Fire drills in schools

[Guest]

Hi, My name is David Green and I am attending 6th form at my local school. I am currently 18 years of age and I am really concerned about the fire drills my school has and how they are done. The school is very new and it is just one huge building where everything is joined up to one another. I am sure it cant be legal as to how the drills are done but I know nothing about it. Until know me and my friend have been ignored and I had recently given up hope until I came across this site and read a post by someone called Chris Houston.

 "To suggest an answer to the question: "how DO you get management to take safety seriously?"

"Education"?

If all elese fails "Prosecution"?

Or, as I suspect, nothing will ever get done until there is a fatality then everyone will be asking "Why was nothing done?" "

There are several problems with the drill and I will try to name as many as possible.

 1 The alarm is is going so often (The alarm has gone off three times in the last two school days.) and yet not once has there actually been a fire. ITs always smoke from a bunsen burner or people setting it off. An alarm even went off during my English Lit exam. This is not acceptable what can be done about it.

2 To get to the safety point we have to walk past the building its self. To make it worse at one point there is only one path to this safety point (Tennis courts) and only two entrances to the actual Tennis Courts. With a school of 2500 students this is a joke and on average to get everyone to the tennis courts and to make sure everyone is safe usaully takes about twenty minutes (Today it was about 40 mins)

3 Because the alarm goes off so much people arnt taking it seriously any more and it has turned into pure chaos. Even though teachers still tell students to go to the tennis courts it is so relaxed that people now just seem to be walking off the school premises to go to a local shop.

4 Ive tried to speak to the headmaster about this but you have to book a meeting to see him. Ive booked several and he cancelled them all. At todays fire drill I saw him and asked him who organises the fire drills. He told me to go away. I then said to him This is a joke and a farse. He then told me to go away before he loses his temper. Why wont he give me any information? ? ?

 If anyone out there has any info or advice as to what I can/should do please reply or email me

   Greenyuk316@hotmail.com

[Guest]

Love to see the responses to this - other than the usual 'should have been the correct detector for the job' - bunsen burners should not smoke etc.

[Guest]

Taking fire safety seriously is as important in schools as all other blgs. Your best bet is to contact your local fire station and make a formal complaint. This can be anonymous, (although you have already provided your name on this forum). The fire service has a duty to enforce legislation in schools and colleges and should arrange a visit to investigate your complaints. Do not worry about legal jargon or whether you are being a pest. You have a right to be concerned and the college has a duty to manage problems like these.
Finally, a fire service in the North West is already taking a headteacher to court alleging failures in the fire safety standards.

[Guest]

I wonder where this school is?

When you pass a building to get to a places of safety, there are certain precautions which have to be taken into account, so don't worry about so much about that.

The Alarm going off is unfortunate, but it should be taken serioously at all times and I doubt you see persons going to investigate it as you should be evacuating. The engineers should have considered that when specifying what goes where, ie heat detector in science labs.

Exams are always dodgy. Normally, students are informed through notices that they should ignore an alarm when sitting an exam and only evacuate if the staff instruct you to do so. They have back up papers if you do have to  evacuate.

People wandering off during a fire drill could cause major headaches - Thats down tothe teachers. If the fire service turn up and not everyone is accounted for, the S88t hits the fan and they'll dissapear inside.

Your headmaster sounds like a di*k. I'm sure the Governers would be interested in that one. Find out who your teacher govener is and try talking to them.

Just because your school is big, doesn't mean it's unsafe. People will have spent a couple of years designing it and pleny of people will have had a say in lots of areas - especially fire. I bet you see a lot of doors about which have furry bits up the side of them.

False alarms are a pain, but they should be taken seriously. The people near the fire though will notice it, plus they will alert others, so the people in immediate danger will be aware of the seriousness of it. Everyone else should do what they do and evacuate like everyother time. Just they'll find out it's real a bit later.

Chris Houston I think was refering to a thing called Fire Management, which is ensuring that the building is safe as far as the "Fire Strategy Document" for that building reccommends. It gets complicated after that. The building will be fine as far as the law goes, some fire officers probably won't like it, and as long as you get out when you hear the alarm then great. As I said, mention it to your teacher govener, they should take notice.

[Guest]

Sadly, we live in an ageist society.  What a shame that headteachers are so rude to their customers (who are probably taxpayers and therefore their employers.)

Here's a suggestion:  Get your parents to raise this issue with the head teacher.  Mention that they feel there is a need to reduce false alarms in order to stop the assumption that alarms are false ones.   They should be concearned that the school is not tackling the false alarm issue.

If this fails, I am sure the governours would be the next logical contact.  

If this fails, your MP or the press?

I', not sure how it works - if you are entitled to see the fire safety risk assessment, but you could always ask - your head teacher propbably doesnt't know anyway and if you go along the lines:

"Can I see a copy of the fire safety risk assessment that you will have undertaken due to the Fire Precuations (Workplace) Regualtions, I am interested in your assessment of the suitability of the means of alarm, and hwo the system is maintained, and the invetigations that will have been undertaken s a result of each false alarms, assuming you are maintaing the fire alarm system to BS 5839-1:2003"    

Good luck young Jedi!

AnonyMouse

[Guest]

This is a serious issue and further action should be taken. David should report his concerns immediately to the Fire brigade preferably in writing.

The school must comply with all fire safety standards like any other premises.
Just because this is a new building there is no guarantee that all fire safty provisions are satisfactory.

I would be interested in finding out more about the case in the North West  mentioned by John.

[Ian Currie]

Jayjay is absolutely correct David. The school is required by law to be able to evacuate quickly and as safely as possible (The Fire Precautions(Workplace) Regulations 1997, regulation 5 (2) (b)). Even though these regulations apply primarily to the employees at the school they also have a duty of care to all other school users, pupils, contractors, visitors etc. under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 and the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. That should give you a good legal basis for your arguments.

There must be other people who are concerned as well, it would be more effective if several people wrote to the headmaster, the Governors, the local authority education department and your local Fire Service Fire Safety Department. Do you have a pupil council or similar who could take this up as well?

The problems you describe are easily solved so that should not be an issue. Detectors in laboratories can be moved, or changed from smoke to heat. Vulnerable fire alarm call points can be fitted with a device called the 'Stopper' available from Safety Technology International (Europe) Ltd. (website www. sti-europe.com). These changes should be agreed with the local Fire Authority first and recorded in the Fire Risk Assessment 'Guest' mentioned.

Does the school have internal CCTV? If so do the cameras cover the call points most often set off or can they be changed to do so? Catching one malicious caller and making an example of them is usually an effective deterent to other mischief makers.

From what you tell us I would be particularly concerned about the time the evacuation and role call takes, the discipline at the Assembly Point and the location of the assembly point itself. I am a bit uneasy at the thought of 2,500 pupils within an enclosure with only two gates. If the wind changed and blew the smoke from any fire over the assembly point how long would it take to move to another location?

Good luck with this one David and let us know how you get on, I'm sure there are several schools with the same problem all over the country(I know I have got one!).

John, I am also extremely interested to hear about the case, are you able to tell more?

[Guest]

The case involved a fire at a school when twenty odd children and teachers were taken to hospital although thankfully none were seriously hurt. It seems there was a single staircase condition and combustibles stored in the stairway.
The case is sub-judice (?) and I am not sure how much I can say although I believe the headteacher and the local authority have been summoned. Will cause a few raised eyebrows in education circles if case is proven.

[Ian Currie]

John, thanks for that. Why does the scenario sound so familiar?  I will be on the look out for the news reports..............

[eddy orr]

Is there any update on the Fire Service that is taking the headteacher to court?

[Graeme]

Love to see the responses to this -  - bunsen burners should not smoke

yes but the things set alight by them do.

[pd]

I'm sure that I posted a result of the school case mentioned above...perhaps my memory fails me again.

However, briefly, the education authority and headtacher pleaded guilty under the workplace regs and the magistrate sent the case to the Crown Court because he didn't think he had sufficient sentencing powers. Judge at Crown, following mitigation pleas fined Education Authority £5000, saying any more would be robbing peter to pay paul and gave the Head Teacher an absolute discharge. From what I can gather he thought that although she was in charge and therefore technically responsible, she had no real control over the layout and condition of the, admittedly pretty delapidated, buildings.
This raises an interesting future defence in that having control does not always mean being in control. Tricky and opens the door to shop or nightclub managers to claim the same.

[Ian Currie]

Thanks for the update PD. You did post the eventual outcome on a different thread.
I think the defence option this raises already exists in the legislation which allots responsibility only to the extent to which a person has control over that matter, little control should equate to little responsibility. In this instance the council had the greater control over the condition of the building hence greater accountability.
In this case however, if I recall correctly, the primary offence was combustibles stored in the staircase enclosure. The head teacher should have known since I understand they had been there for some time before being set alight. I can accept that you may not be held accountable for the layout and physical condition of the building, but I would have thought that the storage issue which led to this was well within the head teachers ability to control.

If Dave is still reading this BB how did you get on with your own school?