It’s easy to say that appropriate and effective Health & Safety training is key aspect of improving performance of staff across every sector and industry, but it’s much harder for employers to identify what training topics should be covered, how to manage the roll out, and how to ensure that their staff complete training within the required timeframe.

The Education sector can pose unique challenges as they have a wide range of situations, various categories of people at risk, and a myriad of locations with individual risks to cover. For example, a school is responsible for looking after the children when they’re in school grounds, when they’re at a school associated club, or when they’re on a school trip. With that in mind we’ve pulled together a quick (by no means exhaustive) list of training that schools, universities, and colleges should ensure they have covered in 2023:

Risk Assessment

The HSE advises that staff training for schools includes the assessment of risk, which is a key part of Health & Safety. Risk assessments must be carried out to identify hazards and manage risk for all internal and external activities undertaken by the organisation during the delivery of the curriculum.  This can cover a wide range of hazards, so it’s very important that staff with responsibility for this area have an excellent grounding in the principals of risk assessment and understand the importance of accurate and up to date risk assessment.

Armour carries out bespoke on-site Risk Assessment training for a range of clients, including those in the education system; follow the link to learn more. Alternatively, check out our VideoTile Training courses such as Introduction to Risk Assessment by following the link and testing it out using our free trial – the full course takes an average of 90 minutes to complete and comes approved by IIRSM & CPD.

Slips, Trips and Falls

Slips and trips are currently the most common cause of injury at work, from minor injuries to major injuries and even causing fatalities. Education involves wide range of premises and a range of people on site – pupils, staff, parents and often members of the public. Root causes of these accidents can be usually be condensed down to unsuitable footwear, training cables and wires, slippery surfaces, insufficient lighting, and poorly maintained flooring.

Armour carries out training in person, or we can provide Slips, Trips and Falls training via our e-learning platform. The training takes approximately 60 minutes to complete, and is IIRSM & IOSH approved.

Fire Safety Training

Current fire legislation applies to all workplaces regardless of the number of employees and requires employers to provide adequate training in fire awareness for all members of their staff. Our online basic fire safety awareness course are aimed at all employees to assist them in identifying and reducing the risk that fire presents in the workplace. This course will provide candidates with a general understanding of basic fire awareness including what should be done in the event of a fire, how to prevent a fire occurring and a basic introduction of the protocol of extinguishing a fire.

It is a cost-effective way for employers to fulfil their legal obligation to provide their employees with the necessary understanding of fire awareness, and it’s accredited by IFE, CPD, IIRSM, Gatehouse Awards, Institute of Hospitality & IOSH!

Display Screen Equipment

With smart classrooms and technology being integrated into all levels of education it’s important to remember that staff will spend a lot of time with Display Screen Equipment, which can include smartphones, tablets, laptops and computers, whiteboards, TV displays, and more. Our Assessing Display Screen Equipment e-learning course covers your statutory training requirements and takes an average of 110 minutes to complete. Again, this course is approved by IIRSM & CPD.