HEALTH & SAFETY
School health and safety: what’s changing and how to stay ahead
fundamental responsibility underpinning everything is to keep students and staff safe. And with a new wave of students entering the classroom and updated statutory guidance now in force, it’s an essential time to renew your health and safety practices.
This year, there is added scrutiny as Ofsted has made it clear that safety and safeguarding remain core components of its inspection framework. Simultaneously, the updated Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSIE) 2025 guidance places a greater emphasis on a proactive, evidence-based culture of safety, from managing digital risks to providing robust staff training. Schools are under pressure both to meet these obligations, and also to demonstrate that they are doing everything possible to protect their community.
J
amie Livingston, School Estates and Sustainability Manager at iAM Compliant, a leading health and safety and compliance platform built specifically for schools, gives guidance on the latest in health and safety.
At the start of a new academic year, school leaders find themselves taking stock of what really matters. While the curriculum, timetables, and staff development are top priorities, one
Teachers and support staff are balancing demanding timetables, and traditional, lengthy training sessions are often hard to accommodate, but with thousands of casualties and Fire & Rescue incidents recorded on education premises across England each year, schools cannot afford for safety to be a box- ticking exercise.
What’s at stake
A small oversight can have devastating consequences. Recent years have seen several
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high-profile incidents that highlight the serious consequences when systems fail. The lessons learned from these cases are a sobering reminder of why preemptive safety measures are non-negotiable.
In January 2023, the education sector was shaken by the tragic death of a 19-year-old student with special educational needs at Welcombe Hills School. The student, who had Pica, a disorder where individuals eat non- nutritive objects, died after choking on a paper towel. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found that despite a near-miss incident just days earlier, the school had failed to provide sufficient supervision and staff training. The incident resulted in a £300,000 fine for the academy trust and a clear warning about the consequences of serious management failures. A year ago, a five-year-old pupil at Danetree Primary School in Surrey lost part of his finger in a preventable door hinge accident. The incident was a direct result of an unsafe door that could have been made safe with inexpensive hinge guards. The trust responsible was fined £6,000 plus costs, with the case highlighting how essential regular estate checks are in preventing similar injuries from occurring in the first place. And in London, a classroom ceiling collapsed at Rosemead Preparatory School in 2021, injuring 15 children and a teacher. A subsequent
October 2025
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