Fire Risk Assessment - School

[jayjay]

Having carried out many fire safety inspections and fire risk assessments in schools I think it is totaly unresonable to expect a person with no previous background or experience in fire safety to undertake life safety assesments in schools.

The background to school building should be remembered, they were not previously subject to the building regulations and  they were not designated under the Fire Precauitions Act  therfore very little fire safety controls were exerted prior to the workplce regulations coming into force.

In my experience many schools, some of which may be a 100 years old have minimal or no adequate fire separation, old mains powerd fire alarms, very little fire detection and apart from the occasional fire drill, staff not provided with formal fire training.

To expect an untrained person to assess the fire risks where the occupancy can be in the hundreds, is not complying with the RRO, and no one day or even four day course with all the current documents in hand will provide the assessor with the knowledge to ensure that the fire risk assessment is adequate.

[The Colonel]

Well put Jayjay

[wee brian]

The problem as I see it is that the buildings are usually in a state with often dodgy MOE. This needs sorting by somebody who knows what they are doing.

However, once this has been done we still need the Head Teacher/ caretaker etc. to take an interest in risk management and so on. I worry that a lot of them get an FRA done and then forget all about it.

[Sunny]

Sunny,
What size is the school, is it a mainstream primary/secondary or is it a smaller school. Undertaking a fire risk assessment on a mainstream school is no simple task, even with a days training, I agree with Anthony B that it is unlikely that you would be comfortable undertaking an FRA. Is this a standard approach that all the schools in the borough are taking, or is down to each individual school to formulate their own approach?

Hi there,

The school is a Primary School and im not too sure how other local primary school's go about getting their FRA done.

[Sunny]

Having carried out many fire safety inspections and fire risk assessments in schools I think it is totaly unresonable to expect a person with no previous background or experience in fire safety to undertake life safety assesments in schools.

The background to school building should be remembered, they were not previously subject to the building regulations and  they were not designated under the Fire Precauitions Act  therfore very little fire safety controls were exerted prior to the workplce regulations coming into force.

In my experience many schools, some of which may be a 100 years old have minimal or no adequate fire separation, old mains powerd fire alarms, very little fire detection and apart from the occasional fire drill, staff not provided with formal fire training.

To expect an untrained person to assess the fire risks where the occupancy can be in the hundreds, is not complying with the RRO, and no one day or even four day course with all the current documents in hand will provide the assessor with the knowledge to ensure that the fire risk assessment is adequate.

Thanks for that Jay Jay - but where does this leave me? i was considering taking a day's course in FRA but im not a 100% sure that it will make me competent enough to carry out the mammoth task - what can you suggest?

[John Webb]

Sunny,
You have already shown a great deal of common-sense in seeking advice from this forum. Even a one-day course will clarify things further. Such a short course will not give you the competency to check all matters relating to a FRA, but it should give you the competency to say to your bosses "I am not competent  in these certain areas, we need to call in outside help."
For example, you could probably sit down with a plan of the school, the relevent documents and check exit widths and travel distances and say "Yes, the means of escape are adequate" or "No, they are not." But you are unlikely to be able to say "The fire alarm system is adequate/inadequate." because you don't have the expertise (and possibly the equipment) to do so. Likewise aspects of the structural fire precautions; for example, are suspended ceilings (if you have any) correctly fire-stopped where they should be?

Hope this helps you.

[Chris Houston]

Sunny,

I am interested to know what your role is at the school?

[Sunny]

Sunny,

I am interested to know what your role is at the school?

I am an Admin Assistant with a varied job role including health and safety, fire risk assessments, aethetics, general admin, communication, etc.

[kurnal]

Sunny
You would be very welcome to call us for a chat and free goodwill advice at any time. No hard sell- in all honesty we are plenty busy enough without needing to do that! But  we will just do our best to help answer your questions.