Health and safety in schools

[Russ]

As I have mentioned, I do believe that some students are mature and intelligent enough to do anything in a theatre. If it's lack of experience then there's nothing stopping them getting that experience, properly supervised, in school.

 

We used to have a relatively amicable relationship with the school's maintenance manager, who we eventually managed to persuade that no, we weren't going to sue them if we injured ourselves. He couldn't really grumble too much because I had one-upped him on the health and safety stakes by donating a brand new stepladder to the school because the old one was falling apart. So much for employer's health and safety duty...

 

Which kind of leads us back to the point of this thread, which is: Even if you promise not to sue them/claim on their insurance, are they still liable to the HSE for allowing minors to work in a position of high(er) (but naturally, fully controlled) risk? If the school is in violation they are liabile to be fined regardless of who sent whom up a ladder.

[V.A.]

As I have mentioned, I do believe that some students are mature and intelligent enough to do anything in a theatre. If it's lack of experience then there's nothing stopping them getting that experience, properly supervised, in school.

 

We used to have a relatively amicable relationship with the school's maintenance manager, who we eventually managed to persuade that no, we weren't going to sue them if we injured ourselves. He couldn't really grumble too much because I had one-upped him on the health and safety stakes by donating a brand new stepladder to the school because the old one was falling apart. So much for employer's health and safety duty...

 

Which kind of leads us back to the point of this thread, which is: Even if you promise not to sue them/claim on their insurance, are they still liable to the HSE for allowing minors to work in a position of high(er) (but naturally, fully controlled) risk? If the school is in violation they are liabile to be fined regardless of who sent whom up a ladder.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

This is precisely my point - there is nothing wrong with students doing anything so long as they are qualified and/or supervised to an appropriate degree.

 

Just because a few school students, as evidenced in this thread, have taken it upon themselves to work outside of their training and qualifications, does not mean that the rest of us do or even want to.

 

At the end of the day, an activity is equally dangerous to an adult as it is a teenager. The H&S implications involved with performing an activity (eg/ hanging a lantern) have nothing to do with age, they have everything to do with training and safety awareness; both qualities which can be present or absent in somebody of any age.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I recognise that this thread (and indeed others) has highlighted some potentially dangerous activities being carried out by people who don't have the skills or qualifications. The fact that these people are students/under 18 has nothing to do with it. Take a look around the rest of the forum, you will see plenty of posts by adults suggesting equally dangerous activities, and quite rightly members of this forum have come down on them and advised strongly against. But nowhere has anybody suggested that the activities of all adults should be restricted, or that adults are irresposible.... it's down to the individual person, not their age.

[djw1981]

If you are under 18 it is not your choice whether to sue or not, it is your parents, and should you end up with severe brain injury, your parents are likely to want some contribution to the high cost of maintaining your care until the end of your life. There will also be the small matter of your potential lifetime earnings, which at current UK average salary would be over 1 Million pounds (50 years at 20k).

 

Also in cases of severe injury, hospital A+E departments are obliged to inform councils etc, and the school will have to record it in the accident book, both of which can be viewed by the HSE.

 

I appreciate most injuries could be small, but unless you have had training in HASWA (voluntary work is included), Working at Height regs, setting up scaffolding etc then you cannot correctly fill in an RA to take account of all the risks.

 

I write this as both a volunteer part time tech who has done some potentially dangerous stuff to get a gig on, but also as a medical student who has seen the results of some industrial accidents.

 

Remember a 0.1% risk means that 1 in a 1000 times it will go wrong. If you do it enough times, you will get overconfident, or just be unlucky.

[paulears]

I'll agree that age is not the decider, but it is a major one. Some people mature early, some don't - I wouldn't think anyone would disagree with this. The issue is that experience is linked to age - If you are young, then you can't have the experience necessary to implement totally logical decisions, even if you are bright, sensible and level headed. It is also important in schools and colleges to have work to the lowest level a group has. Just because one person is advanced enough to do more potentially dangerous things, isn't the excuse to do it - because others may try it too.

 

Please don't take all my comments as anti-youth, they are anti-over confidence. The trouble is, over confidence is endemic in younger people. This isn't always a bad thing, of course. Trouble is, safety wise a little knowledge is possibly more dangerous than none at all. This is what most of the problem posts are all about.

 

My final point is simply that everything I've said is based on my experience of working with young people. I like working with young people - beats old fossils every time. Every year for the last 9 years the number of available young people has got smaller and smaller. This year not one of the students from my local college was put forward by their lecturers. The youngest person working for me this year is 23. Everyone else I've talked to who was interested in the jobs had the 'I know everything' attitude and in the words of one of the crew "would've done my head in!".

 

 

If you are under 18 and working towards AS/A2 or BTEC National Diploma you don't have to be an expert at anything, or have to know how to go up tallies or calculate loading in a truss, open up power distribution boxes, etc etc etc. If you go further, then by the time you are 21/22 you might have an HND or a degree. At this stage, you might be able to do the calculations and plan things, go up and down a tallie safely, but the most important thing is you are 3 years safer. Amazing how much common sense the extra 3 years dribbles into your brain.

 

Just consider that if you could study medicine in the same way we study techncial theatre - who would you want to do your operation? Someone with experience, or someone below the age of legal responsibility? I knew that law was there for a purpose.

 

Phew...........

 

paul

[DSA]

I appreciate most injuries could be small, but unless you have had training in HASWA (voluntary work is included), Working at Height regs, setting up scaffolding etc then you cannot correctly fill in an RA to take account of all the risks.

I half agree with you David, but only half. Obviously training costs money for any company, and I can't see that the people who are drawing up RAs for say a Bus Company are driving the Busses. Does that mean that they don't know what the risks are? Possibly it does - but I can think of plenty of occasions where I know that to be the case.

 

I agree that any training is a good thing, but a lot can be learnt from reading books/guidelines etc. This is where the majority of knowledge for writing and assessing RAs should come from, combined with experience which is only gained after working with the items in question for a good length of time.

 

Let's be honest about it, most of what is written in standard RAs is common sense (e.g. Slips, Trips, Falls), but some isn't. That is where the training/learning bit comes in.

 

However I think this is drifting a little OT, and I think I am sounding like I am sitting on the fence.

 

David

[djw1981]

I appreciate most injuries could be small, but unless you have had training in HASWA (voluntary work is included), Working at Height regs, setting up scaffolding etc then you cannot correctly fill in an RA to take account of all the risks.

I half agree with you David, but only half. Obviously training costs money for any company, and I can't see that the people who are drawing up RAs for say a Bus Company are driving the Busses. Does that mean that they don't know what the risks are? Possibly it does - but I can think of plenty of occasions where I know that to be the case.

 

I agree that any training is a good thing, but a lot can be learnt from reading books/guidelines etc. This is where the majority of knowledge for writing and assessing RAs should come from, combined with experience which is only gained after working with the items in question for a good length of time.

 

Let's be honest about it, most of what is written in standard RAs is common sense (e.g. Slips, Trips, Falls), but some isn't. That is where the training/learning bit comes in.

 

However I think this is drifting a little OT, and I think I am sounding like I am sitting on the fence.

 

David

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

I agree! But on the basis that those RAs for bus companies etc will be checked by their safety manager etc, who in many cases may be someone who has risen up from being a bus driver up the slippery corporate ladder, and got some training on the way from HSE etc . If you write your own RAs for a school, then you need to have had some idea what to put in them, or have them checked to ensure that you then action them.

 

For example it is fine to say that scaff with no handrail is a risk, but unless you do anything about it, then the RA is useless. Therefore you need someone to look it over and decide on appropriate action.

 

This comes down to experience not age. A teacher / trained tech may have been through this before and know what was done in the past - from ordering more scaffolding etc down to something else. Admittedly, an untrained inexperienced teacher or tech may no as much as a schoolkid. The answer is being able to use your experiences to think of alternative ways of doing something which reduce the risk. As with most things, the new method may seem more difficult or even totally off the wall, but if it is safer and achieves the same result then why should it not be used?

 

My point being I agree with others that it is experience and supervision by trained people.

 

New point

 

 

I think that local authorities and theatres should have a hand in this. For example, my home town has a council owned theatre which employs a part time tech. It has shows in (with their own crews) most of the year and also shows films. In his spare time - ie on weeks when they were showing films, he used to try to get the schools to do their shows that week, and went along to help them rig on Monday & Tuesday, so they could run the show on Wednesday to Friday. Since he was a council employee, he was allowed to do this.

 

How many people could not say that they could not spare a member of staff to go and help schools do things like this. When the school wanted some new kit, they asked him what he thought they needed, so it paid off both ways, the school got a better and safer rig, and he got a group of trained guys, who once 17 or 18 used to get a call asking if they fancied some casual hours when shows came in.

[Russ]

I'll agree that age is not the decider, but it is a major one. Some people mature early, some don't - I wouldn't think anyone would disagree with this. The issue is that experience is linked to age - If you are young, then you can't have the experience necessary to implement totally logical decisions, even if you are bright, sensible and level headed. It is also important in schools and colleges to have work to the lowest level a group has. Just because one person is advanced enough to do more potentially dangerous things, isn't the excuse to do it - because others may try it too.

 

Please don't take all my comments as anti-youth, they are anti-over confidence. The trouble is, over confidence is endemic in younger people. This isn't always a bad thing, of course. Trouble is, safety wise a little knowledge is possibly more dangerous than none at all. This is what most of the problem posts are all about.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I have to concede that you're probably right there, although if I were 5 years younger I would resent that completely :). I'm not trying to blow my own trumpet here or anything, but when I was in school I think I had a lot more common sense with regard to that sort of stuff than most people at that age (don't know why, but people always commented on it). That tends to colour my view a bit - it annoys me that perfectly competent people like who I was at 16 aren't allowed to do this sort of stuff.

 

My final point is simply that everything I've said is based on my experience of working with young people. I like working with young people - beats old fossils every time. Every year for the last 9 years the number of available young people has got smaller and smaller. This year not one of the students from my local college was put forward by their lecturers. The youngest person working for me this year is 23. Everyone else I've talked to who was interested in the jobs had the 'I know everything' attitude and in the words of one of the crew "would've done my head in!".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I completely agree with you. I can't work with people with that attitude, it annoys the hell out of me, and pretty much always has. Probably because I worked my way up from doing menial backstage stuff to sound/lighting design, and then had to contend with people just walking in and expecting to do stuff like that right away.

 

So many people get into theatre/stage stuff thinking they can just sit there and press buttons each day, but at the low end you have to be prepared to learn and you have to be prepared to lend a hand doing everything. Rigging truss and doing the small menial things which help the whole show go together is half the fun of it.

[Andrew C]

Something I don't think anyone has mentioned yet; and to some of you it may come as a surprise!

 

Adolescents brains are wired differently to adult brains!

 

This is relatively new research done with MRI scanners rather than opening up teenagers to have a look. What has been found is that the part of the brain responsible for caution and even fear doesn't develope as early as the bit that runs the mouth "I can do that, no problem!" be it rigging a light or riding a fast bike. The result may be a trip to casualty if you are lucky, a grave if you are not.

 

For more info, read http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0747568480.02.MZZZZZZZ.jpg

[TomBrien]

As a student my self you are proberbly surprised to hear that I agree with every thing that has been said by people about safety, and heights.

 

Why because I have worked in places such as theatres and hire companies and as such have had the correct training for heights, 'electrics in a theatre' and other stuff down to standard op training.

 

I am employed in the school, and have had the all clear from the insurance company, we sent off a letter basically saying 'we want this guy to do lighting and sound in our school, his experience is....'

 

I also work very closely with the school site managment staff (AKA caretakers) between us we now do every thing for every performance, be it rigging, patching, Oping or just putting out a red carpet for a prom!

[BigMike]

While I appreciate your frustrations, the content of the most worries me even more.

 

More recently (about twenty years ago) an extra tap was put into the loop, which runs off the same 60 amp supply, but allows the plugging in of dimmer racks, on large 230V blue plugs. When myself and my teamate Jon first inherited this system, we checked it all over and the first thing that came to light was - although an RCD had been installed on the new part of the system, there was no master fuse anywhere.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

How do you know it's a 60 amp supply? Unless installed live, there must be a circuit fuse and isolator somewhere - maybe in a master switch room, locked away. Nothing wrong with large blue plugs - The fact that they are there shows the installation has been modified at some stage with modern, approved connectors - the RCD adds to this.

 

On this particular talent show, we were forced ( by the lack of PAT tested equipment) to overload the system. The inevitable happened - the RCD doesn't trip with a gradual load, and the bloody caravan style plugs actually melted together. No I #### you not, the live pins melted together. The only way we could get them apart was to isolate, and borrow a hacksaw.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Nobody forced you to deliberately overload the supply - you made the choice yourself. As you obviously doubt the installation, this overloading is even more unforgivable. If you had pat tested kit, the result would have been the same. An overload is an overoad, PAT or not. You mention you isolated - How? What on earth were school students doing HACKSAWING a mains connection. Not your job - REPEAT - not your job. Not your teachers, or the caretaking staff - an ELECTRICIANS!!!

Students are no longer allowed to do "anything", from patching dimmer racks to moving a f***ing channel fader.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

If you were my students - you wouldn't be allowed anywhere near electricity - YOU ARE DANGEROUS

 

Sorry, that's it really.

 

I admit the shows stopping is annoying, but under the circumstances the only way to preserve peoples lives, by the sound of it.

 

It should have gone like this in the risk assessment - suspect supply problem. Action - don't use it until checked.

 

NOT - lets plug it up and melt things!

 

This may seem harsh, but I would have thought you were lucky not to have been suspended and hung from on high.......

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I must agree with paul here. I didn't like not being able to do anything when I was in school but as Paul said you did not have to overload the system and you new you were doing it, you will find if you get imployed in the industry and do something like that then you will not be around for long, and your employer will never trust you again. You could have been killed!!!

[mac.calder]

I agree - my high school had a very strict "drama teacher only" up the ladder, although I was allowed to patch. It frustrated me no end, I'll admit, but I worked within the limits set down - It is not hard to teach a drama teacher with his ladder licence how to correctly rig a light using a scaff tree, teaching him to focus etc. By making sure I had all the gel frames set up, and all the barn doors roughly how I thought they would need to be before they went up, focusing took a minute a light, if that, and I could get an entire rig done in 3 to 4 hours (we had basic stuff only). Same for sound. Our suspended choir mics were hung before the performance (we were, and I believe they still are waiting for the building to be upgraded, so the permanent mountings were not yet there).

 

Our lights were not PAT tested (at the time I did not know about PAT, although next time I see the teacher, I will ask to see the kit and make sure it is all tested) but I did visually inspect them before handing them up. We (drama teacher, myself, a couple of crew) would sit down one afternoon and pull out past risk assessments, decide which ones applied for us, then do a walk around and add any extras. These all went into the show folder and were acted upon ASAP.

 

I shudder when I think about some of the wires that were there though. Wrapped repeatedly around the upper bar on the scaff which acted as LX bars. Apparently those patch points and wires were run by a licenced electrician.

 

After leaving the school, I started an electrical and computer systems engineering course at one of the top uni's in Australia, which has a short course center, and took an LX Design and a SM course, as well as a safety course. Being a student there cost me less than a hundred dollars, for 80 odd hours of courses with a course size of about 5 people.

 

These were all taught by industry professionals. A high amount of practical and theoretical knowledge. Of course anyone who had never done anything in theatre would not benefit as much as one who had done theatre.

 

What I did is obviously overkill for a student. I could run a short course, maybe 5 or 6 hours, a school day basically, and get students competent in a theatre, and I think something like that would be a good idea. Not a short course to get them up ladders, but more a course to get them to realise the risks, how to assess them, and who to get to do such work. A course to explain the basics of electricity - how to recognise unsafe equiptment etc, so that students can do a basic assessment of the equiptment - although in australia, the first step is a lot easier thanks to PAT regulations than it used to be - if it is not tagged with a current T&T tag, it is not used. They still need to be able to recognise bare wires etc.

 

A day. Orientation for the theatre I work in is 1 hour and assumes some prior knowledge of working in a theatre. It could be done in a minute, but some dunderhead would screw it up.

 

Since I have gone miles off topic - the rules I use:

 

If you do not feel safe at any point, don't do it.

If you are not qualified to do a specialist task, don't do it.

If there is not someone else around who is readily able to drop what they are doing to lend assistance, then don't do it.

If something does not work as it should, don't do it.

If I don't trust you, then you do not do ANYTHING.

If you are unsure, ASK BEFORE you try to do it.

 

Of course for a school, you add to that "Unless authorised by <Insert fully trained teacher here>, don't do it"

[esp-protocol]

Some parts of this thread are very scary !

 

I wonder if any of the theatre managers/ headmasters have heard of or are aware of their duties and LIABILITIES under the Working at Height Regulations which came into force on the 6th of April 2005.

 

There is lots of information and guides are freely available, good one is on the HSE Website.

 

Working at height is anywhere where there is a risk of injury.

 

A place is ‘at height’ if (unless the Regulations are followed) a person could be injured falling from it, even if it is at or below ground level.

 

Regulation 5: requires that employers ensure that any person that participates in any aspect of work at height, including organisation, planning and supervision , is competent to do so. If someone is in training they must have competent supervision.

 

Regulation 6: the starting point of the regulations is to make it quite clear that a risk assessment must be carried out before any work at height is attempted and that this must be suitable and sufficient, as required by regulation 3 of the Management Regulations .

 

All we are waiting for now is the first injury and test case....

 

Its like walking through life's minefield with a third leg and a crutch !

[ojc123]

Agree with esp protocol. There is an accident waiting to happen in schools. The emphasis is on teaching and learning and safety is sometimes seen as an inconvenient encumbrance. Theatrical endeavour is an ad hoc event in and among the rest. Proper risk assessments, method statements and enforcement are not commonplace.

 

The unfortunate thing is that school halls are multi purpose venues and no two events are the same. Get-ins and get-outs are complicated by the other things.

 

A complete change of attitude to School productions is needed but it won't happen until the brown stuff is distributed by the ventilator. It may be that they end up not happening because no one is willing to take the risk and no one has the time to do Risk Assessments etc properly.

 

To be fair, the guys on the building site opposite the school I work at don't seem to have heard of the new regulations either. Some dodgy scaffolding and ladder practices there.

[Russ]

Chances are that students in schools will simply be banned from doing anything remotely dangerous, which in practical terms means not doing half of the things that make technical theatre enjoyable.

 

And that annoys me because I know if I hadn't spent half of my school career up a ladder, I wouldn't be nearly as obsessed with theatre as I am now...

[weatherhead]

sorry to argue with you guys who know a lot more than me and have more experience, I respect that. But to put my side a bit more....

 

The fact that we overloaded the rig was to do with the lack of understanding by the staff producing the said talent show's insistance on what lighting they wanted, and what kit they could see available in the store. This is part of the point I was trying to make, that in general people should know more and trust people who tell them that something shouldn't be done. It harks back to the earlier post about teachers (whether with knowledge or not) overruling people on these issues.

 

On the point about the blue plugs - yes they are most certainly a more modern part of the set - up. They are, however, tapped off the same power supply as the original rig, and nowhere is there anything saying how much power is available. When I say 60A supply, I mean that it has 60A plugs, not that there is any evidence that is how much power is available. And surely, even when we did overload the rig, a fuse should have blown before the plugs melted?

 

To reply to the point about "hacksawing away at mains connections" or whatever.

When I said isolate, I probably wasn't specific enough. There is one of these large blue 4 pin plug assemblies at the RCD end, with a cable connected to it, on the other end of said cable are the 3pin caravn type plugs which we run the dimmers off. The way I "isolated" it was by removing this cable from the socket, so when I was sawing off the other end of the plug it was connected to nothing, quite literally.

 

I am sorry if the air of my posting seemed to indicate that I was in any way bragging about the incident or proud of it or anything like that, it was a "good story" in the sense that it highlights a lot of issues about safety in the particular environment. I take the points of all later posters about over - confidence and inexperience etc etc. And fair enough, I have not much experience. But I am not completely stupid, and I realise that playing with electricity is dangerous to say the least. I would not touch a live wire of any description if there was a chance it was still live, my dad was an electrician for 30 years and taught me by the age of about 6 to be careful about these things. What worries me is that some people are what you might call even more cavalier about safety, don't know what things are or why you shouldn't touch them. For example one guy in the same school whilst I was not available plugging the powered output of a 1600w amp into the input of some powered monitors... I ask you.....

 

I just want to say that I totally agree with more safety training and more care about H&S issues. The reason I think a lot of students take risks with the safety is that they are passionate about what they want to create, and if they did not put in so much time and effort to their work it would simply not happen.

 

edit: we've been assured everything will be PAT tested by next year.....

 

oh and risk assessment?what risk assessment? Any school I have seen productions in, especially small, insignificant ones have not had the time or money to RA the events.

 

Moderation: Two posts merged. Please use the edit button if you post is still the last on the topic.