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Risk Assessments

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Managing Risk in the Curriculum 

Teaching staff should consider any significant health and safety issues such as class size, pupil behaviour, maturity, limitations of space, layout, equipment etc. as part of their planning and preparation, risk assessment is just another name for that process.

For most activities rather than create additional paper records or a specific risk assessment this is generally best achieved by incorporating your assessment into materials normally used in teaching, annotating schemes of work, lesson plans, pupil worksheets etc.

For those curricular activities in areas of higher risk (DT, science, PE etc.) staff should be familiar with generic risk assessments and guidance is produced by advisory bodies such as ASE, CLEAPSS and AfPE

Heads of department / subject leaders should review courses against these and :

• check any new practical activities against the model risk assessments.
• satisfy themselves that the ‘model’ risk assessment is appropriate to their work; and
• adapt the model to their own actual work situations.

Where lessons / activities are not adequately covered by model assessments or are beyond the scheme of work then a specific and more detailed assessment must be conducted but this would be an exceptional circumstance.

See

• Managing Risk in the Curriculum

for a range of areas for consideration as part of planning / assessment of risk.

Therefore a school’s approach to risk assessment within the curriculum could  be evidenced by a range of documents highlighting any specific precautions or warnings from model risk assessments and demonstrating that risks have been adequately considered.

For example:

• Scheme of work;
• Lesson plans;
• Daily use texts such as pupil worksheets;
• Attendance registers (evidencing progression);
• Minutes of meetings;
• Medical information;
• CPD / professional records showing specific competency requirements;
• Lab / workshop rules;
• Departmental policy

When revising / reviewing your scheme of work check practical activities against model risk assessments, in particular be aware of any changes in  advice from advisory bodies e.g. CLEAPSS (CD Rom for DT and science re- issued annually, newsletters / website highlight updates), AfPE ( Safe Practice in school sport is reissued every 3 years) etc.