I'm in the same sort of position. Most of my clients are FM based but I've been approached by 2 seperate private schools to come in and look after their risk management. Both schools have a RM in place but they want  to provide support to him. Having a meeting tomorrow with 1 of them. Going to be completely different to my normal work environment

I work in the HE sector but my experience of the past 3 years may provide some insights

You can’t really cannot assume that the work is ‘low risk’ compared to manufacturing. There are several reasons for this.

1. Colleges carry out a wide variety of activities; it’s not just classroom based. There may be workshops, where this will be using machinery and welding, laboratories where they might be using chemicals or microorganisms, they could be working on farms and dealing with animals. This as well all of the normal office-based stuff like including DSE and fire safety.
2. The buildings can be a challenge. Many date back to the sixties or even earlier. They could be full of asbestos and an aging building fabric. They will need to be adapted for modern demands and compromises will need to be made. Your job would be to make sure that those compromises are not safety compromises
3. You are dealing with students. The usual answer to answer to Health and Safety issues in a normal workplace is to check people’s competence. The whole point of a college is to take people who know nothing and transform them into competent workers. The sort of things that you can assume that employees do, students will probably initially not do. In have seen students in chemistry classes sticking their faces into beakers to smell what is going on. They simply don’t know any better and need to managed in a particular way. But you cannot wrap them in cotton wool and not expose them to any risk.  The whole point is for them to learn how to do it safely without exposing themselves to excessive risks. An interesting challenge
4. Issues with staff with teaching staff often jot seeing Health and Safety as their responsibility
5. Trying to do things on a shoestring budget. The drivers in  the education sector are complicated and not simply down to profit and loss

Overall a challenging sector but I think potentially very interesting  

Edited by user 07 August 2019 13:22:09(UTC)  | Reason: actually writing in English

Hi

You would have alots to do in the education sector. there will be facility management which you will need to check competence of the staff and compliance to applicable HSE management system. The condition of the facilites also would be another area that you will have more work to do: new construction and maintenance. chemical handling, asbestos handling and staff exposure to all kind of hazards.

There are lots to keep you busy..