[Junior8]

I think the most depressing thing for me is just how rudimentary access-wise it all still is in the non-pro field. My first contact with lighting was in about 1968 in a then new hall where the suspensions were T brackets off concrete beams reached by wooden extending ladder precariously balanced on polished parquet floor. Move on a couple of years to a new school building with a lighting grid accessed by what must have been the cheapest platform ladder available which was only just high enough. Move on to my last school and yes there was the platform ladder used by all and sundry for all and sundry and badly fatigued at the hinge points. I made them buy a tower but oh the problems getting it out and rigged.

I think every educational building I've ever been into offers a lighting infrastructure installed in complete isolation from any consideration of who was to access it and how yet where the roof void above would have made the provision of bridges easy and cheap!

As for allowing students to climb my career went from anything goes to not-on-your-life a progress mirroring nothing more than various outdoor adventure accidents and my reluctance to face questioning in a negligence suit. Yet just before I finished I found just what I needed for student accesssomething like this- but would they let me buy one? And I see they now come in knock down form as well.

This post has been edited by Junior8: 09 August 2011 - 07:53 AM

[paulears]

To be honest, I'm not worried about the colleges as they treat their students more as proper potential employees, once 16 is reached and they can go to work in a theatre and climb, so there's no sense at all in banning ladders and other equipment in a college. Schools in general don't have industry people as teachers (which is common in colleges)so there is no expectation at all that the teacher, and sometimes support staff have any practical experience at all - hence they work at the lowest (most safe) common safety level they have - which does appear to be officially, no height. A simple risk assessment could make it possible, but they don't understand - so simply ban them. Sadly, this means that there is no point whatsoever in attempting to make things mandatory in the qualifications that they cannot do! The response so far, assuming our next gen members are typical is that too many do indeed have restrictions. I'm also making the assumption that because our members are all already interested, then it is also likely that schools that don't have interested students are not represented here, and are even more likely to not allow it.

Very useful information - thanks folks.

[Johnno]

The view from bog.standard@sunny.Blackpool

If any pupil came to me and asked to help with AV I would be delighted. I would allow them to use the scaffold to do things with the less weighty lights, the heaviest being Patt 264s. I think the management would permit this. If they didn't then I would go on the attack as follows.

1. Explain Plan B to the Head and get permission to proceed (End-of-story if denied)

2. Send letter home with pupil explaining that he has expresed interest in theatre stuff and that it entails working at height. Invite them to inspect hall and scaff and to meet me, to see what job entails. Get their permission to proceed. (End-of-story if denied)

3. Risk assess, distribute to Head and Safety Manager for comment.

4. Modify procedures if required. Repeat above until RA acceptable.

5. Ask school for permission to proceed. End-of-story if denied.

We're a sports specialist and PE cause a wide range of injuries, some of which have to go to hospital (we have artificial surface football pitches, they cause all sorts of painful problems) so I don't see any genuine reason for refusal. In general the management here want the children to do things as they're a pretty low-aspirational bunch - the children that is, not the management

[CharlieH]

I'm on holiday with no computer and a rubbish phone, so apologies if this response is brief and/or appallingly spelled.

I admit I do not know my schools 'official' policy on under 16s and ladders, however in practice I am allowed to use the Zarges on stage for any big event, if accompany by a staff member (teacher or maintenance team). Any smaller events are done using a bounce focus. The onstage bars are flown on hand winches, so are rigged and cabled at stage level, and said winches are operated by under sixteens with little/no supervision.

All FoH lights are accessed via a cherrypicker which only the maintenance team are qualified to use. Students are not allowed to even accompany them in the basket, so instructions are shouted up, sometimes causing some strange results (another story for another day). These bars are static, and as such any changes of focus, lantern, even ge,l require maintenance to drive the cherrypicker over from the other side of campus and back, turning a 5 min job into anything up to an hour.

I return to the school in September as a 6th form student, and certain rules change (can do more unsupervised, for example), however I do not yet know the full extent of the changes.

Hope This Helps,
Charlie

[spinmaster1]

At my school (in which I was a student at myself only 5 years ago) students used to be able to work at height without question, even assist in building scaffold towers but in the last 5 years it's all been banned. The majority of rigging work is done by myself on a Genie runabout platform and Zarges. We were told on our PASMA course that children were allowed up scaffold towers but only under direct supervision from a member of trained staff which we take advantage of from time to time to keep them encouraged.

[brainwave-generator]

Just found it, the school I was referring to is Aldenham.

http://www.aldenham....ay_2007_344.php

[ojc123]

I'm replying from a phone so it'll be short. At present we don't allow students to work at height. I don't feel confident to supervise students. If I could be trained to an adequate level it would be ok. This may happen soon. I'd still be very selective about which students I let near a ladder/scaffold. At present we have no plans to introduce any theatre course.

[sleah]

I'm a school technician which involves being the 'theatre' technician when needed, basically I'm in charge of technical theatre, er.. sort of!

I've been doing the same job 20odd years and it is accepted that I can go up ladders and use the scaffold towers, although I did attend a course held on site a few years back that was about scaffold assembly and safety. I'd been using a scaffold for years before that.......

Students are not allowed to use ladders or the scaffold, although I suspect a 'blind-eye' had been turned by the previous head of drama who retired a couple of years back.
Certainly in this last two years no student hass accessed any of the grids.

Facilities: Two assembly halls that are used as theatres, two drama rooms. All have lighting grids of appropriate sizes and a selection of generic lanterns.
The biggest assembly hall has a basic fly tower using (now condemmed) hemp manual pullies. The flyfloor is just a gantry at one side around 10 feet up that also gives access to the dimmers, it has a vertical ladder attached to the wall. Students are allowed up there.

We are an independent fee-paying day school with students from 3-18 teaching drama at GCSE & A-Level.

Hope that helps a little!

[Russ83]

As I've mentioned on the BR before the Bradford Council rules (not guidelines) are that no students in their schools can WaH using access equipment. It doesn't matter if they are 18 or over it's the 'school student' part that is critical because of our duty of care and at the end of the day it probably comes down to insurance. (Saying that, as a technician I have allowed two students to occasionally help me on the scaff tower when no other staff were around to help.)

I work at a secondary comprehensive school with ages 11-18 and we have just moved into our new building. I spent a lot of time with the installers and designed the main hall to have a large motorised grid over the performance area so that 95% of our shows and concerts can be set from the floor. There are two fixed bars FoH but access should be minimal as there are plenty of spare channels/fixtures to leave them set. This hopefully means that our GCSE and BTEC students can start doing the technical aspects which they could never fully do before (they had to design on paper and I rigged when the old studio was empty). We also have a big drama studio but this can only be rigged by me**.

I know when I've done some work for a school in Huddersfield they have the same policy for students. They are another secondary comprehensive but only ages 11-16. They have much less equipment than my school and the only way that their students can do the technical parts of the BTEC is using two T bars in a drama studio.

** Note: That was until the HSE came in and banned all staff from WaH after an accident involving one of the site staff.....it's been 10 weeks and they're still asking questions!!

[paulears]

Look at these sections from the Children's Act. We know the details from section (a) - this is the oft quoted bit that precludes under 16's working in Theatres - but section (g) is interesting. They are specifically banned from working at heights over 3m, which seems to suggest that the law considers work below this height to be acceptable - or else the regs would state NO working at height. Might this be useful info for uninformed school H&S zealots?

(I left in section (e) because living in a seaside town with hundreds of food outlets, hotels and guest houses - washing up and serving burgers does seem to be rather common for school kids!)

Quote

No child of any age may be employed:
(a) in a cinema, theatre, discotheque, dance hall or night club, except in
connection with a performance given entirely by children;2

(e) in a commercial kitchen;

(g) in any work which is more than three metres above ground level or, in the case
of internal work, more than three metres above floor level;

2 This does not prevent children taking part in performances under the provisions of
a licence granted in accordance with the Children and Young Persons Act 1963,
and the associated Regulations.

[NoobTech]

At college we used an access tower to get to the lights, only 2 platforms high though..

However at work I'm not allowed outside the shop due to being under 18.

[Matthew Robinson]

When I was at school, there was a drama studio for normal drama lessons and the school hall for school productions, of which there was one per year, around Easter. I remember going up to the tech area where the lighting and sound desks were and 'op-ing' (read: pushing faders) in a group of 4 on what was most likely a 24 preset desk. Obviously, as we were school children at the time, we just pushed faders randomly, so pretty useless really. Lights were bolted onto drama, and if you didn't do drama (I can't act to save my life!), you didn't even go into the drama studio. I don't remember anyone ever going up a set of ladders, certainly not pupils, and probably not staff. People just seemed to make do with the focus of the lights. However, as I say, I didn't do drama, so I only really saw what happened in the first 2 or 3 years.

The hall was different, there was absolutely no equipment, so a company was brought in every year who built a ground rig out of truss and then added lights, so again, no chance of doing any lighting or sound.

[willdoweuk]

I am 16 years old and I have just finished year 11. So I'm going into sixth form in september. I am able to rig and focus lights in our drama studios using a zarges because the bars are only 4m high. This is mainly because I am the only one who ever does/knows how to. In our main hall though, no ladder will reach the bars which are fixed at least 10m up. We reach those with a 1 man genie lift or a scaff tower. I am allowed to use the tower if theres someone else there, but im not allowed to use the genie for reasons I could not find out. It is only used by our IT guys. Yep our IT guys. I know that the guidelines in this area arent that clear, but I think these days its just schools covering themselves to avoid compensation claims. Interestingly though, when I was on work experience when I was 15, my parents were asked to sign a form giving me permission to work at height. It is a large theatre in felixstowe and I was allowed to do most things that the regular crew were.


Sorry for grammar and splelling, im typing on my phone from greece.

[mark_s]

willdoweuk, on 28 August 2011 - 02:05 PM, said:

I am allowed to use the tower if theres someone else there, but im not allowed to use the genie for reasons I could not find out...I know that the guidelines in this area arent that clear, but I think these days its just schools covering themselves to avoid compensation claims.

Have you done IPAF training? Do you own the relevant PPE? Do you even know how to use the relevant PPE? Etc etc etc...

While schools may go overboard with some things, clearly there are compelling reasons to not allow students to use plant on which they have no training and are not competent to use.

[daveswan]

All rigging at our school is done by the technical / maintenance staff, led by myself (Senior Technician and lighting designer). Our maintenance manager is becoming knowledgeable about lighting,

When we use an outside theatre rigging will be done by the house tech(s) plus yours truly and perhaps one of our maintenance team if free.

No student is allowed to rig, but they are allowed to plot lighting and run the desk. And TBH they don't have the time.

Dave