Not sure that it can as the Regs are aimed at people who habitually use display screen equipment as a significant part of their normal work (i.e.employees). That being said, I would have thought that a responsible school would follow the spirit of the Regs and cover the basics of setting up a workstation and providing appropriate accessories to the students.

Pupils are not defined as users under the Regs. Workstations used solely by pupils aren't subject to the Regs. However it's obviously good practice to set up such stations properly and teach the children about this as part of any ICT course. I would certainly risk assess the ICT area with this in mind. Ken - you don't have to sit in front of a terminal for 8 hours to be a user! Pupils are excluded because they are not employees not because of the time spent in front of the screen.

OK So I didn't quote correctly directly from the regs, was trying to get my opinion across (which is the same as yours) that children aren't defined as users. Doesn't mean I haven't read the regs..... They may not be 'employees' Heather but are still offered the same protection under S3 of the HSW 74 Act....

Ken - I agree about S3 of course. That's because it's there to protect "persons other than employees". I used to be the H&S Governor at a Junior school so am aware of the difficulty in interpreting specific duties under H&S legislation where pupils are concerned. In this case I agree that workstations should be set up correctly regardless of the application or not of the Regs, but other duties such as eyesight tests will clearly not apply to pupils because they are not legally "users"

Our UK DSE Regs, as with most of our modern Regulations, are derived from European Directives specifically concerned with providing protection to workers. Pupils at School are not 'workers'. That said, I have come across some excellent IT suite provision, even in Primary Schools, with child-size full adjusting office type chairs and the like. At the other end of the spectrum of course we have the cheap and cheerful ubiquitous plastic or wooden bucket chair guaranteed to numb the posterior in less than an hour - as witnessed at many a School concert!

The DSE regulations apply to teachers and other employees who use computers at schools as part of their work but not pupils/students (including mature/evening class students) who are using such equipment as part of their education/tuition. Even though pupils/students are not "at work", I concur with decimomal in thinking that responsible teachers/tutors should tell their pupils/students about the existence, purpose and content of the DSE regulations, and also try to arrange for them to be observed at school/college as far as is reasonably practicable. Also bear in mind that many pupils have computers at home and some may be using them for long periods, e.g. for computer games. Therefore, in my opinion, good teachers should advise their pupils - AND the parents of such pupils - to apply aspects of the DSE regulations to their use of computers at home. Though this is not a legal requirement, it's surely good practice as part of educating pupils and preparing/equipping them to deal with life. While on the subject of school computers I found that some of my employer's schools (well, ex-employer since my retirement just before Easter) seemed to think that it was obligatory for computer screens to be located on top of computer boxes. This configuration forces pupils and staff to move their heads and eyes significantly more than necessary when alternating between screens and keyboards. If so, it suggests that some schools don't fully understand the need for computer users to be able to readily adjust their computer workstations. Mind you, this aspect isn't helped by the fact that HSE guidance about DSE seems to persist in including a diagram of a person sat at a desk looking at a screen on top of a computer box. This arrangement might be fine for users with touch typing ability but surely not for most users.

Even though the regulations do not apply to school children, a good organisation would treat the regulations as "good practice" or a code of practice, and apply the same standards. I agree with the replies that they should be introducing children to the standards that they would expect to encounter within the workplace. Every time I see school children on TV at their computers they are normally are sitting on plastic bucket seats.

In Scotland the Scottish Schools Education Resource Centre have published some excellent guidance on school ICT suites. Not sure if this link will work as you normally have to be registered with them to access their documents http://www.science3-18.o...amp;id=999&Itemid=19