Providing a compliant Risk Assessment is now mandatory before booking into one of our schools, today we are answering the most common questions.
What Is A Risk Assessment?
A Risk Assessment is a process for identifying hazards and risk levels involved in specific environment or events.
In the context of Schools Plus, a Risk Assessment for a booking with us will state and evaluate the hazards involved in your activity or event and then will detail the steps you are taking to prevent the risks involved.
Do I Need To Complete A Risk Assessment?
Yes. If you are a new or returning customer, you must now have an approved Schools Plus Risk Assessment for your booking before your bookings can take place.
We believe customer Risk Assessments are a key factor in keeping everyone involved in Schools Plus, including our Customers, Staff and Partners Schools, safe so we will not allow any bookings to continue without them.
Do All Bookings Require A Risk Assessment?
Yes. Bookings of all types, from Football to Worship Groups, now require an approved Risk Assessment before they can start or resume. This is also true for both Indoor and Outdoor bookings and bookings taking place in all levels of the local restriction government tier list.
What Is The Schools Plus Risk Assessment Process?
We will ask you for a Risk Assessment very early in our booking process, usually, after you’ve first registered your interest in starting or returning to a booking at a Schools Plus venue.
We will ask for your Risk Assessment and provide any other relevant documentation via an email.
To start the approval process, we ask you to reply to the email providing a copy of your Risk Assessment.
Once a member of our Enquiries Team has reviewed your Risk Assessment you will be informed of any required amendments or approval of the document. This will be saved on your file and should look to be updated regularly.
You can now continue to the next stage of the booking process.
What Does A Risk Assessment Look Like?
Risk Assessments are written and accepted in many different forms. The most common Risk Assessments sent to us are digital Word Documents and PDF files. These documents can be long-form written or include formatted tables with columns such as “Description of Activity”, “Existing Controls”, “Further Controls” and other key headings.
We also accept scans or well-taken photos of handwritten Risk Assessments if you are unable to produce a digital document.
To help further with this, Schools Plus does offer a Risk Assessment Template which you are welcome to fill out.
Do I Have To Assess Each Risk?
Yes. We are only able to approve Risk Assessments which include a scored section. This will assess and measure the risks of your hazards before your proposed interventions and then again after, this time with the assessed risk level assuming your new measures are in place.
We can accept this in many different formats including a scored ranking system, high/medium/low word ranking, a traffic light system and others. It’s vital to us and our partner schools that we see you have taken the time to carefully assess the level of risk involved in your booking.
Are They Legally Required?
It is Schools Plus policy to have an approved Risk Assessment in place before we can allow a booking to go ahead.
There are different laws concerning Risk Assessments, which depend on which sector you are submitting them for. We invite you to visit https://www.hse.gov.uk/simple-health-safety/risk/index.htm for more information.
Why Is It Important That I Write It Myself?
You must write your Risk Assessment because we need to see that you have considered the potential hazards involved in your booking and we need to know that you have a clear plan to lessen the risks involved for your booking as well. This helps keep yourself, our other customers, our staff and our partner school safe.
If we feel your Risk Assessment is not your own work, we will ask you to rectify this.
How to Find Relevant Governing Guidance For My Booking?
Many national bodies have likely published key guidance on returning to your sport or activity which you can reference throughout your Risk Assessment.
Our team members are also able to share with you the relevant links we have for your activity type.
Please note the Government website can also contain helpful and relevant guidance on how certain individual activities or sports can currently take place.
Do I Need To Provide Cleaning Equipment?
Yes. We ask that you provide cleaning sprays, wipes and other equipment. We do carry out enhanced cleaning of our venues, but we recognise how helpful and important it is for customers to assist in cleaning during and after their bookings.
When Do I Have to Wear a Face Covering or Mask?
We require you and all member of your booking to wear a face-covering or mask whenever you are on-site and moving around the school. This includes situations such as walking to your booking, taking toilet breaks or when speaking to members of our staff.
Currently, you can remove your face-covering or mask for the majority of activities, however, there are exceptions to this where you must keep your face-covering or mask on for the duration of the activity. Our staff can help advise you on this matter.
We hope the above has helped answer all of your questions on Risk Assessments. If you have any further questions please don’t hesitate to get in contact with us.
