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Health and safety in education

Education organizations have a duty of care to ensure the health, safety and welfare of teachers, education staff, pupils, visitors – both on their premises and off-site. Explore how education standards can help support businesses to manage health and safety in schools and universities and comply with educational health and safety regulations.

Providing a healthy and safe learning environment

Discover how standards can help educational businesses protect the health and safety of their staff and students

The importance of health and safety standards in your education business
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The importance of health and safety standards in your education business

It’s not just big corporates or companies working with obvious hazards that need to prioritize occupational health and safety (OH&S). Education business owners have just as much responsibility. Managing an academic institution, be it a university, college, or academy, in today’s competitive and complex environment can be a challenge. It involves being responsible for the health and safety of your students, faculty, and staff. An educational organization doesn’t start and end with the students and teachers. There are several governing bodies, charities, and employers that assist other members of staff. It is usually the employer that decides what health and safety rules should be executed. The employer could be a local authority, a proprietor, a trust, a charity, a Board of Governors, or a company. They are responsible for ensuring that potential risks to the students or staff are managed in a reasonable way. Standards deliver a platform from which to address these changing needs in a way that’s right for the modern workplace. To read more on the benefits of standards to your education business, click here. Why is health and safety important? Regardless of sector or type, even the smallest business must ensure its working conditions minimize risk and protect staff. Aside from non-compliance penalties, poor management of OH&S risks interruptions to trading and reduced productivity, as well as damage to customer perception. Larger, more established, organizations have generally been managing OH&S for many years and are likely to have invested significant resources into its governance from both a compliance and a social responsibility perspective. The typical big education businesses, such as a university, will also employ dedicated experts, teams – or even whole departments – to monitor compliance, implement processes and publish reports for management and stakeholders. For smaller businesses such as EdTech start-ups, the situation is usually quite different. Limited resource often means that hiring dedicated experts isn’t possible, so the responsibility will frequently be taken on by non-specialist staff, or a time-poor business owner. It’s also something that can often be deprioritized during busy periods. Education companies of all sizes can take a standards-based approach to manage OH&S. What role do standards play in health and safety compliance? Education organizations of all sizes can take a standards-based approach to manage OH&S. The process by which both large and small organizations can begin to manage workplace psychological health is also the same – by identifying primary risk factors and assessing what can be done to change the current working environment. Organizations can use the international standard BS EN ISO 45001 which provides a clear framework to benchmark and improve OH&S performance, as well as lay the ground for continuous improvement. Taking a standards-based approach can help small and medium enterprises and start-ups understand their responsibilities and create the right structures to efficiently manage staff and student health and safety and comply with the law. BS EN ISO 45001 also integrates seamlessly with other management systems standards, such as BS EN ISO 9001 (Quality management system) and BS ISO 14001 (Environmental management system). Like many other management system standards, BS EN ISO 45001 uses a simple plan-do-check-act (PDCA) model to help systematically minimize the risk of harm to all workers. It addresses factors that can lead to long-term health issues and absence from work, as well as those that give rise to accidents. PD ISO/PAS 45005:2020 is a document that gives guidelines for organizations, such as schools, on how to manage the risks arising from COVID-19 to protect work-related health, safety, and well-being. It is available for free download here.  Improving mental health in the education sector  Momentum has also been gathering in recent years for educational institutions to better recognize the issue of mental health. Improved transparency and increased mainstream awareness, means even the smallest educational businesses can’t ignore their responsibility when it comes to establishing a culture in which staff and students feel able to discuss depression, stress, anxiety, and other related concerns. Workplace mental health covers anything from an individual’s work schedule, timescales, and how tasks are organized, to flexibility and work-life balance, as well as the human relationships involved. A healthy educational environment manages all these dimensions to promote sustainable staff and student wellbeing. Finally, it’s worth highlighting that standards development has also been active in this area. A new standard –ISO 45003 – has been developed to tackle psychological health in the workplace. It supplements BS EN ISO 45001 to help small business owners appraise their current situation and guide the introduction of a management system for psychological health and safety in the workplace. With all this in place, education business owners can respond effectively to a transforming workplace culture, managing risk by promoting a safe and healthy workforce that reflects on society as a whole. Improve your education organization’s occupational health and safety processes by adding standard BS EN ISO 45001 to your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge Get everyone in your education business involved in embedding a culture of health and safety. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your health and safety processes. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM07 Occupational & Personal Safety module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more.Read more
Mental health matters: Prioritizing people in the education sector
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Mental health matters: Prioritizing people in the education sector

A new standard for managing psychological health in the workplace is helping to transform the education sector. When the pandemic struck in early 2020, most educational establishments around the world had something like a week to close their doors and put their entire program online. Since then, unpredictability has been the only constant for students and teachers alike. Unsurprisingly, numerous studies have demonstrated its profound impact on the mental health of school and university staff, both during lockdown periods and when returning to the classroom. Concerns about how to effectively deliver courses online, and the pressure that comes with knowing they held the future of many young people in their hands, predictably led to increases in anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms for many. Under Pressure The pandemic, says Aditya Jain, a member of ISO’s committee for occupational health and safety and Associate Professor in Human Resource Management at the Nottingham University Business School, just amplified what was already a challenging task. “Compared to other sectors, education has a higher prevalence of psychosocial hazards.  Teachers and professors are exposed to people all the time, and the jobs are often underpaid with a lack of resources. But perhaps the most wearying of all is the sense of responsibility that teachers feel for the impact that education has on young people’s lives.” All of this is compounded by management issues, he adds, with many manager roles filled by those ill-equipped for the task, or faced with political interference, and the pressure just continues to build. While many educational institutes have the best intentions in supporting the mental health of their employees and students, they have reported feeling helpless when faced with the nature of the job and the resources they must contend with. This is where standards can help. To read more about how standards can benefit the education sector, click here. How to Make a Change with Standard BS EN ISO 45003 Published earlier this year, BS ISO 45003 Occupational health and safety management — Psychological health and safety at work — Guidelines for managing psychosocial risks aims to assist organizations of all kinds and all sectors to put in place good practices for managing employee psychological health and well-being. It helps identify where psychosocial risks arise and how they can be mitigated or eliminated and can help you to develop expertise, increase people’s trust and manage risk better. Education organizations that try to prevent work-related ill-health can benefit from: Improved employee and student engagement Enhanced productivity and higher levels of discretionary effort Increased innovation Greater organizational resilience and legal compliance While it is too early to accurately measure the impact of the standard on the profession, with such institutional changes taking time to take effect, the shift in mindset has undoubtedly already begun. “Twenty years ago, an employer would say that mental health in the workplace is an individual issue and not their concern,” says Jain, “but times have changed since then. The silence has long been broken and the evidence is clear. But that doesn’t always mean the solutions are simple and the problem has gone away. With a change in mindset and much-awaited tangible tools such as BS ISO 45003, there is a lot of hope that real change is on the horizon. In your safeguarding-critical industry, get everyone in your education business involved in embedding a culture of wellbeing. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your health and wellbeing processes. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM07 Occupational & Personal Safety module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more. Make sure your education institution is prioritizing its people, by adding standard BS EN ISO 45003 to your collection today.
How to implement effective safeguarding measures with BS 25800
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How to implement effective safeguarding measures with BS 25800

The publication of BS 25800:2024 is a milestone for safeguarding in the UK. It addresses a critical need for a unified approach, ensuring that all organizations, regardless of their sector or size, can effectively protect individuals from harm.  With safeguarding becoming a critical aspect of organizational responsibility, BS 25800:2024 Safeguarding for organizations. Guide provides a unified framework to promote consistency across various sectors. It has been developed to ensure that all types and sizes of organizations have measures in place to prevent potential or actual harm to individuals.  What is the applicability of safeguarding standards across sectors? BS 25800 is relevant to a broad spectrum of organizations, including those in the statutory sector (e.g., police services, NHS, local governments), the third sector (e.g., charities, faith settings), and the independent sector (e.g., shops, restaurants, health providers).  The standard's wide-ranging applicability underscores its importance and potential impact, ensuring that safeguarding practices are uniformly high across all areas of public interaction. There are also standards that cover specific safeguarding needs, such as BS 25700:2022 Organizational responses to modern slavery. Guidance. This standard provides organizations with guidance for managing the risk of modern slavery. It includes prevention, identification, response, remediation, mitigation, and reporting modern slavery in an organization’s operations, supply chains, and its wider operating environment. What are the benefits of implementing BS 25800? By providing a consistent framework, it ensures that all organizations can implement effective measures to prevent harm and respond appropriately to safeguarding concerns.  Organizations adopting BS 25800 can expect numerous benefits: Consistent safeguarding practices: the standard promotes a uniform approach, reducing discrepancies in safeguarding measures across different regions and sectors. Stakeholder assurance: by adhering to national safeguarding standards, organizations can demonstrate their commitment to preventing harm, thereby building trust with stakeholders, including customers, employees, and volunteers. Enhanced standards of practice: implementing the standard can lead to improved safeguarding practices, ensuring that organizations are well-prepared to prevent and respond to harm. Minimizing harm: effective safeguarding measures help reduce the risk of abuse, neglect, and exploitation, ensuring safer environments for all individuals. Responsibility and support: the standard guides organizations in handling situations responsibly should harm occur, including providing necessary support to victims. Alignment with national and international initiatives: this standard complements the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) and supports the increasing mandatory human rights due diligence requirements in the EU. Additionally, it helps organizations meet mandatory reporting requirements, such as those related to modern slavery, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all aspects of safeguarding. Learn more about the benefits of implementing BS 25800 by downloading our Executive Briefing here.  As organizations across various sectors adopt BS 25800, the standard will play a crucial role in reducing abuse, neglect, maltreatment, and exploitation, fostering a safer and more responsible society. How to implement the safeguarding guidance in BS 25800 For organizations looking to adopt BS 25800, the standard offers practical guidance on several fronts: Policy development: organizations can use BS 25800 to develop clear and consistent safeguarding policies that meet national standards. Training and awareness: the standard emphasizes the importance of training staff and volunteers to recognize and respond to safeguarding concerns effectively. Reporting and response: BS 25800 provides guidelines for establishing robust reporting mechanisms and responsive procedures to handle safeguarding issues promptly and effectively. Continuous improvement: the standard encourages organizations to regularly review and update their safeguarding practices, ensuring they remain effective and aligned with current best practices. The standard's comprehensive approach helps build trust with stakeholders, enhances organizational practices, and ultimately contributes to safer environments for all individuals. Download your free copy of BS 25800 here.
Health and safety for the design and technology learning environment
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Health and safety for the design and technology learning environment

The subject curriculum area of design and technology along with its many similar subject interpretations such as engineering studies, art, and 3D design, product design, etc. is a fast-changing and dynamic subject area that constantly evolves as technological processes are developed and embedded into the latest curriculum content. In 1984 there were few who could envisage the changes that would take place. Computer numerical control machines were in their infancy, laser-cutting and engraving were only just being considered by industry, 3D printers had not been developed, and powered portable hand tools were slowly coming onto the scene with very few of them being battery powered. Coupled with all these changes was the development of the built teaching environment with advances in the regulation of electricity, gas, and ventilation requirements among others, within newly designed buildings. BS 4163:2021 Health and safety for design and technology in educational and similar establishments. Code of practice has brought together all the information necessary for teachers to be confident that they are following the best health and safety guidelines without having to resort to researching the many health and safety publications available. By using BS 4163:2021 teachers can ensure that they are following the best subject practice so that they, technicians, assistants, and learners develop a safer learning environment. This health and safety standard can be useful to many other people besides those directly involved with teaching the subject in schools and colleges. It has been set out in various sections specifically to aid the possible different audiences that may wish to use it. What does BS 4163:2021 cover? BS 4163:2021 provides recommendations and comprehensive guidance to whoever is responsible for planning services, equipment, and machinery – and for people who might use these – in design and technology facilities in all types of educational establishments. The recommendations cover the supply and safe use of equipment, machine tools and materials, and chemicals, as well as personal protection and safety management, with reference to the hazards involved. Educational organizations should adopt the health and safety best practices in this standard because: It contributes to the prevention of accidents and dangerous occurrences in the design and technology areas of educational establishments It’s the only standard that ties together all current health and safety legislation, Codes of Practice, and Guidance into one easily read and understood document It supports the quality-assured training and accreditation scheme run by the Design and Technology Association (D&T) It assures employers that their employees are appropriately trained in accordance with health and safety legislation It can develop teachers’ health and safety expertise and supports educational risk management To learn more about the specific changes to this health and safety standard, and an in-depth look at its scope, download our BS 4163:2021 executive briefing here. What are the benefits of BS 4163:2021? BS 4163:2021 offers several key benefits to your organization: By reading and implementing the guidance within BS 4163:2021, teachers and technicians will be confident that learners’ activities that involve risk will be conducted safely in accordance with current guidelines and regulation Employers will have the confidence that they will be abiding by their legal responsibilities applicable to design and technology and similar activities as laid out in the Health and Safety at Work Act by reading and following the guidelines published in BS 4163:2021 Architects, designers, and other professional companies involved with the provision of design and technology facilities will be safeguarding their professional design responsibilities by reading and following the recommendations in BS 4163:2021 All health and safety guidance and regulation having an influence upon the provision and activity within the design and technology curriculum is subsumed into one easily read document BS 4163:2021 contributes to UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 on ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all of all ages Get everyone in your education business involved in embedding a culture of health and safety. A BSI Knowledge subscription gives you instant access to the resources you need to improve your health and safety processes. The flexibility and visibility it provides of the best practices guidance enable you to get the most from your standards. Build your own custom collection of standards, or opt for access to our GBM07 Occupational & Personal Safety module and keep up-to-date with any relevant changes to your standards strategy. Request to learn more. Ensure your organization is working to health and safety best practices in design and technology learning environments, by buying BS 4163:2021 today.

Key Health and Safety Standards for Education

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