The Education (Work experience) Act 1996 requires that each student be provided a minimum of one weeks curriculum based workplace activity before leaving school. In doing so, each secondary school working with year 10 and 11 students have a legal ‘duty of care' for their welfare when seconded to a work placement. Putting an inexperienced and unaware student into a potentially dangerous environment could result in prosecutions against individual heads and teachers.
Nicki Harris, Director of Making Learning Work explains, "We are targeting all 7500 secondary schools and Local Education Authorities across the UK with an information pack as we firmly believe this is an issue that has not properly been addressed in terms of protecting both the schools and importantly the students. We frequently encounter schools who believe that a talk in assembly on health and safety is due diligence. It's not and in the event of an accident, the liability lies with the senior members of staff at the school, not the student."
Schools are required to have in place legally enforceable control measures to ensure that all students have sufficient health and safety awareness prior to entering any workplace.
"We have created a unique online course for students to meet the requirements for pre-work experience briefings as well as complying with obligations within the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Our campaign is to explain the issues and why courses such as ours are essential. Providing proof that individual students are aware is absolutely essential to be legally complaint. Our online course issues a unique numbered and authorized passport for each successful student. "This provides the essential paper trail and traceability to each student and thereby protects schools and Local Education Authorities under their duty of care obligations." Added Nicki.
The Health and Safety Awareness Training can be electronically delivered via the school's intranet system. School students will log onto the system and be able to work through the material within the school timetable framework. The sessions are broken down into manageable sections to retain learner interest and satisfy school timescales for allocated learning hours.
The Passport will show a unique issue number, the student's name, date of achievement and a validation signature from a Director of Making Learning Work. The Passport remains in the possession of the student from school and into the world of work.
Health and Safety Awareness falls within the "The Safe Learner Concept" developed by the National Learner Health & Safety Partnership (NLH&SP) Group. The Safe Learner Concept is filtered down through all learning bodies, providers, colleges and schools.
One of the early adopters of the online learning course is Perry Beeches Technology College in Birmingham. Head, Mr Liam Nolan sees it as a valuable resource for students,
"We take our responsibilities very seriously for all the students in our care. We conducted a lot of research into appropriate ways to convey the health and safety message and found the online learning course to be the best one. It works within a medium that the students are familiar with and the passport not only shows that a student has taken a course but also that they have understood the health and safety messages and that is crucial for their safety. The annual year group licence is also a cost effective way of implementing the learning."
Making Learning Work is an independent company working to government guidelines within the Safe Learning Concept, focusing on the 14-19 agenda. Making Learning Work also provide one to five day a week vocational placements over one and two years.
Further information is available on http://www.mlw-ltd.com/ or by calling 0871 200 0035
