Lone working in schools and colleges

Lone working in schools and colleges (as well as the wider education system), can put staff members at risk.

For teachers, assistants, LSAs, mentors, councillors, and support staff (including school custodians), working alone may be an entirely typical event. Many members of staff may work on their own (or without any other members of staff) for much or all of their working day.

Whether within the school grounds, in the community, on a school trip, or even while working at home, the safety of those working alone (lone workers) must be specifically addressed within your school’s risk assessment.

In this article, we’re going to be talking about how you can decrease the risk of working alone and we’re going to focus, mainly, on traditional educational institutions, but this advice is also very relevant for non-traditional education, such as outdoor learning, clubs, societies, camps and for-profit educational activities.

What is lone working and why does it affect schools and colleges?

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) defines lone working as ‘those who work by themselves without close or direct supervision’. However, this definition may not fully explain who is covered.

For educational institutions, a ‘lone worker’ may include someone who works alone for only an hour a day or someone who is ‘alone’ with a parent, child or member of the public. This person may be only partially employed or may work outside of the institution for some or all of the day.

What are the risks of lone working for a school or college?

Lone working isn’t necessarily dangerous –however, it can make other risks more serious. The potential risks in lone working come from a lack of communication and supervision, and the inability to seek immediate help. If a staff member was to be injured or threatened, they would not have the support they need.

Situations that can be affected by lone working:

Aggression from students, parents, or members of the public in an area of the school that is out of sight or earshot.
Aggression towards staff members making home visits. In these cases, the threat is made worse by being in unfamiliar surroundings. Across most sectors, working in someone’s home can bring an added level of unpredictability to a job.
Injury or sickness. School grounds and campuses can be large, sometimes empty places and, if someone were to hurt themselves or become unwell, it may take a long time for anyone to notice.
Working in unusual tasks. As many people in the education sector know, it is not uncommon to perform roles outside of your training or experience. This could be as simple as putting up displays while up a ladder.
Working with dangerous equipment, tools or chemicals – lab technicians and school custodians may be particularly at risk.
Working with conditions that affect mobility, including pregnancy.
Working in hard to reach areas. This may be somewhere with poor access/egress, somewhere remote, or just a part of the building (such as storage areas) with low footfall.

What is the law on lone working in schools and colleges?

Working alone is perfectly legal for most roles, including in education. It is a legal requirement, however, that employers consider the risks affecting their lone workers as part of their risk assessment, and that they take reasonable steps to keep their lone workers safe.

You can find more information on lone working law, here.

Lone working policies for schools and colleges

It is important that schools, colleges and other educational institutions take lone working seriously. After assessing the risk of your lone workers, you should consider what actions need to be taken.

You may want to collate these actions into a lone working policy. What goes into the policy will very much depend on the type of institution and the type of roles in question, but below we’ve outlined some common suggestions.

Things to consider before lone working

Avoiding lone working –make it clear to your staff that the best practice is to avoid lone working. While this may not always be possible, it should always be the first thought.
Lone worker permissions –many institutions require staff to fill out a ‘lone working’ permission document, where they detail the reason for the lone working, and what precautions they are taking.
Make it clear what tasks are off-limits. According to the HSE, there are certain tasks that should never be undertaken while working alone (such as working in confined spaces), but for the average school, your examples may be less extreme. You may ban working alone while up a ladder, for instance.
Training –there is no legal requirement for specialised lone worker training, but it is important that you instruct your staff on your lone worker policies. Help your staff know how to behave, what precautions to take, and what to do in an emergency. If you have provided your staff with equipment, such as a lone working device, they should be trained how to use it correctly.
Scheduling – Where possible, your staff should make it clear when they’re going to be working alone. This can be done through permission documents, shared calendars, via text, or through lone working software.
If a staff member is travelling away from their usual base, you may need to check ahead that they are visiting a safe location.
You may want to embrace a system of ‘dynamic risk assessment’. What this means, in short, is enabling your employees to assess risk as it happens, and to make proactive judgements about how to handle that risk.

Staying safe while lone working:

You may require staff to lock themselves in when working alone (particularly outside of ‘typical’ hours)
It may not be safe for staff to meet with parents or members of the public while working alone. We recommend that meetings of this nature should take place during school hours or in close proximity to other staff members.
Security procedures should be in place for handling money. Management should consider whether staff should be allowed to handle money alone.
Consider how lone working coincides with your rules on property access. We recommend that lone workers should not deal with unauthorised visitors.
Staying in contact –the HSE makes it clear that lone workers need to stay in contact with their team, and be able to call for help. Provide your team with the tools they need to stay connected.

Working alone with young people

Lone working with children and young people is something that most educational institutions will already take very seriously.

For the safety of the young people involved, Teachers, educational staff, mentors, instructors, etc. will normally have a series of processes on how to act when working alone.

Many of these rules (covered succinctly by the NSPCC) help educational staff provide a safe environment for young people, but also act as good rules for the safety of the staff member.

Aggression and violence directed by a young person towards adult staff is not unheard of and should be properly prepared for. These risks should be considered in your lone working documentation.

Lone working and communication

The HSE says employers should provide ‘training, supervision, monitoring and support for lone workers’ including ‘adequate and reliable means of communication and a way to call for help’. Where necessary, this may include ‘devices designed to raise the alarm in an emergency which can be operated manually or automatically’.

There are many ways to stay in contact with lone workers, including:

Lone workers can provide updates via call, text or email.
Supervisors can ‘check in’ with their lone workers periodically via call, text or email.
Supervisors can check in on staff by visiting them.
Lone workers can use dedicated lone worker solutions to connect with their team, keep supervisors informed, and quickly request help in an emergency.

We review the most common methods of lone worker communication in our Complete guide to lone working. In short, we find that any type of manual check-in takes too much time and is prone to user error. That’s why we built Safepoint –to provide an all-in-one solution for supervising and protecting lone workers.

How Safepoint’s smart lone working system can protect your staff

Safepoint provides easy to use lone worker apps, clever wearable devices, a robust online team management system and 24/7 protection through their GuardianPlus Alarm Receiving Centre. Here are some of the benefits you can expect from using Safepoint’s lone worker alarm system:

Easy to use app –through the Safepoint app, lone workers can set up customised timed ‘tasks’. If the worker fails to check in as safe before the timer runs out, an alarm is automatically raised. A user can also request emergency assistance at any time through a single tap of the app.

Discreet yet durable wearable devices – with Safepoint’s wearable panic alarms (which can be worn on the wrist, on a key ring or on a lanyard), lone workers can easily and surreptitiously request emergency help without ever touching their phone. What’s more, the alarm has a built-in fall detection (man-down) system –perfect for working in wet or icy conditions.

Powerful team management – through the Safepoint Web Portal, companies can easily oversee their whole team. In the Portal, you can see where your team members are, what tasks they’re doing and, of course, manage any emergencies as they happen. You can also see historical data and analytics on your team’s safety status.

24/7 professional protection – with Safepoint’s GuardianPlus Alarm Receiving Centre, your staff can get the peace of mind of round-the-clock supervision. If a staff member raises an alarm, either manually or automatically, one of our accredited GuardianPlus responders will handle it. All members of the ARC are fully trained and qualified to handle every step of an alarm, from the first response to notifying a worker’s supervisors and escalating the situation with the emergency services.

Keeping lone workers in education safe

All sorts of businesses rely on Safepoint’s lone worker solutions and 24/7 Alarm Receiving Centre to keep their staff protected and organised. Some education organisations that use Safepoint include: