Who is responsible for managing safety, health and welfare in our school?

The Board of Management is responsible for managing safety, health and welfare in the school. All members of the school community, including, teachers, special needs assistants, ancillary staff, students, parents and visitors have a role to play in securing their own safety, health and welfare and that of others.

How does the Board of Management begin the process of managing safety, health and welfare more effectively using the Guidelines?

The Board of Management might consider taking the following steps:
1- Decide who will lead the process on behalf of the Board. This could be the principal or the deputy principal, or an employee or member of the Board appointed to act as a Safety, Health and Welfare Officer or a Safety, Health and Welfare Committee.
2 - This person or group reads The Guidelines. To begin they might consider the following approach:
• Look at the Foreword, Contents and Introduction to Part 1.
• Look at the list of what a Safety Statement should contain on page 46 of Part 1.
• Look at some sample Risk Assessment Templates from Part 2.
• Examine the Sample Planner on page 4 of Part 2
• If specific questions arise at this stage, you might locate the answers to them in the F.A.Q. section from pages 39 to 53 of Part 1.
• Once you have a sense of the structure of the Guidelines, it would be important to read through all of Part 1 with a particular focus on the Five Steps of the Safety, Health and Welfare Management System from pages 15 to 37.

Guidelines