While fire safety should be a concern for all people no matter the building they are in, the need for excellent fire safety provisions increases tenfold when it comes to fire safety in schools and colleges.
Although you should never take the responsibility of fire safety in your school or college entirely upon yourself – you should hire a certified fire safety professional to ensure the premises meet regulations – it pays to understand what goes into guaranteeing the safety of your pupils and staff so you can react appropriately in an emergency.
Moreover, if your school or college is not fully complying with fire safety regulations, you will be able to identify it and then have it rectified through a proper fire safety assessment.
Fire Risk Assessment
There are a number of legislative measures in place that work to guarantee schools and colleges are protected against and prepared for a fire outbreak. These include:
- The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005
- Health and Safety (Safety Signs and Signals) Regulations 1996
- The Guide on Educational Premises
However, legislation may not be limited to these, there being a significant amount of crossover between different legislative guides that may also apply to your school or college.
Familiarity with the law here can help your responsible person to carry out a fire risk assessment, but you should never leave the assessment to this person alone, instead seeking to hire a competent person who is certified to carry out a fire risk assessment by a governing body.
Boarding vs Day Schools
Due to the fact that day schools are empty a lot of the time the risk to life in these buildings is less than in boarding schools.
That means that you have to have a more rigorous plan for evacuation than you would in a day school, one that accommodates for the fact that the majority of people on-site may be asleep when a fire starts.
There are more aspects generally for a boarding school to consider than a day school, and Protect & Detect can help you to navigate the fire safety assessment of both to ensure your children are as safe as possible at all times.
Training
A well-versed staff can be the difference between disaster and an orderly evacuation that’ll save lives in the event of a fire, making it essential for you to ensure you adequately and fully train your staff.
Be sure to bring in a competent person to carry out a fire risk assessment and to subsequently train your staff in how they can work to prevent a fire and how to effectively act in the event of a fire breaking out.
Regular training on top of this, including fire drills and frequent safety training sessions, will work to keep your staff fully prepared and help to flag any flaws in fire safety provision in your school or college.
Bearing all this in mind, it is impossible to guarantee that full fire safety compliance has been met in your school or college without the backing of a certified professional. For a comprehensive fire safety assessment of your school, contact Protect & Detect.
Protect & Detect is a leading fire safety and security company, servicing Ipswich, Colchester, Cambridge, Bury St. Edmunds, Chelmsford and beyond.
Protect & Detect offers a wide range of fire safety and security services including; fire alarms, fire extinguishers, burglar alarms, intruder alarms, fire sprinkler systems, access control, door entry systems, CCTV, barriers, nurse and warden calls. Contact our friendly team today for a quick quote.