Health & Safety Training Courses for Schools

Every parent sends their child to school with one expectation. They want them to be provided with a safe and healthy environment to learn. The same goes for the families of the teaching staff. Therefore, it is paramount that the school setting remains a safe place for both pupils and staff. Schools ensure this by implementing and effectively operating a health and safety management system.

There are two main drivers for managing health and safety in the school environment. They are moral and legal.

Moral obligations are what our conscience tells us are right and wrong. Those responsible within the school environment need to do the right thing. They owe a duty of care to their pupils and colleagues and must take the appropriate steps to manage risks. The education authority, board of governors, principal, school management, and general school staff such as teachers and classroom assistants must recognise their moral responsibilities and take proactive steps to manage hazards and reduce risk.

When considering the legal drivers, those with responsibilities cannot fail to manage risks, and this will likely evoke legal action from enforcing authorities. Educational settings could also receive negative news coverage and incur financial repercussions such as fines.

Health and safety for schools' courses can play a crucial role in achieving compliance and a safer school environment. Keeping pupils, staff, and others who may be at risk within the school environment must be the number one priority.

With the two drivers in mind, these courses have been designed to help the education sector meet its health and safety requirements. In addition, they will assist schools in achieving legislative compliance. The classes help equip those undertaking them with the appropriate information and training. Therefore, enabling them to positively contribute to a schools' health and safety management system.

The school environment presents a wide range of hazards to health and safety. This reality is primarily because of the volume of inexperienced people within a relatively small area. Due to this, a range of courses will be required to help ensure your school or other academic institution is safe, healthy, and compliant.

There is a wide variety of school staff courses specific to their health and safety responsibility levels. Such courses include health and safety for school principals and management team members. There are also programmes available for health and safety for teaching staff, caretakers, and school maintenance personnel. These three-course types cover the responsibilities these specific employee groups have. Their objective is to make sure they can contribute to managing health and safety within the school environment. They also cover a range of role-specific hazards and the practical steps they can take to reduce risk.

In addition to job-specific health and safety training courses, courses are available that address high-risk activities or hazards. Options include a training intervention that explores how teachers can organise and coordinate activities. Safer school trips and the administration of medication, specifically aimed at school nurses. Also available are others such as:

• Diabetes awareness
• Insulin administration
• Allergic reactions' awareness
• Administration of EpiPen
• Epilepsy awareness
• Autism awareness
• Coping with challenging behaviour
• Safeguarding children awareness
• Mental health awareness
• Developing resilience in students
• Infection prevention and control
• Fire safety
• Fire warden
• COSHH awareness
• Manual handling courses for school staff

First aid training for schools is another popular offering. Options include emergency first aid at work training and paediatric first aid for schools or early years. Both courses aim to ensure suitably trained personnel exist within the school environment, especially in a medical emergency.

Health and safety management must assess risks to determine the educational institution-specific hazards. This action will aid them to determine what training is needed to address the management of those hazards. Risk assessment training aims to identify, analyse, prioritise, control, and monitor risk. Our training experts are happy to guide Schools on this process.

Students and pupil-specific courses aim to support children and young adults. The intention is to educate these groups on how to contribute to their personal safety, health, and wellbeing. Within this small grouping of courses, you will find:

• Fire safety awareness for students
• CPR for students
• Digital wellbeing
• Introduction to mental health for young people.

Teachers and management owe a duty of care to both pupils and colleagues. To successfully deliver upon this, they must be aware of their obligations. Also, they need to be provided with the skills to act suitably. Health and safety for teacher's courses play a vital role in this matter. They give teachers and management the confidence and competence to take the correct approach to health and safety. And therefore, contribute to compliance through successful health and safety management.