School Guidance
Purpose
Infrequently, a serious crisis may affect your school:
- when there is a disruption at the school’s premises or
- when it may impact upon visitors, staff and/or pupils or
- when staff and pupils are away on a school outing or
- when there is a disruption affecting the wider community
The types of potential disruptions could include:
| Death of a pupil or member of staff | Violence or assault in school |
|---|---|
| Pupil or staff being taken hostage | Road, sea or traffic accident involving pupils |
| Involvement of pupils in a disaster in the community | Death or injuries on school journeys or trips |
| Civil disturbance in the community | Terrorist incidents |
| Destruction of the school or part of the school | School fire or explosion |
| Nearby fire or explosion | Industrial or chemical incidents |
| Health hazards | . |
Following a disruption at your school, the main areas that you will need to focus on are:
- identifying and taking appropriate action in terms of the disruption
- providing a solution to the impact the disruption will have on staff, pupil, visitors and the community
- providing a solution to the impact the disruption will have on the reputation of the school
- providing appropriate communications during and after the disruption
- providing appropriate support to staff, pupils, visitors and the community following the disruption
This pack provides you with the guidance necessary to ensure that your facility is fully prepared to respond to any type of disruption. The pack does not replace common sense and should be developed around existing good practice (e.g. call-out processes).
What type of guidance will be provided?
Support Available
- The guidance will highlight all support available to your facility at the time of a disruption.
- It will provide guidance on how to access, or make use of, the support offered.
Expectation
- The guidance will provide key information about what you can expect from the Leicestershire Constabulary, Fire and Rescue Services, Local Authorities, Health Organisation etc.
- In the same token, it will provide you with guidance as to what these services will require from your school when responding to your disruptions.
Practical Advice
- Every disruption is unique but there are simple guidelines which can be followed for any type of disruption that will ensure the health and wellbeing of staff, pupils etc and help to avoid negative publicity for the school.
Checklists
- An Emergency Response Pack should not be a large document but a series of checklists for essential actions that should be undertaken at each stage of the disruption.
Templates
- Appropriate templates will be provided for all aspects of planning and developing the Emergency Response Pack.
How should we approach the planning?
- Emergency Planning should not be done in isolation to other activities in the school.
- It should not be done by one person. Input from staff, governors, PTA, pupils, etc should be considered.
- Every page of guidance has been produced so that it can be dealt with in the best possible manner.
How to use the guidance pages to build an Emergency Response Pack?
- Discuss and review relevant guidance at meetings.
- We suggest that small working groups review and adapt the guidance, if necessary, to suit your schools emergency procedures.
- Update any checklists, if and where applicable.
- Once this has been completed, the group should relay their suggested processes at the next meeting. This will increase awareness and understanding of the school’s emergency processes.
- Groups should be rotated on an annual basis so as to reflect changes and avoid complacency in the planning and review processes.
- Print and insert the completed guidance/checklist into the school’s Emergency Response folder.
What are the benefits of adopting such a planning method?
- Managing and maintaining the emergency responses will be less time consuming and daunting.
- Schools can break their planning down into realistic timeframes.
- Various elements of the planning can be broken into work streams to be developed and then discussed at regular meetings.
- This planning method will increase awareness and understanding of the schools adopted emergency processes amongst all involved.
- It will open discussion and highlight any impractical or missing processes.
- Annual reviews can be rotated so as to avoid complacency in the planning process.
Considerations whilst viewing the guidance
- Some may be highly recommended and will add to the overall effectiveness of the Emergency Response Pack.
- It is advisable to view all the guidance and make your own judgement.
If you require any support or further guidance, please contact the Procurement & Resilience Team
Page Last Updated: 31 January 2012
