Hi

I am giving a short (20 minute) session to all staff at a large school at inset.....believe me, this is progress! They are likely to be pretty unreceptive, although a good, punchy (but not stressy), amusing and informative 20 minutes would do a great deal of good. How would you go about it? I've gone through all of the usual lists - employees/employers duties, hasawa, risk assessment etc and although I obviously need to reference to these, I don't think that they are the right way to go. I am going to be carrying out training for these people at a later date this year and can be much more detailed then. It's not an induction, but for some of them it may be the first thing which they've heard specifically on H&S in a while.

M
What is your competence with regards to working in a school situation as competence is a vital component in 'managing' such an audience especially where U need to gain their confidence

Best of luck as this is a very hard, stressful and complicated employment area to work in - this area makes construction look very easy

Please, please don't include what you describe as "the usual lists" or even quote OS&H legislation at your audience. You don't have time to cover the usual lists and, in any event, is likely to bore the audience members or even alienate them.

Try a novel approach and start by saying what OS&H is really about - i.e. preventing or minimising the risk of people being killed, injured or otherwise harmed by work activities - and not what tends to be portrayed as "elf and safety" by the media.

Better still, instead of just talking to the audience, why not make your session interactive and get audience members to respond to your questions. Many of the topics which HSE featured in their "Myth of the Month" series relate to school and educational settings. Try choosing a few to show on a screen and use them to stimulate discussion. When I showed a selection of such topics some time ago at one of my employer's school H&S committee meetings, they provoked a superb discussion between the management and employee reps who were present.

Hopefully, you may start to improve the (mis)perceptions held by some of your audience, and perhaps even whet their appetite to find out more in the longer and more detailed training sessions in future.

Apologies for poor proof reading of the final sentence in my earlier response. To enlarge on what Jane has written, good OS&H is about enabling not banning.

Mootoppers - If you are giving your session at a secondary school, you could use the video clip of Judith Hackitt, chair of the HSE, and a demonstration of the "flaming hands" experiment to help illustrate that practical experiments in science are far from banned. The clip seems to be widely available from various websites including http://www.guardian.co.u...an/28/flash-bang-science for example. It's likely that teachers will especially appreciate the shots of the pupils looking bored before the experiment and then being amazed as Judith Hackitt's hands are apparently set alight. It might also be a good cue to briefly mention CLEAPSS and its work - this would probably elicit some positive comment from staff who work in science and also design & technology departments.

Educational visits and adventure activitiies are also worth mentioning along with the fact that, contrary to media and subsequently public perception, pupils are almost certainly safer during such trips than on family holidays, etc because the overwhelming majority of such trips and activities are well planned and led by diligent staff. Unfortunately, this aspect plus the overall absence of casualties and incidents just isn't newsworthy. Also, as schools and their activities are part of the real world, sometimes things do go amiss, though often nobody has been at fault and is to blame. Therefore, in view of the considerable educational and social benefits of such trips and activities, school staff should be encouraged to run them.

Another theme which could be mentioned is that, in addition to teaching pupils in a reasonably safe and healthy manner, school staff should grasp appropriate opportunities to encourage their pupils to think about and understand various aspects of safety & health, plus the practical management of risk. This approach would enhance the education received by pupils so that they are better able to identify and deal with the risks they are likely to face throughout life - whether at at home, during leisure activities and during their subsequent working lives.

During the inset day session and/or the future training sessions you could also ask if anyone knows the letters IOSH - and then briefly explain what IOSH does and can provide, including its website packages and information for young people. If more and more IOSH people bother to be ambassadors for IOSH when appropriate, IOSH ought to become as well known as RoSPA throughout the UK !

Cuttell - The answer to your question is in the opening line of the original posting i.e. the adult staff at a large school. For those unfamiliar with the term, INSET is an abbreviated expression in the school sector for IN SErvice Training when some or all members of staff at a school attend on a pupil-free day for training/updating.

Time to end for now and thereby make this an unusually (and perhaps mercifully) brief response from me.