Unit 27 P4/M3
Miss Johnston Lewis Appleton
The Howard School
Safety Procedures
The Howard School must follow these procedures to ensure the safety of students and
staff, these procedures are in place to identify, monitor and resolve potential risks so
that the school environment can be a non-hazardous one with minimal issues.
Visitor Procedures
Although visitors may be in the school to either help or visitor students we at the
Howard School have procedures so that we can track the visitor’s interactions.
Visitors are required to sign in at reception and wear a visitor badge, as well as this
they should provide a signature and identification so we know who we are letting into
the school. The reason for this is that if an emergency should occur we would be able
to notify the correct authorities of the identity. The procedure is in place so students
know that the person is visiting and therefore cannot mistake them for a teacher,
students are advised to notify reception of unusual people not wearing a visitor badge.
Missing Children
The Howard School takes a register using e-portal to ensure the presence of students,
in the event of a student not being present without a given reason the school will
know within the first 15 minutes of the class starting. If the student was present at the
period before the teacher would be able to tell that the student could be possibly
skipping class and would need to prompt further into the situation.
Student Identification
Students are given a uniform that they have to wear so that they can be identified as a
student at our school, in other schools staff are given uniforms but here we just
provide the staff with an ID badge and a dress code. As sixth form students are not
required to wear school uniform we provide them with a student ID. They do not have
to have these on show although if asked they may need to provide their ID to a
member of staff. At The Howard School students sometimes feel uncomfortable and
try to rebel against uniform and for that reason we have strict penalties in place for not
following this rule.
Fire
Fire accidents are not uncommon in some schools and we at The Howard School want
to make sure that in the event of a fire that all the students would be safe. We have
regular fire drills that test the student’s evacuation skills to ensure that in the event of
a real fire the students would be safe. During these drills students have to line up in
lines related to their form class and the register is taken in a calm manner.

Unit 27 P4/M3
Miss Johnston Lewis Appleton
Security Lockdown
At The Howard School we have procedures in place if we see a potential threat; we
have lockdown procedures to protect students and staff from these threats. The time
when we may require these procedures is when a violent crime has been reported near
the school, a dangerous high profile person is spotted in the area or if there is a threat
from something such as a shooting, the likelihood of this happening is very unlikely
but it is necessary to think ahead just in case.
Building Rules
The Howard School has to make sure that they have guidelines for safe building, this
means providing a building for the school that is both safe and secure, this includes
the type of materials that can be used to construct the building and for example the
type of paint used. Electricity and water should also be safe to use, The Howard
School also has to follow the codes set by the EU-OSHA (Occupational Safety and
Health Administration) as well as those provided by the National Education
Association.
Activity Rules
The school has to make sure that any equipment used for activities is safe such as art
supplies and science equipment, this means there are rules in place for the handling of
items, guidelines for usage, preventing things such as running in hallways and also
includes subject specific rules such as safety for sport.
Risk Assessment procedure
A risk assessment has to be carried out when there is a possibility of a risk, the
purpose is to assess the potential frequency and severity of an event happening such
as a fire in classrooms. This of course is a major thing but there are also minor things
such as hot drinks. The hazards are split into categories so the assessor is able to
organise their findings.
Format
The header of the document will contain what the risk assessment is for, whether it is
a regular general class room assessment or a school trip assessment. A reference
number and date is also required, this is so the document can be filed correctly. The
location and person assessing will also be required. Finally in the header the potential
persons at risk will be required.
Content
After this there is the actual risk assessment information, first of all there is a column
of identified hazards, then next column contains six different severity categories;
negligible, minor injury, major injury, single death, multi-death, multi-offsite. The
next column contains six different probable frequencies; improbable, possible,
occasional, fairly frequent, frequently, certainty. There is then a column for “risk
score” which is the severity score multiplied by the probable frequency. The next

Unit 27 P4/M3
Miss Johnston Lewis Appleton
column states that scores of 9 or above need further immediate assessment. The final
column is for any further comments that are necessary.
The identified hazards are categorised into the following; fire, slips trips and falls,
burns, use of chemicals, falls from height, electrocution, strangulation, suffocation,
choking, noise, crushing, cuts, strain, and eye damage.
Best practice
The risk assessments for general classrooms are to be carried out regularly with any
scores over 9 being addressed immediately to prevent the risk and dangers of causing
harm to students, staff or visitors.
Risk assessments are to be carried out on occasions where the students will be leaving
the school premise as the school is still responsible for their well-being and has to
ensure that they are kept safe from potential dangers, in this case one possible risk
could be a car crash.
Recommendations
From looking at my results taking the risk assessments on the four specified locations
I have come up with a list of recommendations that would improve the current
situation and alleviate any possible risks in the future. I will categorise these
recommendations according to each location a risk assessment was carried out on.
Hall
A possible risk is that the fire escapes are located at the sides of the hall and are
usually covered by chairs during an assembly which makes it possible that these could
be inaccessible during the event of a fire accident. The location of the doors does not
need to be changed, the chairs need to be made more compact and have fewer of them
so that the escapes will work as they should.
The access to open or high level windows poses a possible risk so it is recommended
that specialised hooks and poles are used to operate these windows, this means that
the person does not have to be at a height in order to operate it and prevents the
person possibly falling from a height and causing injury.
The use of steps and ladders to turn off ceiling projectors poses a risk, while the
projector can be operated with a remote some parts such as opening the dust cover
will require this, clearly this poses a risk as the ceiling is fairly high, there isn’t much
that can be done about this but it is possible to lower the height of the projector at
least slightly or to take extra precaution in terms of safeguarding the steps or ladder.
There is an issue with extensions and multi adapters, on the stage area of the hall there
is a large amount of hanging extension leads, clearly these wouldn’t be here during a
show but it does pose a possible risk of tripping and should be improved. One way
this could be done is to mount plug sockets into the wall.
SixthForm Canteen
One possible risk is the fact that if the fire alarm was to sound it may not be heard,
this is due to the high noise levels in the canteen due to students talking and even if
the alarm is in the canteen it still may be hard to hear. One possible way to fix this is

Unit 27 P4/M3
Miss Johnston Lewis Appleton
to either reduce the noise levels by asking students or to also have a visual way to
show there’s a fire such as a flashing light.
The noise is also a major concern because it means that staff may not be able to tell
something important to the students as they would not be heard, it isn’t a risk as such
but is something that still needs improving, one way to do this could be a mounted
speaker on the wall that would be associated with a microphone somewhere in the
school, this would allow the staff to be heard.
The hot drinks do pose a potential threat as they are fairly hot and the containers are
not well insulated, this could cause a student to be burned even if its through their
own actions, an easy way to fix this would be to lower the max temperature the drink
machine can give and possibly spend a little extra for more insulated cups.
Business Room
A major issue is the fact that the business room has no fire exits, many other
classrooms around the school have a fire exit and the business room is located as such
that it may be difficult to get to the fire exit. One way to prevent this happening is
either to install a fire exit or to provide other means such as a large operable window
since the room is on the ground floor.
Another factor related to fires is the fact there isn’t a fire alarm close by to the
business room which may make it hard to hear it if it were to go off. This is a huge
risk as it may prevent the students and staff even knowing there is a fire and could
potentially put lives at risk. One way to fix this would be to install a fire alarm close
by.
ELC
No noted concerns at this time.