The Risk Assessment process
SSERC recommends that risks be assessed using the HSE’s 5-step approach. They no longer refer to it as the ‘Five Step’ approach but there are still five steps.
These 5 steps are:
- Identify the hazards
- Decide who might be harmed and how
- Evaluate the risks and decide on precautions
- Record your findings and implement them
- Review your assessment and update if necessary
A blank form is available here for you to print off and make your own risk assessments which you can download here Risk assessment template. Another version, designed to encourage users to think about how they will communicate findings, is available here.
Here is an example from the HSE website of a risk assessment for a dry-cleaners using this format. It isn’t a school but there are chemicals and people in close proximity so it is a valid exemplar. Dry-Cleaner Risk Assessment
Dynamic risk assessment
It is important to not that a risk assessment is not a piece of paper. Nor it is something frozen in time. There will be occasions where you have to adapt what you are doing ‘on the hoof’ as circumstances change. For further information, see the page on Dynamic Risk Assessment here.
Whole School Risk Assessments
If you scroll down this page, you will find a series of tabs with numerous risk assessments for all sorts of school activities. Before using them, please read the general advice under the first tab Whole School Risk Assessment
Subject Risk Assessments
Biology – You can follow the link here (Biology Health and Safety) to all the Biology health and safety information and guidance
Chemistry – All the experiments detailed on the Chemistry section of the website have their own risk assessments but to save you having to go through all the individual pages, you can find links to all the risk assessments here. (Chemistry Risk Assessment). For further information go to the Chemistry Health and Safety pages.
Home Economics – There are risk assessments for all sorts of Home Economics activities that might be carried out in schools. They can be downloaded from here: Home Economics Risk Assessments
Physics – You can follow the link here (Physics Health and Safety) to all the Physics health and safety information and guidance
Technology – There are many examples of risk assessments for activities in the chemistry workshop and they can be found in the Technology H&S section here.
