With children in their first weeks back at school, we felt now was the perfect time to look at safety regulations around education and hazardous substances, and how your school setting can comply with them.
Read on to learn all about COSHH requirements for schools.
COSHH explained
COSHH is an acronym for ‘Control of Substances Hazardous to Health.’ It is the law that dictates which hazardous substances employers should guard their employees and customers against, and the safeguards they should put in place in order to do so depending on the specific setting.
These hazardous substances can come from chemicals, gases and vapours, dusts or fumes, and can affects people through touch (skin absorption), ingestion or inhalation. Some are capable of causing severe health conditions like asthma, COPD and even cancer, which is why schools need to be COSHH compliant.
Who is responsible for COSHH in schools?
It is always the responsibility of the employer to ensure COSHH regulations are enforced and followed. Where schools are concerned, ‘employer’ status might change depending on the nature of the school itself. However, for state-funded schools the local authority is considered the employer. You can find out more about who is responsible for COSHH enforcement at different kinds of schools on HSE’s website.
How are schools becoming COSHH compliant?
Visit any school and you will likely find all manner of potential health hazards. However, where COSHH is concerned, some of the most common settings and causes include:
Design and technology classrooms
Both students and teachers are put at risk by the many machine processes and chemicals used readily in D&T classrooms. They can include:
- Glues
- Paints
- Varnishes
- Soldering
- Sanding
- Cutting and sawing
The first three on the list above can give off potentially toxic fumes. The latter three can and often will throw up fine dusts into the air which can enter the breathing zone and cause considerable health issues. That’s why schools need to be COSHH compliant.
COSHH requirements for schools dictate that students and staff alike be protected using adequate PPE and associated equipment like ESD matting, and ample ventilation, alongside proper teacher and support staff training in the event of an accident or emergency.
Science labs
Making school settings COSHH compliant also means creating a safe environment in science labs, where a wealth of hazards can be present. Chief among these are potentially dangerous chemicals and the fumes or gases that can be given off when mixing or heating them.
Teaching and support staff should be fully trained to handle these substances and aware of how to control them, alongside why it’s essential they do so. They must also make sure to convey this knowledge to students before they’re given access to the substances. PPE like lab coats and goggles should also be provided, and supervision should always be given.
Following the lesson, the potentially dangerous substances should be stored carefully in a locked store room, with particular care given to make sure potentially combustible chemical pairings are stored well away from each other.
Storage areas and associated cleaning items
Like teaching staff, a school’s cleaning staff need to understand the potential dangers that the chemicals they use daily represent. However, unlike teaching staff, cleaners are often employed by schools through an external agency and the specific cleaners present can change from shift to shift. These facts can all present challenges when it comes to making school settings COSHH compliant.
One way around this can be to use a cleaning company specially approved for cleaning in schools, and to make sure its cleaners use only the provided chemicals, stored on school property in a safe locked place. Your school should also provide protective equipment like rubber gloves.
For more information on who needs health and safety training at your school, including contractors, see this health and safety training guide from HSE.
The first step to making school settings COSHH compliant
So far we’ve established why schools need to be COSHH Compliant and looked at examples of how are schools becoming COSHH compliant with the proper health and safety practices in important areas.
But what’s the very first thing your school should do to ensure COSHH compliance?
The answer is a COSHH assessment.
You can conduct one of these by:
- Deciding who’s going to be responsible
- Identifying the hazards present
- Evaluating who might be harmed by them
- Taking an overview of the risks you’ve identified
- Deciding on control measures
- And documenting your assessment, then reviewing it when changes occur
These six steps are explained in detail in our post ‘Conducting a COSHH Assessment,’ so make sure to check that out if you’re currently investigating making your school setting COSHH compliant.
LEV: The D&T teacher’s best friend!
We mentioned ventilation in the D&T section above, and the most efficient kind for extracting woodworking and metalworking dusts is by far and away at-source extraction, otherwise known as local exhaust ventilation (LEV).
Here at VODEX we supply industry-leading LEV systems to all kinds of businesses, including specialist fume cupboards and other solutions for educational establishments. So if you need help meeting COSHH requirements for schools, get in touch with us today.
