CLEAPSS health and safety update for science teachers RP632
Update your health and safety knowledge and get hands-on experience of dealing with hazards.
Summary
Science teaching has a very good health and safety record. Nevertheless science teachers need to be up-to-date with health and safety legislation as there are many potentially hazardous chemicals, living organisms, pieces of equipment and procedures in use in school and college science laboratories.
Each session will include a number of activities including presentations, discussion in groups and quizzes. These will de-bunk a number of common myths and look at legal requirements and the duties of teachers and their employers. Activities in the lab that commonly give rise to problems will be highlighted and discussed. There will be opportunities to discuss each participant’s own safety concerns. There will be opportunities to check model risk assessments, such as Hazcards, and to consider how these might need to be modified to reflect the circumstances of a particular school, college room or class. The importance of adopting control measures, such as eye protection, and of sticking to agreed procedures will be emphasised. The day will end with an opportunity to consolidate the lessons learned during the day.
Outcomes
The objectives for this course are:
- to consider the reasons why we do practical work in science
- to raise awareness about health and safety in school and college science
- to partly fulfil the legal requirement of employers to provide health and safety training for staff
- to help you become more familiar with CLEAPSS services and advice
- to practise procedures for risk assessment
- to allow you to share concerns, and discuss common problems