Hi all, I have just been informed that we will have about 10 under 11 year old children visiting the premises on friday. We are a gas turbine workshop and assosiated office. I am aware of having young people on site in terms of work experience as we had a recent visitor last month. However i cannot find any legislation regarding younger kids (under 14) visiting the site and what my requirements will be. There will be a school teacher coming with them. Would i also need to ensure all staff have had CRB type checks carried out??? Any quick help would be appreciated as i only have a few days to ensure we are safe for them to be on site, or if they would not be allowed on site at all etc. Many thanks all.

Agree with Pete's sensible response, There is no specific legislation other than the general duties under s4 HSWA and the requirement for a risk assessment under ManRegs. You also owe an additional duty of care to vulnerable groups under civil law so (apologies for the egg sucking moment) you need to conduct a specific RA for the visit. Importantly, this RA needs to include provision for the forseeable risks posed by school children (running off, misbehaving, additional toilet / welfare requirements etc.) Your RA should refer to guidance at: http://www.hse.gov.uk/se...ucation/school-trips.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/education/visits.htm A word of caution though, as quoted by the HSE you need to "focus on the risks and the benefits to the people - not the paperwork". With simple control measures (such as those indicated by Pete) a simple RA will ensure the day is run without problems but with long lasting benefits. Good luck! Ian

Richard You've raised a good topic and received good responses already. It's commendable that the school is taking the pupils to see a real workplace and also that your organisation is willing to show them its premises and activities. It accords with increasing encouragement for schools to consider ways and means of providing their pupils with "learning outside the classroom". Also, it's likely that the pupils will remember what they see and hear during the visit considerably longer than what they are taught in school classrooms. With this in mind, hopefully you and/or whoever is showing the group round your premises will take appropriate opportunities to discuss aspects of safety and health, e.g. if the pupils are shown employees wearing PPE for some tasks, a brief discussion could be initiated by asking them why they think the PPE is being worn. Also, it might be worth finding out from the teacher if the children will be writing and sketching about what they've seen and heard after the visit. If so, they could be encouraged to touch on a few potential hazards posed by the activities and how your organisation deals with them. Hope the visit goes well and is interesting and enjoyable for all involved. Also, if any points emerge which you think are worth sharing on the forum, please could you share them with us? I suspect that various organisations could have visits by groups of pupils/young people - with benefits to all involved - but are very reluctant to do so because of serious and widely held misperceptions that such visits require lots of complicated risk assessments plus CRB clearance. They do not. Therefore, constructive information about such visits would be useful for spreading around as a means of helping to challenge the misperceptions. p.s. Apologies for any wrong assumption on my part that the visitors on Friday comprise a school group. Your post doesn't mention any school and I'm aware from when I lived in Scotland that Scottish schools start and finish their summer holidays several weeks earlier than in other parts of the UK. No matter, even if the group is not from a school, the main points made by earlier responders and myself remain valid.

Richard As regards mini hi-vis vests for the kids it's worth asking the teacher if the school already has some, e.g. for cycling proficiency training and/or out-of-school trips, and could bring them. However, providing small hard hats might be difficult: Do you or any other forum users know if any companies make/sell hard hats which would fit children? Also, is there a clear need for the kids and adults to wear hard hats? Another aspect to consider is that though it might be a nice gesture to give away such hats (if available), the company finance person/s might query the cost involved especially if the visit is a success and the school or other schools ask for similar visits in future. As for seeing/hearing noisy activities it could be argued that the noise dosage received by the visitors over a very short time is unlikely to cause them harm. By contrast, explain that the employees are exposed to significant doses of loud noise every working day and therefore need to be provided with and use effective hearing protection. (As a rough parallel, in my area there is an industrial museum in an old mill with working cotton textile machines on one floor. Though the operators use hearing protection, visitors are simply told by various signs about the high noise levels present and advised not to remain in the noisy areas for more than 15 minutes.) Even if the visitors are kept away from the significantly noisy activities, especially those with 130db peaks, when they are being carried out, the fact that they are likely to hear the noise/s from a distance should present an opportunity for discussing noise. In addition, mention could be made of the fact that excessive exposure to leisure noise over time can also harm hearing, e.g. using personal stereos with the volume too loud or regularly going to rock concerts. (As an example, don't most older rock performers have significant hearing loss?) As you are likely to know about noise already, I'd better add that the above points are made more for the benefit of forum users who are not acquainted with noise issues. As mentioned in my response yesterday, such visits have significant educational merit. It's good for kids/young people to be given opportunities to see and hear real industrial activities and people at work rather than hope that they pay some attention to DVDs shown at school and TV documentaries seen at home. It might also inspire some to consider what they want to do when they reach working age. Also, anything which helps to encourage young people to pursue careers in engineering and science is surely worthwhile in an era when such people are needed by UK companies and organisations!

Hi, all sounds good to me. I'd watch teachers and children don't put their fingers into anything and when pointing things out don't put your fingers in anything. Many years ago (early 1980's) had a guy who was showing manager how unsafe an unguarded saw blade was and almost lost the whole of his thumb! Lilian