A State School left to its own devices. This is a state school that had fallen behind in maintaining its health and safety management systems due to dwindling support by a Local Authority suffering the consequences of funding cuts.
Existing policy and risk assessment templates provided by the LA were poor quality, out of date and were lacking detail. External facility management support was becoming increasingly expensive.
Conducting the SafetyMARK audit provided an impartial critique of the school’s existing standards of safety management across the board. This provided a benchmark from which to work, a target to aim for and a prioritised improvement plan to work with. SafetyMARK provided follow up advice and resources with regard to the recommendations in the action plan ensuring that standards were quickly improved in a sensible and pragmatic fashion. The school management and governors felt better knowing where their gaps were, rather than worrying about what they didn’t know. They also felt confident that they could at least demonstrate to outside parties that they have a cohesive safety plan and they are sticking to it. They might not have been perfect, but they could demonstrate the improvements they were making. The school worked on their plan and within six months they had achieved the SafetyMARK award.
