As an academy or multi-academy trust leader, we know you face numerous health and safety challenges. We’re here to help you navigate them, enabling you to run your school safely and effectively.
Addressing and resolving your challenges
As an academy or multi-academy leader, we know you face numerous health and safety challenges daily as you strive to:
- Translate, digest and action large volumes of information
- Address variations in standards of old and new buildings
- Identify and resolve security issues
- Handle the challenges of different demographics and neighbourhoods
- Apply consistent health and safety policies across different schools
- Communicate essential health and safety matters effectively to the board
- Onboard new schools
- Steer centralised teams to support every school
- Deal with varying service level agreements
Health and wellbeing
Establishing and maintaining a healthy workforce and school community is critical.
Educators were already predisposed to stress, anxiety and depression pre-pandemic, so it’s no wonder numbers are rising when you factor in increased workloads, isolation and future uncertainty.
Homeworking, agile working, and introducing new technologies have changed team dynamics and presented new challenges, from ensuring healthy home workstations to keeping burnout at bay. Your staff and students’ wellbeing has never been so vital.
Monitoring arrangements and controls
Changing priorities may well have prompted a lapse in regular checks. While natural under the circumstances, it leaves you exposed to risk. So, now is the ideal time to reinforce regular checks with clear actions and reviews.
Similarly, the way you use resources may have changed, so you’ll need to update policies and procedures to reflect this.
Many academies and MATs we work with have had 5-10% of students in school during the most recent lockdown, so it’s essential to maintain all your usual health and safety procedures. After all, the last thing you want is for buildings, systems or processes to deteriorate and present issues later.
The evolving challenges of COVID-19
COVID-19 is a form of risk. Of course, the most effective way of managing risk is to eliminate it or substitute it for a safer alternative. However, as this isn’t an option, your focus should be on managing it appropriately.
PPE has been a hot topic, yet it’s only one element of effective risk management.
Administrative risk management, like training and refresher training, is a crucial part of COVID risk management.
As always, one of the most successful ways of managing health and safety is to divide responsibility across a larger number of people, so this is a crucial action to prioritise in the current climate.
Last year, we saw new controls implemented to deal with the threats posed by the pandemic. So, review your signage, risk assessments and PPE policies to ensure they’re still in place.
You may find certain COVID practices are working so well you plan to keep them post-pandemic. Therefore, regular reviews will help identify what’s working well and prepare for successful future management (as well as changing anything that’s not working).
Equally, it’s your job to keep on top of government guidance, share information and implement relevant measures in this continually changing landscape.
Where to turn for help with academy health and safety
Vita Safety provides consultancy, training and compliance services to academies and multi-academy trusts across the UK.
Not only can we help you with everyday health and safety challenges, but we can also flex to offer the support you need in changing circumstances.
Watch our free webinar to find out more: click here.
Book a free 30-minute consultation to see how we can support you to run your academy safely and successfully – call 0161 486 5020 or email [email protected]
Get your questions answered
H&S got you scratching your head? Perhaps the last few months have unearthed some problems and you require some support?
Join us for a free roundtable event that suits your busy schedule. We’re running three round table events on H&S in academies. We’ll be unpacking some of your most pressing questions and providing pragmatic support to keep your community safe.
If you’ve got a question or you’d like to learn more, join one of our 60-minute sessions. They will run from 12.30 – 13.30 on:
- Tuesday 4th May
- Wednesday 23rd June
- Wednesday 30th June
To register for your session of choice, follow the button below.
