FAQ's
School safety is represented by:
- Awareness of threats and concerns
- Physical aspects and abstract school aspects
- Personnel performing their safety responsibilities
- Evidence of safety management - school safety file
- Policies and procedures are executed and reviewed
- Safety role-players and stakeholders are empowered
- Requirements are met from a legal, practical and ethical viewpoint
- Oversight and managerial review are in place to maintain safety standards
School safety and school security are often seen as synonyms - this is an incorrect perception. Security would include fencing, guard house, gates, locks, access control, cameras, learner early release procedures, outdoor lighting, management of visitors and vehicles and certain aspects of event or excursion management.
Hazards represent unattended and unprevented threats or concerns.
Hazards which may develop at some point in time.
Practical, tangible or physical hazards is the first grouping. Secondly, hazards stemming from behaviour and activities.
Exposure to hazards implies that a person is unprotected and vulnerable to current threats, which may be tangible or abstract.
Risk are the possible consequences stemming from hazards.
Risk assessment is often the most neglected aspect of safety management. Risk assessment is the process whereby we identify “what can happen, what can go wrong?” This means that we have to understand the school in its totality - the physical aspects and the abstract aspects - in the context of preventing hazards, concerns, incidents and injuries.
Safety management starts with risk assessment. The latter should indicate the opportunities or the instruments of hazard and incident prevention.
The seven stakeholders are role-players in school safety. It is a popular misconception that a particular individual at the school is responsible for safety. In fact, every personnel member has safety responsibilities.
Although the governing body and the education department are most certainly major role-players in school management, and safety management, it is the principal who is regarded as the day-to-day manager at the school. Decisions regarding ‘who, where, what and how’ and granting permission or giving instructions in the broadest sense rests with the head of the school. Safety management as an aspect of school management, forms part of the principal’s scope of accountability.
Schools vary in how they assign duties and responsibilities, and how they name or label the respective role-players. The primary focus of the senior management team at the school would include establishing commitment documents and procedures. Empowering role-players to perform their duties and, of course, oversight, remains key.
Common, or shared responsibilities commence with observation of the school environment. Of course, observation is not sufficient and taking appropriate action(s) in relation to our awareness is essential. Specific responsibilities vary, depending on the role and the appointment of the individual. For example, an evacuation warden would have responsibilities that uninformed persons, or unappointed persons would not have in a practical and legal context.
The potential list of injures and their causes would be extensive, however, it has been found that there are about fourteen types of incidents and injuries which are more common at schools than others. It is, of course, important to understand why and where these incidents originate and how to prevent hazards in the first place.
It is not practical to list the extent of departmental safety requirements here, however, it is useful to mention the following sources of governmental requirements and prescriptions:
The SISSG
NSSF
South African Schools Act
Regulations to the South African Schools Act, 2006 and 2013
The Occupational Health and Safety Act
The answer is “yes, and no”. Many departmental requirements have their footing in legal provisions, other not to the same extent. The important point here is that requirements should be complied with, regardless of their nature or origin. If not, we are opening the door to practical safety issues and to accountability issues.
Basically, a pro-active approach is to prevent hazards and incidents.
When hazards and incidents occur, we react to them.
In broad terms, there are seven internal and external stake-holders in school safety.
The educator has, together with other personnel members, in loco parentis responsibility. Basically this implies that the educator will have a caretaking responsibility as a parent would. There are six expectations or requirements pertaining to the educator with regard to abilities and involvement in the school environment.
When a school incident has occurred, whether or not injuries was an aspect of it, it is vital to understand the origin of it. To avoid recurrence, corrective and preventive measures should be taken.
Once the opportunities for improvement have been determined, an action plan can be established to ensure that the necessary outcomes are reached. Persons responsible, and target dates are important.
To attempt a draft budget before the needs and requirements for safety are determined, would represent guess work or a stab-in-the-dark attempt.
There are many potential expenditure items, ranging from consumables such as hand hygiene products and masks to capital expenditure such as fencing.
As mentioned briefly before, a paper-based body of evidence is essential to indicate the actions which were taken to maintain safety standards and to prevent injuries and incidents.
Absolutely. Contractor work is part of the scope of activity on the school premises and represents an aspect of the principal’s accountability. It is essential that this accountability is managed, or reduced, to the greatest extent.