Safety Information for UK Schools

The following is some general information aimed at schools and colleges in the UK but the advice may be usefully applied internationally.

Regulations made under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 require a risk assessment to be carried out before hazardous chemicals are used or made, or a hazardous procedure is carried out. Risk assessment is your employers responsibility. The task of assessing risk in particular situations may well be delegated by the employer to the head teacher/science co-ordinator, who will be expected to operate within the employer's guidelines. Following guidance from the Health and Safety Executive most education employers have adopted various nationally available texts as the basis for their model risk assessments. These commonly include the following:

• Safeguards in the School Laboratory, 10th edition, ASE, 1996
• Topics in Safety, 2nd Edition, ASE, 1998 (new edition available in 2001)
• Hazcards, CLEAPSS, 1998 (or 1995)
• Laboratory Handbook, CLEAPSS, 1997
• Safety in Science Education, DfEE, HMSO, 1996
• Hazardous Chemicals Manual, SSERC, 1997

If your employer has adopted one or more of these publications, you should follow the guidance given there, subject only to a need to check and consider whether minor modification is needed to deal with the special situation in your class/school.

However, teachers must still verify that what they propose to do confirms with any code of practice produced by their employer. You also need to consider your local circumstances. Are your students reliable? Do you have safety glasses for everyone?

Risk assessment involves answering two questions:

• How likely is it that something will go wrong?
• How serious would it be if it did go wrong?

How likely it is that something will go wrong depends on who is doing it and what sort of training and experience they have had. In most of the publications listed above there are suggestions as to whether an activity should be a teacher demonstration only, or could be done by students of various ages. Your employer will probably expect you to follow this guidance.

Teachers tend to think of eye protection as the main control measure to prevent injury. In fact, personal protective equipment, such as goggles or safety spectacles, is meant to protect from the unexpected. If you expect a problem, more stringent controls are needed.

A range of control measures may be adopted, the following being the most common. Use:

• a less hazardous (substitute) chemical
• as small a quantity as possible
• as low a concentration as possible
• safety screens (more than one is usually needed, to protect both teacher and students).

The importance of lower concentrations is not always appreciated, but if solutions are suitably dilute they are classified as irritant rather than corrosive.

Undoubtedly, chemical splash goggles, to the European Standard EN 166 3 give the best protection but children are often reluctant to wear goggles. Safety spectacles give less protection, but may be adequate if nothing which is classed as corrosive or toxic is in use. It is recommended that corrosive or toxic materials are not used in primary schools.

CLEAPSS

Teachers should note the following points about CLEAPSS:

At the time of writing, every LEA in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (except Middlesbrough) is a member, hence all their schools are members, as are the vast majority of independent schools, incorporated colleges and teacher training establishments and overseas establishments. Members should already have copies of CLEAPSS guidance in their schools. Members who cannot find their materials and non-members interested in joining should contact the CLEAPSS School Science Service at Brunel University, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH; tel +44 (0) 1895 251496; fax +44 (0) 1895 814372; Email science@cleapss.org.uk or visit the web site www.cleapss.org.uk

Schools in Scotland have a similar organisation, SSERC (Scottish Schools Equipment Research Centre), 2nd Floor, St Mary's Building, 23 Hollyrood Road, Edinburgh EH8 8AE; tel +44 (0) 131 558 8180

This web site may also be of relevance: www.sserc.org.uk

Please Note this information was correct at time of writing, November 2000.

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