Lionel School

 

                    Five Steps to Risk Assessment

The Lionel School Health and Safety Policy adopts Five Steps to Risk Assessment published by the Health and Safety Executive as the basis for evaluating risk assessment throughout the school.  Click on the link to download a blank Risk Assessment Form, or to download various other forms on the Documents and Forms page.

The five steps to risk assessment are as follows:

 
Step 1:  Look for the hazards.

Staff doing the assessment should walk around their area of the school and look afresh at what could reasonably be expected to cause harm.  Ignore the trivial and concentrate on significant hazards which could conceivably result in serious harm or affect a number of people.

Step 2:  Decide who might be harmed and how.

Particular attention needs to be paid in a school environment to the hazards posed to children, school staff, visitors such as contractors, and members of the general public

Step 3:  Evaluate the risks and decide whether the existing precautions are adequate or whether more should be done.

Staff need to consider how likely it is that each hazard could cause harm, and what can be done to reduce the risk.  For example, there are legal requirements on prevention of access to dangerous parts of machinery.  Once any precautions have been taken, it still remains to decide whether any remaining hazards still constitute a high, medium or low risk.  In controlling risks, the following principles should be applied, in order if possible:

try a less risky option
prevent access to the hazard
organise activity to reduce exposure to the hazard
issue personal protective equipment, and insist it is worn
provide welfare facilities, such as washing and first aid facilities

Step 4:  Record any findings.

Significant conclusions and findings from risk assessments need to be written down.  Risk assessments must be suitable and sufficient, showing that:

  a proper check was made
  those potentially affected have been identified
  the obvious significant hazards have been dealt with
  the precautions taken were reasonable, leaving a remaining low risk

Step 5:  Review the assessment and revise it if necessary.

The written record needs to be periodically reviewed and revised if necessary.  It is good practice to review assessments from time to time to ensure that any precautions taken are still working effectively.