RoSPA Press Office : Press Release
July 22, 2003
RISK EDUCATION COURSE FOR TEACHERS FOLLOWS ACCIDENTS
Trainee teachers are to be given lessons in risk education following a series of widely publicised accidents involving children, particularly on school trips.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the Health and Safety Executive are teaming up with the University of Central England to produce a pilot scheme to incorporate risk management in Initial Teacher Training (ITT) programmes.
The pilot has the support of the Teacher Training Agency and will be launched at the start of the new academic year in September. If successful, it will then be available for use by other education establishments.
Juliet Brown, RoSPA Head of Education, said: “A number of high profile accidents, some on school trips, have focused attention on the need for teachers to understand more about risk education and risk management.
“We hope the training module now being developed will give trainee teachers greater confidence in tackling these issues.
“Although it is incidents away from schools that often capture public attention, it is important that teachers understand about risk in school as well. It may involve managing a child with diabetes, looking after children in the playground or taking pupils on educational visits.
“We want to see teachers adopting a positive approach to health and safety from the first day they enter the classroom to the end of their career. There needs to be a ‘whole school approach’ to safety so that everyone in the school community is involved.”
Roger Woods, Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UCE, said: “We want teachers to teach safety and teach safely. They have a legal duty to carry out risk assessments and so must be competent to do this. They can then pass that knowledge on to their pupils to make them safer throughout their lives.”
RoSPA will deliver taught and practical sessions within the General Professional Studies area of their course to primary Initial Teacher Trainees at UCE. Reading lists will be made available and they will be given opportunities to take the issue of risk and risk education further.
