Posted By Rob Malcolm
I have just this evening returned from attending a meeting at my sons primary school & have become alarmed to discover via the head master that welfare facilities for teachers & staff members is limited to two toilets for 50 employees approx (neither designated as a male or female domain). Further to this, no limit to the amount of children per classroom, no suitable rest breaks for teachers away from the classroom & more.

Can anyone provide me with guidance notes and a proformer risk assessment for a primary school or even a suitable audit form of questions & answers?

Many thanks

Rob

Posted By bigwhistle
Local Government has a particularly poor safety culture as they feel immune to prosecution by the HSE.

Children are our future and I believe they are being sold short in the public education system.

Posted By Eric Burt
Bigwhistle

I would be interested to see the evidence to support your statement that Local Authorities have a poor safety culture because they feel immune to prosecution by the HSE.

Obviously you wouldn't make such an insulting statement without any.

Posted By bigwhistle
An amusing challenge but many LEAs and schools are struggling to make ends meet and using unqualified Teaching Assistents and weekly voluntary contribution letters to keep their heads above water.

If you want to make Chaiman of the Governors suggest Heel Clamping parents who dont buy a playground ticket whilst collecting their kids.

I am afraid inadequate resources affect health and safety along with education.

Posted By bigwhistle
I have worked for both NHS and LAs and frankly I was appalled. Just take a look at how desperate head teachers are for staff; even considering employing paedophiles as long as someone will sanction it higher up.

Posted By Martin J Morley
Rob,
you asked for guidance notes for this;

the basic legislative guidance gives a table showing the minimum number of sanitary conveniences.
"The number of people at work shown in column 1 refers to the maximum number likely to be in the workplace at any one time. Where separate sanitary accommodation is provided for a group of workers, for example men, women, office workers or manual workers, a separate calculation should be made for each group."
6 - 25 2
25 - 50 3

The short guidance for managers adds "Men and women should have separate facilities unless each facility is in a separate room with a lockable door and is for use by only one person at a time."

You don't give more information on staff levels "at any one time", nor any information on the school buildings; age, type, location etc. which might affect the level of current provision and indeed, the possibilities for improvement. Any change now would undoubtedly need to include provision for disabled users - these new facilities take an awful lot of space.

Most importantly, you don't offer any take on the attitude of the head to his problem, whether he was complaining, whinging or just using this as a fundraising opportunity.

Again, as others have noted, he has a local authority who will have arrangements for him to obtain professional advice on these issues; if you think he is not making the appropriate response to his situation, then contact the local authority and ask them what they think the situation is.

regards,

martin

Posted By Maggie Atterbury
Hi Rob

You have received some good advice already, but additionally I would look at the Management Regs for guidance on sanitary provision. The best document for the school buildings is Building Bulletin 99 and other associated building bulletins which are downloadable from the DfES web site. I will send you monitoring/audit documents directly. I am surprised that you were told that teachers do not get any rest breaks - believe me, LEAs are taking the teachers work / life balance very seriously and breaks are now built in to the teachers week.

Bigwhistle
I am getting increasingly annoyed that some safety professionals feel free to insult others at the drop of a hat in these threads. You may have had a poor experience in an LEA, but please do not tar all of them, and by inference Education Safety Advisers like myself and my Team, with the same brush. We and other colleagues with whom I have contact, work extremely hard to develop amd monitor Health and Safety standards in our schools and if you don't believe the HSE are prosecuting Local Authorities and Schools for poor standards, just look at the prosecutions on the HSE web site.

Maggie Atterbury, Education Health and Safety Team Leader, Bath & North East Somerset Council

Posted By Rob Malcolm
Thanks all for your help with this matter. I'm sorry I have been unable to respond sooner, family issue's....

I feel that the head master is looking for help & support from the parents-reference to the meeting we had. I understand that the governors have been responsible for previous audits but never completed them. Generally the head has conducted it on their behalf. I guess he needs a little weight off his shoulders & is hoping that the parents can give him some support.

What I'm personally miffed about is the issue with the numbers of children in a classroom. Surely there must be some legislation somewhere that states a maximum in relation to available staff or classroom size i.e. dimensions, length, width etc.

(By the way I work as an auditor for the utilities sector on street works & I'm glad of any advice that may save me time and effort...why re-invents the wheel).

I was also shocked by the comments of one governor who said that "it’s not just this school that's suffering; it's all the local schools". Is it commonplace for schools to operate on a two-tear health & safety structure? (primary schools being at the bottom of the run). & do we have to accept it simply because all the other schools locally do?.

The governors previously conducted a survey asking the parents in the school yard if they thought that the school provisions such as toilets, classroom size's etc were adequate. I questioned the use of the word adequate & said it was too subjective, ambiguous if you like. What do they know about the needs of the teachers & staff or the needs of the children come to think of it!

Most of the parents they asked never even bother to attend parent & governors meetings & take very little interest in the school itself.

Has anyone any further thoughts on this matter.

Rob

Posted By Rob Malcolm
Thanks Glenda,

I will let you know how I get on.

Have you any thoughts on class numbers i.e. maximum levels etc.

Regards

Rob

Posted By Glenda Hayes
Hi Rob,

Regarding pupil / teacher ratios these are normally shown in each school's PANDA report and this would be looked at by any OFSTED inspection. Obviously dependant upon the type of school - A special school would have a much higher ratio of teachers to pupils.

In the primary for which I am a governor I have never known a class to contain more than 30 children and each class has a class teacher and an LSA. This school is a normal primary although it does have a high percentage of SEN pupils.

My own children attend a church aided junior school and again I have never known them to have more than 30 pupils per class, with a class teacher and LSA.

Returning to OFSTED one of the key areas that would be inspected is Leadership and Management and the following two points are a direct quote as to what an inspector would be looking for:

The extent to which schools enable learners to be healthy
The extent to which providers ensure that they stay safe

It might be interesting to look at the school last inspection report if you have not already done so, to see if any concerns were raised
regarding pupil/teacher ratio, quality of teaching observed, or health and safety issues.

Although it sounds like there could be much work needed at least you are aware of some of the issues so are now in a good position to be able to help address them.

Good Luck

Glenda

Posted By RP
If you have sky TV you missed the program on the Teaching Channel about this area, it was good informative and will be repaeated all this week....watch and learn

Posted By Jack
As a community school the LEA is the employer and therefore has the employer's responsibilities for h&s. The DfES website has information on responsibilities, see here:

http://www.teachernet.go.../atoz/h/healthandsafety/

Follow the links to health and safety responsibilities and you will find a useful summary.

In summary the LEA as employer must set the standards for h&s (the DfES document actually refers to providing guidance on h&s but I think this does not really reflect employers duties) and for monitoring.

You can ask the school or the LEA for information eg the standards/guidance on h&s provided for schools, information about how they monitor and any audit/inspection reports. (This must be provided under Freedom of Information Act).

Whilst large class sizes obviously do have h&s implications, I think the main issue is an educational one. It may effect how particular work is undertaken – some practical work may have to be modified - but in my experience most schools are able to manage large classes safely (but whether they are able to teach them effectively is another matter). Of course there will be implications on educational visits, swimming etc where both would require higher staffing ratios determined and d&t, science etc in secondary schools).

I also agree with others that you would probably find it useful speaking to the health and safety department at the LEA.

Posted By bigwhistle
As an interesting adjunct to this issue some LEA s are now even intending on charging school fees for children in reception who arent yet 5. That could get expensive for those who have given birth in the summer months.