Posted By Mike Craven
And I for one, hope that your MP treats your pompous remarks and point of view with the contempt they deserve, and pushes forward with this IOSH-supported initiative.

"Teaching health and safety in schools is being urged by MP George Howarth in a bid to reduce the number of young people killed at work.

His Private Member's Bill aimed at reducing workplace accidents by incorporating awareness into the education system is being supported by health and safety experts.

Mr Howarth said: "We know that inexperience leads to an increased risk of workplace injury and sadly over the last decade, 64 of those killed at work were under 19-years-old, 15,000 in this age group suffered major injuries and a further 50,000 were hurt.

"Consequently, it's vital that we look to incorporate health and safety awareness into education before our young people begin work-based learning or start work, and that we provide adequate supervision and induction training, so that fewer lives are avoidably damaged."

Ray Hurst, president of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH), said: "Tragic accidents are much more likely to happen when people are ill prepared for employment through a lack of health and safety education, awareness and training.

"We fully support George Howarth in his efforts to embed relevant health and safety in our education system, as mandatory parts of national, vocational and professional curriculam."

Your view of the ability of young people to appreciate and understand the issues is rather patronising. My 11 year old son started secondary school last month; his first two science lessons were dedicated to classroom and laboratory safety, including a look at chemical safety, hazard classification, routes of entry, etc. He understood and appreciated the importance of health and safety and, as a parent, I appreciated the school's commitment to informing him about H&S. If it continues to do so, and prepares him for a safe and healthy working life, I will have very few complaints.

Have a look at news and campaigns for info on the IOSH "WHAC" initiative, etc.

Mike

Posted By graeme12345
Firstly, there are other agendas why people or organisations support or initiate supposedly good ideas, and it normally comes down to one thing.

the sad thing is, it will be done by an external consultancy costing a fortune.

And not by the district or local council employed "safety person", because senior management in schools and local councils will not get their heads together to take on their responsibilities by doing it "in house".

IOSH members could not even do it voluntarily because there would be no insurance cover.

Posted By John J
I already do it and we have several other people who go out to schools and talk about H&S with pupils.

Its nonsense to suggest that kids don't understand the topic. you just have to put it into a concept they inderstand.

John

Posted By Stuart Hufton
Next week I am delivering IOSH Working Safely to a group of school kids who are working on a community project. As long as you put it into context and use examples and scenarios they can relate to, they don’t find it a problem!

Posted By Tabs
1971 - Junior School, we are taught rudementary CPR. I was 9 yrs old.

1984 - Barry Island Pleasure Beach swimming baths. A lad of 18 drowned after being concussed. No pulse. No breathing. Me and another swimmer revived him - my first use of CPR since that one-off training.

A life saved because of 20 minutes training 13 years earlier. No "Casualty" or other such programmes on TV in those days either.

Of course kids can learn.

Posted By Tabs
Just read your reply Mike - so to put my reply in context, a plastic doll on the gym floor is rather abstract when compared to a screaming mass of people in a swimming pool, and yet the lesson had worked.

Most of school is abstract (maths, physics, etc) and yet the information and understanding is retaiined.

Maybe it comes down to the quality of teaching and the enthusiasm of the subject?

Posted By Tony abc jprhdnMurphy
Mike

that is actually quite worrying in the sense that none of my four children were given access to swimming lessons, something I was shocked at although I was lead to believe this was a common theme. I applaud your associated school for all its input into allowing children the opportunity to understand risk and to take part in character building exercises. If all schools do the same then maybe I was lost in a time warp although my youngest (17) definately did not go swimming and the only trip I can remember him going on was to Blackpool. There may be other reasons i.e locality, staff shortages etc.
I am not a lover of classroom based safety anyway but teaching theory to children as part of a broad curriculum is a nonsense. Allowing work experience on the other hand would get my full support, I cannot see the sense in taking a Health & Safety subject (i.e construction safety) and teaching it to a classroom full of kids who may never set foot on a building site. Health & Safety should stat firmly rooted in the workplace. Let kids be kids eh?

Posted By Anne Smart
Dear all,

Just wanted to weigh in and explain what IOSH is currently doing to help risk education in schools.

It’s one of our major campaigns – Putting Young Workers First – and has been running since 2005. The campaign was in response to the fact that young people are far more vulnerable at work than other more experienced employees.

Since then we’ve….

- launched an award-winning website called Wiseup2work (www.wiseup2work.co.uk) to help teachers, trainers, employers and youth workers engage teenagers in hazard awareness

- developed and launched the free Workplace Hazard Awareness Course (WHAC) with the HSE, which is for teachers to deliver to year 10s before they go on work experience (www.wiseup2work.co.uk/whac)

- met with over 40 MPs to discuss how to get risk education into teaching and school curricula

- had questions in Parliament asked by supportive MPs, including a Prime Minister’s Question

- presented WHAC to work experience co-ordinators, head teachers etc to demonstrate how it can help their students prepare for work

- hosted a packed fringe event at this year’s Labour Party Conference about the campaign

- registered over 2,500 people to deliver the WHAC materials in schools, colleges and workplaces throughout the UK and overseas

The whole point of this campaign is to promote risk awareness in theory and practice and to give teachers the skills and tools to prepare their students for the real world of work. This isn’t a campaign to promote health and safety consultants to schools – far from it. We’re giving teachers everything they need to include health and safety within the curriculum without calling in a health and safety professional. Most of our registered users for WHAC are teachers – there are very few health and safety professionals – which is exactly what we hoped for.

Richard Jones, IOSH’s policy and technical director, summed it up really well at the recent fringe event – he said “This campaign is about developing real thinking skills, for example, explaining not only what the safeguards are, but also why they’re needed and how they work.”

Going back to Tony’s original point about on the job health and safety training – this is a valuable part of the mix, but shouldn’t be the starting point. WHAC fits perfectly into work experience preparation, and many of the teachers we’ve spoken to about the course are using it before their students go on placements.

We’re all for keeping kids out of cotton wool and encouraging them to take risks. As long as they know how to manage them and stay safe while having some fun. Which is why the WHAC course starts with a fantastic (and totally mad) clip of a man skydiving over Arizona. The message of the course is that understanding health and safety will help you do whatever you want, whether that means being an office temp, a construction worker or a stunt performer.

You can read about IOSH’s campaigns at www.iosh.co.uk/campaigns.

Anne Smart, IOSH media and campaigns co-ordinator

Posted By Andy Brazier
My son asked me to do a talk to his Year 5 class (9 year olds) last term. I got them to do a risk assessment of their current project, which was making a Tudor house using cardboard, wood, saws, hot glue gun etc. I explained hazard, consequence and risk to them. I then asked them to list the hazards, think of the possible consequences and then rate the risks. Two of the class wrote these on the white board, taking suggestions from the rest of the class.

I was really unsure how it would go, but was amazed they understood the concepts and were able to rate the risks exactly as I would have. This allowed us to have a great discussion about how health and safety is not there to stop them doing things but a way of making sure they can do what they want without taking unnecessary risks. The teacher said afterwards that it helped her a lot to put things into concept.

I'd urge everyone to take any opportunity they can to engage with youngsters about sensible risk management.

Posted By Brian Dawson
"I cannot see the sense in taking a Health & Safety subject (i.e construction safety) and teaching it to a classroom"

Tony, I think you maybe have a very narrow view about what teaching around h&s might involve. I think there is a need for greater 'risk litteracy', a phrase I recall from Trevor Kletz's articles in the Practitioner (or was it 'Protection'?), and I feel this needs to start with the young to have any impact. As well as helping prepare for entering work it would also lead to an understanding of 'sensible safety'(and in much wider context than ocupational h&s eg in a medical context). I would envisage this as being across all subjects, not a specific lesson. Andy's excellent example above could, for instance, have been just an ordinary part of the project itself.

I would also caution against extrapolating from the experience in the school attended by your own children when making sweeping statements about what does or does not happen in schools generally!!

Posted By Pete48
Oh and I forgot to include the comment that many accidents to young people at work happen because they are inadequately trained or supervised when they arrive in the workplace. The better prepared they are, the less chance that they will be led astray within their first weeks in work by those who either don't know any better or don't care.

Posted By DPK
The fire and Rescue Service have been teaching and preaching H&S (fire safety/road safety) in schools for years with great success, the training is always well received to the point we are usually inundated with requests.

Sorry but i cant agree with the original posting as there is clear evidence that it works.

My kids already have a great grasp of what is safe and what isn't at the ages of 7 & 9,e.g. always put on the safety belts in the car, always wear the helmets on the quad and so on. My eldest visited pony club this summer for the 1st time and they spent much of the time teaching the kids to be safe near and around horses and road safety. Because of this level of input on safety they continue with their interest and i am much more comfortable letting them take part in hazardous hobbies.

But then we all need a different take on things don't we.

DPK