Posted By Zoe Barnett
You really need to do an assessment on each pupil. There will of course be common elements to all the assessments so you could consider doing a baseline assessment and then "bolting on" the individual factors.

One of the schools I work with makes the risk assessment a part of each child's individual education plan and this seems to work well as the IEP is agreed with parents. Their involvement, and that of the child where he/she is old enough and has enough understanding, is crucial. It is very important to realise that the parents are the experts in the child.

Other things to bear in mind are the issues of manual handling (for staff as well as the children) and the problems that may be posed by emotional/behavioural problems, the need for the storage and administration of medication, communication and so on. Hence the benefits of making each assessment individual!

Many support groups for the various conditions will be able to help and of course you can draw on the expertise of the teachers and the LEA - for instance, the educational psychologist could help determine the best way to ensure that a child understands something affecting their health and safety, or can offer advice on how to approach that particular condition.

I hope this helps but if you would like to discuss things further please contact me.

Regards

Zoe

Posted By Ken Taylor
I don't work with special schools these days, but would support the concept of care/education plans based upon individual risk assessments - in addition to 'workplace' type assessments. Have you seen DfES/DoH publication DfES/597/2002 'Autistic Sectrum Disorders: Good Practice Guidance' and relevant DfES Building Bulletins (including BB94 Inclusive School Design'?