Health and safety in schools

[GShort]

As has been said by previous posts on here risk assesmments are everything. As the person who is responsible for the safety and welfare of any students working in the theatre I also have to complete the risk assessments.

 

We use both scaffold towers and 'A' frame ladders for access to the lighting rig. Although the school has deemed that it is safe for our students to climb both - ONCE they have completed a relevant training period - this does not imply that it is the same for all schools.

 

As someone else said the school has a legal (and moral) obligation to look after your welfare whilst you are in their care. I appreciate that it must at times be frustrating not being able to do everything you want to do (When I was a student my school had no students up ladders rules) there are plenty more jobs that you can do.

 

If you genuinely believe it's a blanket ban then ask to speak to whoever carries out your risk assessments / which ever member of staff is responsible for the theatre and ask then to explain their decisions.

 

At the end of the day if they still say no then you will have to accept their decision but there's no harm in asking the reasoning behind it.

[danburns]

As a student who co-operates with the caretaking/site management team as well as the music and drama departments I can:

• Rig LX and Data Projector on the hall rig. (Only student allowed to even TOUCH said data projector - it's a biggun! £5K's worth)
  
• Use ladder around the school
  
• Set up PA
  
• Access dimmers and patch
  
• Turn on the Big Red Switch
  
• and lots of other "fun" stuff
  

etc...

 

A friend, who has now left, who has no respect for gear (within 2 hours he lost the left channel of the desk,and bent the fader, and lost a mic) has none of this freedom - although he tries. If he is seen, an official complaint is made to the site manager and the cleaning contractors (He comes back as a cleaner and believes he still has rights to use the equipment)

 

I, as you probably have guessed, am one of the few technical students and equivalent of TD during productions. I have a few assistants, and am training up some others 'cos I'm off in a few months. As we have no theatre technicians we do quite a bit - and our site team are invaluable. Be nice and you get no end of help, gaffer tape and useful loans (currently 4 beefy PMR446 radios). Be an a$$hole and you get no end of difficulty and restrictions.

Just show them that you can be sensible...

[Jivemaster]

RA's are only a small part of the full picture, Once the RA's are done the Insurers poke their noses in, and minimise their risk (liabilities ) by ruling out risky activity, and requiring qualified supervision for some things, then for example a scaf tower needs to be approved by a certified person - does your school have a card carrying scaf man on the staff? Without the insurance you are CLOSED.

[GShort]

RA's are only a small part of the full picture, Once the RA's are done the Insurers poke their noses in, and minimise their risk (liabilities ) by ruling out risky activity, and requiring qualified supervision for some things, then for example a scaf tower needs to be approved by a certified person - does your school have a card carrying scaf man on the staff? Without the insurance you are CLOSED.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I agree that supervision is important. At no time are students allowed to climb ladders or scaff towers without myself or another suitably qualified member of staff supervising them.

 

Also all equipment used for working at height is checked annually by an external company who sign it off for the next year. Obviously each time it is used visual checks are carried out, prior to use.

 

Several of us are card carrying scaff men but I stand by my original post that without a risk assessment there is no way you can let anyone climb a tower / ladder because how do you know it is safe.

 

That said a risk assessment is only any good if any actions identified in it are actually carried out and people follow the working practices laid down in it. Also they need to be regularly reviewed.

 

This whole industry (and therefore particularly schools or where young persons are involved) is potentially very dangerous but as long as the correct control methods are in place there is no reason why students can't learn about something they have an interest in - at the end of the day they become the technicians in future years.

[Andrew C]

This whole industry (and therefore particularly schools or where young persons are involved) is potentially very dangerous but as long as the correct control methods are in place there is no reason why students can't learn about something they have an interest in - at the end of the day they become the technicians in future years.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Researchers have calculated that two employed people die each working day because of exposure to passive smoking at work (617 deaths a year). Those worst affected were in the hospitality industry (54 deaths a year). Nearly 11,000 more people die each year in the UK as a result of passive smoking at home, say the researchers in the BMJ (2005; 330: 812-815).

 

Here

Falls from a height account for around 70 deaths and 4000 major injuries in the UK every year. The education sector as a whole produces a significant number of falls – five deaths over the last six years and more than 3000 injuries. This means that if you are a teacher or classroom assistant, you could be at risk.

 

Go figure!

 

My highlights.

[paulears]

Gshort is very accurate here.

 

What it is difficult to accept to those outside education, is that the REALITY of what goes on is very different to that in industry. Nobody (in my experience) who interviews for staff in schools or colleges actually knows much about industry practice, and much of the internal regulation is introduced by those who come into eduction from outside who do - in their absence, there are:

NO risk assessments

NO rules based on legislation

NO monitoring

NO idea of the level or requirements of insurance cover

NO heath & safety training

NO mandatory first aid at work

 

 

On top of this, real power is often in the hands of people who don't know anything about the above and as a result working practices are very different from what is imagined outside. Some schools and colleges don't actually have a PEL, so their dealings with the authorities are rather remote. I know they should do these things, but they just don't happen.

 

If you read the number of posts from young people in education who seem to be the TD, PM SM etc, you can see what is happening. Nobody in school knows how to do it, so a student who does - does! Safety processes aren't introduced because the teacher doesn't know they're needed. If queried, this person simply tells everyone that s/he has not been trained, so it is nothing to do with them. The person ultimately responsible is remote and gets blamed for everything anyway, and relies on their union to sort out any problems they get into.

 

The number of schools and colleges who treat this side of the business with distain are high in numbers. The culture is very much 'we are education, not industry'.

 

As for scaff certificates, I don't suppose most teachers have even heard of such things. At my old college, the construction dept asked me once if any of us had them. Not one of us did. They were surprised we didn't know anything about it. So, as we ran the courses, we applied to go on one - no budget, so told to forget it. The construction people suddenly went very quiet and it was never mentioned again.

 

This is the education world.

[Darkfold]

The only thing we've had go wrong is a cable (that hadnt been maintained) break in the winch system of a tripod. It was loaded with 48Kg of lights (within spec) and this lot fell on the head of my supervisor as he was winding it up after telling me it was dangerous (dont you just love irony) gave him one hell of a concussion and gave me a safety testing budget increase that paid for our lights to be PAT tested.

 

Strangely enough, noone has ever questioned whether I should be allowed to plug in/switch on powerpacks... Noone seems to realise that 63 amps might just be dangerous.

[paulears]

63 amps isn't dangerous - it's more that the people using it are dangerous.

[Darkfold]

Yep, but which is worse, a ladder (2metre) or plugging in/using high current power supplies with no training?

If only it were consistant...

[V.A.]

Yep, but which is worse, a ladder (2metre) or plugging in/using high current power supplies with no training?

If only it were consistant...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Statistically you're probably many times more likely to be injured on the ladder than using the power supply....

[TomLyall]

Yep, but which is worse, a ladder (2metre) or plugging in/using high current power supplies with no training?

If only it were consistant...

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Actually, assuming you're not tailing anything in, using single pole connectors, or something else of that nature, and that you are using outlets and distro that conforms to the standards, I think I would say 'plugging it in' was very safe.

 

I would, however, agree that while the ladder is more likely to result in an incident, from that height you are probably not going to be injured in a major way. There'd probably be a worse outcome from an electrocution, but its much less likely to occur.

[Simon Lewis]

Gentlemen... remember risk assessments?

 

Remember the difference between 'risk' and 'hazard'?

 

There's your answer for stage power versus working at height....

[Jivemaster]

In my school the entire theatre and stage was run as after school activity by interested members of staff volunteering their time. No qualifications!

[Darkfold]

So is ours. An a level physicist (me) is the most qualified person anywhere near it. The next most is an english teacher...

[the kid]

RA are of course a must I think that my rock concert last year taught me most things that I know should be done. Nothing fatal happerend just a angry parent getting angry at a pupil for no reason, even then I dont think a RA would of covered it.