As director and principal of Little Luvvies I am aware of my responsibilities in ensuring my classes and other activities are safe for everyone involved; children, any adults watching and those teaching.

 

Little Luvvies has been operating since 2002 and I try to make safe practices integral to my working approach. The key to creating and maintaining a safe environment is identifying risk hazards and reducing or ideally eliminating them. To meet this objective the risk assessment becomes a fundamental part of the health and safety policy and as such we include in this policy a risk assessment and our child protection statement.

 

Little Luvvies’ healthy and safety policy is as follows;

 

• To prioritise the welfare of pupils, staff and guardians above all else.

 

• To meet all statutory requirements regarding health and safety and to look beyond these to formulate and adopt any other measures that could promote safe practice.

 

• To adhere to the attached risk assessment and review regularly.

 

• To adhere to the attached child protection statement and review regularly.

 

• To react decisively to any accident or near miss, learning from the incident with the intention to reduce or eliminate the chance of any reoccurrence.

 

• To create an environment where guardians or pupils feel able to voice concerns over welfare/safety issues, should they have any, to the teacher or assistant and feel confident such concerns will be investigated.

 

• Little Luvvies will review training opportunities for all staff that may help develop their safe working practice. Where appropriate, staff will be encouraged to undergo training.

 

• Little Luvvies will encourage staff to adopt and adhere to safe working practices. They will be given copies of the Health and Safety policy and Child Protection Statement and asked to read them. They will be encouraged to suggest any improvement to the documents arising from their own experiences.

 

RISK ASSESSMENT

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Risk of injury from furniture/objects within rented spaces we use. 

• Before each lesson the room is thoroughly checked for possible hazards i.e. chairs, tables, desks and these are repositioned where they pose minimal danger.

Risk arising from damaged or dangerous facilities.

• As part of the pre-lesson check any faulty equipment or building facilities such as plug sockets and flooring will be temporarily made safe and reported to building management as soon as possible. This includes surrounding external parts of facilities such as car parking.

Risk of collision/injury to children during periods just before lessons start or after they have finished

• When pupils arrive and when preparing to leave after lessons there is a period during which they are not following instruction as part of the class which can lead to an amount of energetic, spontaneous activity.  The children are encouraged to sit within the teaching space as soon as possible and return to their guardian as soon as the class ends. If pupils are running in the space or doing anything that presents a risk to themselves or others they will be asked to stop.

Care of children present but not participating.

• Some pupils will have siblings watching with their parents. Parents are aware and reminded that non-participating children are their responsibility and should be carefully supervised.Little Luvvies staff will request a child be stopped from behaving in any way that presents a risk if they felt the guardian was not adequately supervising them.

Risks arising from ineffective supervision during post class handover.

• Many of the pupils’ guardians remain within the teaching space during lessons and therefore children can be sent straight to them at the end of the class. In situations where pupils’ guardians are coming to collect them the lead teacher (and assistant, when present) will carefully monitor the pupils to ensure none leaves the space unnoticed. No participating student will be allowed to leave the building unless accompanied by one of their designated adults (as specified on registration form). The only exception to this is any student over the age of 12 years whose parent has given permission on the registration form for them to be allowed to leave unaccompanied.

Risk of unauthorised adult attempting to leave with a child.

• As part of the end of lesson supervision mentioned above, the lead teacher and assistant are vigilant in monitoring the adults that children are leaving with. Any unfamiliar adults leaving with a child will be stopped and asked to verify their identity. No participating student will be allowed to leave the building unless accompanied by one of their designated adults (as specified on registration form). If someone other than the two designated adults needs to collect a pupil they will need to be able to provide the “codeword” as given on the registration form.

Risk of injury during class as a result of lesson activities.

• The students are expected to take instruction from the teacher and/or assistant during their class. All exercises and activities are selected for their suitability for the age group taking part and where necessary tailored to their ability. None of the activities present significant risk of injury but as with all physical activity care must be taken to avoid minor injury. The responsibility for this lies with the pupils following instructions they are given but also requires vigilance from the teacher and guidance where necessary.    

Risk from pupil’s pre-existing health conditions

• Guardians are requested to give details of any allergies or health conditions the teacher should be aware of on registration. Any medication that needs to be administered will be kept to hand and used where necessary after instruction has been given. The school principal has been given basic first aid training and it is the aim to offer assistants the opportunity to receive training also.

Child protection

•  Little Luvvies will adhere to its Child Protection policy and will ensure that any assistants have also read and understand the statement.