Fire Risk Assessment in Schools and Colleges

The key to successfully managing fire hazards in schools and colleges is the completion of a fire risk assessment by a competent person. Once the documentation is completed, schools must ensure that the identified control measures are fully implemented to ensure adequate protection of their people and assets. Our fire risk assessors all have extensive experience in undertaking these assessments for schools and colleges. They will happily offer advice & guidance to the establishment's staff on how to successfully implement the identified physical protection & management control measures .

The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (RRFSO) requires employers to undertake fire risk assessments of their premises. The focus of the RRFSO is to ensure the life safety of people. In addition to this critical issue, our assessors will also consider the business continuity risks, to reduce the extent of total loss/damage to the remainder of the buildings in the event of a fire. To conduct the fire risk assessment of your school or college buildings, a fire risk assessor will visit your premises and undertake a comprehensive evaluation of all of the buildings looking at all areas of fire safety and risk in detail.The process will involve a consultation period with the premises manager, to determine the existing outline standard of fire risk management in the workplace. A pre-inspection letter will be sent before the visit date to enable you to gather the necessary information required by the fire risk assessor.

After examining the school or college's documentary evidence relating to its fire management activities, there will be a physical inspection to look at and identify/confirm all of the points below:

1. Property age & occurring ;
2. People at risk in the event of a fire (staff, students, visitors & contractors);
3. Potential fire safety hazards and risk, ignition sources & combustible materials;
4. Fire prevention & management;
5. Fire safety signage;
6. Fire safety equipment & maintenance;
7. Fire safety training & drills;
8. Means of escape in the event of fire;
9. Deficiencies in existing fire safety & risk precautions;
10. An evaluation of your existing emergency fire procedures, training provided to staff & drills.

If you would like to know more about the above topics or fire risk assessments in general please see the What is a fire risk assessment? question in our FAQ section for a more detailed explanation.

The physical inspection is normally a non-intrusive survey of the premises, but will also consider the need for a more detailed intrusive survey. If the fire risk assessor deems that an intrusive survey will be required they will discuss it with you whilst on site. Issues which might contribute to the need for an intrusive survey include the age of the property and the buildings' construction methods. In most cases additional intrusive surveys are not needed for educational buildings.

The School's Fire Risk Assessment Report will be emailed to you upon completion in the form of a PDF. The Report will include the Fire Risk Assessment and a Fire Action Plan for the School or College to adopt. The adoption of the assessment is a vital stage in turning the assessor's report into the school's own fire risk assessment. Effectively managing fire safety is critical to everyone's safety, we therefore always provide the opportunity to discuss the findings of the fire risk assessment with the assessor in detail to ensure complete understanding of its findings and recommendations.

Reviewing a School's Fire Risk Assessment

Like all of the school's other risk assessments, fire risk assessments are legally required to be "regularly" reviewed. Generally fire safety professionals would intepret "regularly" to mean annually. As with most things in life there are exceptions, in this case these would relate to "significant changes" to the building's structure which would adversely impact its compartmentation; or to the activities that are taking place (or changes to the location within the building where existing ones are undertaken). A significant change which could impact the building's fire integrity or the introduction of new ignition or fuel sources would require a more urgent review of the assessment. Reviewing of the assessment does not necessarily mean that you always have to pay for an external contractor to undertake the review. If there have not been any significant changes then a local review by the school's staff to ensure that the existing controls are still place and effective will suffice (remember to record the review outcome and date on the assessment). As things do change with time, and people working in an environment can be "blind" to such changes, we would recommend that schools do utilise the services of external assessors every few years to ensure their fire risk assessment remains suitable and sufficient.

oneSource offers a number of complimentary services which may prove useful once you begin to implement the report's findings:

• Fire door inspections;
• Fire Marshall/Warden Training;
• Fire Extinguisher Training.
• Evacuation Chair Training.