• Dutyholders are people with control over school safety. They are the people who face enforcement action in the event of anything going wrong.
  
  In the main these are the Employer and the Headteacher.
  In any event the Headteacher is the person in control of the site and a dutyholder in any school.
  
  The main duties of the Employer are to provide resources and a framework of policies and some specific procedures and then to monitor and audit how H&S is implemented and managed.
  
  Governors in Community schools have control over budgets and need to support the head teacher, who is the person responsible for the site, and main site dutyholder but they are not dutyholders per se.

• The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations(1992 - 9) defined that all schools needed to manage safety. To do this any school needs to have a system for carrying out its’ H&S duties and also for reviewing safety matters in case situations change within the school .
  
  This is the School Safety Management System (SMS) and this a whole school issue and staff, governors and pupils need to be part of, and contribute to this system.
  
  
• The SMS needs to be used to manage safety actively as part of the School’s normal operations. Having an SMS and operating it is part of the normal work of the school and should be accommodated in resources and budgets within the school framework.
  
  The SMS is the framework within which the school needs to address all its’ Health and Safety duties.
  

• Risk Assessment - The School needs assess all its’ risks and put control measures put in place to reduce them. This means that a Risk Assessment System needs to be part of the school SMS. Risk Assessment need not be overcomplicated but the Risk Assessments need to be done by a COMPETENT Person. This means:
  
  "A person with suitable, knowledge, skills, qualities and experience to carry out their tasks without risk to their own health and safety or that of others." (Lord Cullen - Piper Alpha Report).
  
  This person could be a teacher who has been deemed competent by virtue of their experience, GTC registration and experience. So a Science qualified member of staff is the best person to carry out any Risk Assessment based around Science activities.
  
  Equally a staff member who has taken many trips can carry out a Visits Risk Assessment.

H&S duties also mean that the School needs to train and give information /instruction to its’ staff and some visitors. These H&S training duties mean that the school needs to be able to deem staff competent to play their part in the system.

It also means that the school must deliver job specific training and/or instruction. The main areas of training defined by regulations and good practice include:

• Induction for all new staff and for specified visitors and contractors
  
  
• Basic Safety Requirement defined by your School SMS and which is sufficient H&S Training for staff to enable them to operate safely with awareness of duties, responsibilities, the main hazards and risks and to enable them to play their part in the School SMS.
  
  
• Job specific Safety training and Instruction - Training to enable the member of staff to carry out their job role safely. e.g. COSHH familiarisation for Cleaning Staff who use chemical cleaning agents. Instruction in a new piece of equipment and how to use it safely.

The school needs to have a School Health and Safety Policy and suitable procedures which should flow from the risk assessments made. It is expected that all policies and procedures will be developed with input from, and consultation of ,staff. The Policy and the Procedures need to be available to staff and should be reviewed regularly. The same criteria applies to Policies and Procedures provided as models for the school as to Risk Assessments.

• They must be made school specific.
  
  
• They need to form part of the School Safety Management System.

The Head teacher and any Governing Body, whether it is the Employer or not, has a duty to ensure that safety is properly managed in school and this means:

• that a SMS is in place and it works.
  
  
• that all Risk Assessments, Policies, Procedures etc are appropriate to the specific circumstances of the school.

Because of the intersection of laws like the Children Act and various Education and Medical Acts, H&S in schools is actually far more complex than it is in industry. The clear imperative for any teacher or school is the primacy of the safety of the children. This also brings into play the professional duty of care of the teacher and the school to do no harm through carelessness and/or negligence. This taken in the round means that the level of care and supervision given to younger and more immature children needs to be greater than that given to older, more mature children. However, every teacher knows that some Year 5s can be more mature than Year 6s.This is where the teacher's professional competence intersects with Risk Assessment, Policies and Procedures. Every day in controlling the class teacher's are making ongoing Risk Assessments in maintaining discipline and adequate supervision. All that H&S does is to provide a framework in which to operate which allows them to justify their actions in case of a accident or incident. By providing this framework the school protects, itself, its' staff and its' children.