges need to provide for their staff. This is because no two colleges or schools are on identical sites, doing identical tasks, in identical ways with identical people (staff & pupils). The variations for each education establishment result in different levels of risk and often require different control measures. The health & safety training schools provide therefore needs to take account of these differences. In this article we will discuss how you can identify the health and safety training requirements of your school's staff.
Background Information
The purpose of providing health & safety training to employees is to establish, maintain or enhance the individual's competence. The number, type and level of health and safety training courses which trustees, governors, directors, managers and employees will require will depend upon:
- the requirements of their job;
- the level of risk they (and for teachers their pupils) are exposed to;
- their previous experience;
- the frequency with which they will use the knowledge/skills gained from their training.
- findings of hazard registers identifying key tasks to ensure health & safety (and by association areas requiring competence);
- findings of the school's risk assessments;
- industry standards for the education sector (e.g. Association for Science Education (ASE), Consortium of Local Education Authorities for the Provision of School Science (CLEAPSS), Design And Technology Association (DATA), Department for Education (DfE) guidance, Food Standards Agency (FSA) etc.);
- job descriptions (note these are often vague on actual duties and therefore generally of limited use);
- responsibilities included in the organisation section of the school health and safety policy;
- findings of accident or incident investigations.
- recommendations from health & safety management system or topic-based audits.
- health and safety induction;
- fire safety awareness;
- school's emergency procedures (including fire, hazardous substance release & access to first aid);
- hazard and accident reporting procedures;
- local security arrangements.
- health and safety awareness for managers course - basic understanding of role and responsibilities, types of systems required etc.;
- general risk assessment course - they may need other specialisms such as manual handling assessor, COSHH assessor etc.;
- accident investigation.
Job requirements
Job requirements for school and college employees fall into two main categories. Those associated with performing the actual duties of the job safely, such as working on step-ladders, unblocking drains, positively handling children, food preparation, handling hazardous chemicals, teaching pupils etc. and the safety management tasks of managers and supervisors (e.g. policy development, risk assessment, inspection, accident investigation, supervision, discipline etc.). The health & safety training delivered needs to provide school staff with the appropriate skills and/or knowledge. Employees who will physically undertake tasks should attend training courses which will develop their practical competence, in the majority of cases this would mean attending a face-to-face course where they can learn, develop and practice the skills they will require (there is caselaw which shows the courts expect staff who are required to perform practical skills to receive face-to-face health and safety training).
Level of risk
The greater the level of risk to which an employee is exposed during their work, the higher the level of competence their employer needs to ensure they have to minimise the likelihood of an accident. The same is also true for the managers and supervisors who will undertake the risk assessments and develop the safe systems of work for the activities which the staff will be undertaking.
Previous Experience
If an employee has extensive experience of an activity then they may not require as much training and development as a new member of the school or college's staff. Conversely an employee's previous experience may not be helpful if it includes working using unsafe practices, as these may be difficult to change. School & college employers are legally required to ensure that their staff are competent to undertake the tasks which they intend to allocate to them.
Frequency of use of training/knowledge/skills
People's ability to retain information and skills deteriorates with the passage of time.Therefore, school and college employees who only undertake tasks infrequently need to be trained more often than those who repeat them regularly.
Types of Training
The term "training" is widely used to cover a range of activities including providing employees with information, giving them instruction and formal or informal training courses/sessions (including e-learning courses). The type of health & safety training courses which wiil be required will depend on the level of risk to which the school or college's staff are exposed. In some cases it may be that a mixture of types of course is appropriate. For example if a task was high risk it is likely that the employees would need to attend a formal health & safety training course to initially develop their competence. Toolbox talks (short informal sessions at the workplace) might then be held at regular intervals to reinforce particular parts of the training, with annual e-learning refreshers to maintain overall subject knowledge.
How do I Identify the Training Courses my School or College's Staff Require?
The best way to establish the health and safety training needs of your staff is to develop a competency matrix or matrices. These show the the competencies (including training courses) which is required for various job roles within the school. The information used to develop schools competency matrices can come from a number of sources:
There are some basic competencies which appear on all competency matrices:
Managers and supervisors will need to have competence to manage the risks of the activities which their staff undertake. They will therefore need at least the following management competencies:
Senior managers, governors and trustees with responsibility for health and safety should have a greater depth of knowledge, so that they can set the direction for the school or college and effectively monitor its health and safety performance. We would recommend that a suitable minimum level of course for headteachers and principals is the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health's (IOSH) Managing Safely. This course would also be appropriate for the school or college's health and safety co-ordinator ( the person delegated to have oversight of the Safety Management System on behalf of the principal or headteacher). Governors and Trustees need at least a basic awareness course, such as the Health and Safety Awareness for Governors and Trustees e-learning course available from ourselves.
Education establishments also have some roles which are unique to the sector, such as educational visit co-ordinator & special educational needs co-ordinator. The competency matrices must also include these specialisms.
Refreshing Health & Safety Training
Once schools have identified their employees' training needs and the staff have completed the required health and safety training courses they must then turn their attention to maintaining each staff member's competence. As previously mentioned an important factor to consider when deciding how often staff should undertake refresher training courses is learning fall-off and the level of risk posed by the activities the employees undertake. As a general rule staff should complete health & safety & fire safety refresher training courses every three to five years.
Information on the health and safety and fire safety training courses which we offer for education staff can be found via the links below: