unit 27 p3 m2

UNIT 27 P3 and M3

Explain the roles and responsibilities for health and safety of key personnel in a selected workplace

MEMO

To: Department Head
From: Health and Safety Team
Date: December 9th, 2016
Subject: Legal requirements to ensure health and safety is met in the science department



In this task I will be talking about the roles and responsibilities of the new head of department for the science department in JCoSS. The four job roles I will be looking at are; a science teacher, the head of the science department, a technician in the science department and a health and safety officer.

The science teacher's job role is to teach students the science curriculum and to offer their support, help and knowledge for all the pupils studying science. Also an important part of being an individual teacher means that they have to follow all the health and safety regulations that comply with the business, JCoSS and have to put them into place and ensure they follow them and get all pupils to follow them as well. They teach in the classrooms all day every day, therefore they know the classrooms very well and the risks that each classroom has. The importance of their job role is that they ensure they know all the health and safety requirements through training to make sure they know how to deal with problems if they occur and how to prevent risks from happening in the first place. The teachers must also work together to look after themselves as well as each other in the science department and they make sure they all help out wherever possible. The teachers in the department as an essential part to the role of the health and safety in the science department because they are usually the first people to notice the hazard that has taken place or is the first to spot a problem happening therefore their responsibility is to ensure they know the correct procedures in order to deal with it and who to refer it onto if necessary. If the teachers in the science department didn't react effectively and efficiently then this could cause serious problems and could even end up with someone dying. The teachers have to firstly complete risk assessments to prevent any potential hazards from happening as much as possible, however if a problem does occur like spillage or broken test tube, then the teachers have to act fast because it could be severe and affect someone.

The head of department's role is to ensure all the teachers are doing their jobs right and they are in charge or any problems the teachers have, as they teachers in the science department have to report to the head of the science department. They have many roles and responsibilities when it comes to ensuring health and safety in the science department. One of these roles is that they have to follow all the health and safety laws which are put into place. One of these laws is the Reporting of Injuries,  Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995, this law makes sure that any teacher or head of department fill out a risk assessment to report any injury or accident that has occurred to file it and keep a record of it. Another role the head teacher of the science department has it to ensure they give out checklists frequently to each teacher in the department to fill out and hazards that have recently occurred so they can inform the health and safety officer to change the risk assessments for the department and classrooms. As they are the head of the department, they have an essential role in ensuring they keep track of the problems that have happened and making sure they are being fixed and dealt with otherwise it could cause serious issues. The head of department needs to be on the case and keep regularly checking with the teachers and the health and safety officers if there is anything they can do to improve the health and safety in the department or if they can replace or introduce anything new to improve it. They also check that the teachers are following their laws and regulations and make sure they are doing the best they can do to ensure health and safety is met in the classrooms, if not it is there responsibility to chase them up and understand why they are not following health and safety properly and solve it quickly.

The science department's technician has a very crucial role and responsibilities in the science department, they prepare the practical equipment that are used for practical along with making up the solutions used in the science classrooms. Their role also includes instructing and assisting teachers with practical skills including class demonstrations to the students and they have to ensure all the health and safety laws are followed by the teachers to be safe. Being a technician within the science department has a big impact on the whole department as they rely on them for a lot of things such as disposing of waste materials, preparing apparatus and chemicals before practical work, checking equipment in and out of class use etc. If the science technicians didn't do their role properly then various incidents would occur such as hurting themselves on broken equipment, poisoning from incorrect chemical mixing, burns from experiments etc. The science technician fill out risk assessments before any practical experiment to state all the risks that could potentially happen and explain the solutions that would take place in order to prevent them and who is responsible for making sure the risk does not happen. The health and safety officers have to check up on the technicians frequently to ensure they are producing safe chemicals using an appropriate amount for the science classrooms and they tell them about any news laws that have come into place to keep them updated with the health and safety within the science department. Furthermore, if the technicians didn't practise their job correctly then this would affect loads of people in the department, such as the students and the staff because it would cause hazards for them. Also, it could cause problems for JCoSS because if any students gets harm by a chemical, then they could sue JCoSS and they would have to pay a huge amount of money and get a bad reputation and this would prevent people coming to the school.

Health and safety officers have an essential role and a load of responsibilities in ensuring the science department follow all the regulations and have a safe workplace. Their role is to liase and consult with the teachers in the department to find out any new information they need to know and the teachers would let them know if they need to alter or update the risk assessment for their individual classroom. Often the health and safety offices visit each classroom and review their risk assessments and assess whether or not they need updated or if they they don't need changing. They will do this by inspecting the classroom and scrolling through their list of potential risks and linking them with where this hazard would occur in the classroom. They also inspect for new potential hazards as this is their role in keeping in classrooms safe for everyone. If the health and safety officers didn't check up on the science department frequently and didn't do their job properly, then this could result in a variety of different incidents. One example of what could potentially happen, is rat poisoining. If their was no inspection of vermin infestation then rats could get into the classrooms and office, if the chemicals weren't kept separately and left in the classrooms, the rats could wee in the chemicals and this may be poisonous to inhale. Then when the students do their practical work, they wouldn't need to use protective clothing and they would inhale the substance and suffer from poisoning. This could even result in death which is why the health and safety officers have an extremely important role inside the science department.

UNIT 27 M2

Analyse the roles and responsibilities for health and safety of key personnel in a selected workplace

In this assignment I will be analysing and explaining in detail the roles and responsibilities of each of the four job roles I have identified in P3. I will be judging whether the roles and responsibilities for each job role is enough to ensure the science department have meet the requirements of the health and safety legislation acts.

The first role that I chose was a science teacher's role. The science department has plenty of legislations to ensure health and safety within the department however, they could put forward more laws to make sure hazards are prevented at all costs. An example of a law that could be put in place to ensure extra safety is a law to prevent water spillage on laptops and computers. This would prevent  computer breakages which could seriously affect someone as it could give them an electric shock and even potentially die depending on how much the electronic device is. If certain laws weren't put into place, the science department wouldn't be a safe environment for the employees or the students.

Secondly, the head of department follow a variety of laws. Because of this title, they have a lot of laws they have to abide by and follow to ensure health and safety is followed out through the science department. I feel there is enough roles and responsibilities to ensure the department meets the requirements of health and safety legislation because there are various precautions they take to make sure problems don't occur such as; cleaning the classrooms every morning and afternoon to ensure no organic and vermin infestation happens. 

A technician in the science department has a huge role because they have to ensure they do not harm anyone with the substances and chemicals they provide, transport and handle daily. They have enough laws and regulations to ensure the science department and everyone within in are safe. An example of one way they ensure safety in the science department is by checking equipment in, such as a test tube, and then out of the department to ensure they know where the equipment is used and to spot any damages and breakages easily. 

Lastly, the health and safety officer are in charge of the risk assessments and various other things to do with the health and safety of the science department. They have enough roles and responsibilities to ensure health and safety is kept. One way in which they make sure safety is kept is by regularly checking each classroom and each part of the science department and comparing there risk assessment to the current state of the department and adjusting the risk assessment to keep up to date with the latest potential risks.

To conclude, I feel that the roles and responsibilities for the employees in the science department are definitely enough to ensure health and safety within the science department for all the employees and students. They need to regularly keep up to date with the health and safety laws and other aspects such as updating the risk assessments.