Posted By Laura Stacey There is already a Working Party looking at Off-site activities for Colleges through the Association of Colleges. There are obviously some differences in schools and colleges and that is the focus for the working party. If any College is interested in our procedure and documentation (under the new guidance) for visits, please contact me and I'll be happy to share it. I guess it's not much use for schools though. email: laurastacey@pcfe.ac.uk

Posted By Ken Taylor - and not only educational visits. LEAs and schools will need to be working on their accessibility policies and plans in accordance with the recent DfES guidance and new DRC Code of Practice. I'm in the independent sector these days, Zoe, and have given each of our schools a standard procedure with supporting forms and a set of generic risk assessments to be supplemented by organisers, signed by them and checked/revised as necessary during the visit. I felt that the original DfEE (as it was) guidance was inadequate at the time but the recent 3 parts to the supplement do improve things somewhat - although there is a marked lack of activities for which advice is provided in the 'Group Leader's Handbook'. The proposal to update this via the website is also of concern and I hope they will be providing hard copy. Busy teachers planning visits, in my experience, are more likely to refer to papers in the appropriate file than log on to a website to see if there is anything new in their field of expertise. For this reason (and others) I try to keep up-to-date myself on the range of subjects covered by the schools, obtain hard copies of relevant publications that involve health and safety and send them to the schools. If you you do not get sufficient response from the LEA people on this site you could try ringing me if you like - but leave it until I return to the office on 10.09.02 (ie after the IOSH Public Services Symposium at Winchester). Ken Taylor (020 8680 8499)