Health & Safety

We are committed to best practice in all matters relating to health and safety at work. We aim to develop a culture in which achieving health and safety objectives is an integral part of our success. Health and safety is a core part of everything we do. We encourage an open culture where staff and students are supported to speak up about hazards and report near-misses with confidence.

Our approach to Health and Safety is guided by our core college values. We assess and adapt our environments to ensure they are safe and accessible for all neurotypes and physical abilities. We treat our community and our surroundings with care, understanding that a safe environment is a fundamental right.

As an educational charity and day service provider, we will take all practical and reasonable steps to protect staff, students, contractors, visitors, and the public from ill health, injuries or diseases related to the college’s activities. This policy applies to all college premises, external venues used to deliver our curriculum, off-site educational visits, and supported internships within the community.

To ensure health and safety considerations remain at the heart of everything we do, Homefield College formally commits to complying with associated regulations by actively taking the following steps:

Positive Risk-Taking:

We believe that preparing young autistic people for employment and independent living requires exposure to real-world experiences. Our safety framework is designed not to eliminate all risk, but to provide a secure environment where students can take managed, positive risks to build their independence, confidence, and employability skills.

Safe & Sensory Environments:

Provide and maintain physical spaces, equipment, and carefully managed sensory environments (monitoring lighting, noise, and visual clutter) to prevent sensory overload and provide a safe workplace.

Working Together:

We believe in the value of shared input and actively encourage staff and students to collaborate in designing safety rules, accessible signage, and safe systems of work.

Information & Empowerment:

Provide accessible information, instruction, training, and supervision to ensure the health, safety, and well-being of all staff and stakeholders.

Resourcing:

Provide the necessary financial resources and leadership support required to meet these vital safety objectives.

Collaborative Planning:

Ensure effective planning, control, and monitoring of all activities undertaken by staff, students, and contractors.

Incident Management:

Maintain effective, supportive procedures to manage injuries, focusing on care and recovery, and on understanding the root causes of incidents resulting in ill health.

These actions enable us to maintain a positive, proactive safety culture across the College and build upon our good safety record.

Signed: Tracey Forman, Principal

Date: May 2026

Trustees:

Ensure that the Principal and the Senior Management Team have the necessary resources to fulfil the College’s health and safety obligations.

Principal:

Holds overall accountability for Health and Safety across the College. While delegating day-to-day management to competent professionals, they ensure that all staff receive the necessary resources, training, and supervision to fulfil their duties safely. They act as the lead champion for maintaining an open, positive, and proactive safety culture.

Health and Safety Committee:

Acts as the lead group for shaping and improving health and safety practices across the College. Meeting four times a year, the Committee is a highly valued space where staff from all areas come together to review safety performance, learn from incident trends, and share best practices. It plays a vital role in keeping communication open, ensuring health and safety remain an active, shared priority, and supporting improvements that protect our whole college environment.

Operations Manager & Health and Safety Co-ordinator:

Act as the College’s legally appointed ‘Competent Persons’ for health and safety. They lead the operational delivery of the safety framework, providing expert guidance, maintaining risk management systems (including COSHH and emergency procedures), and driving a proactive inspection regime. They arrange for external specialist advisors when internal competence limits are reached (e.g., Legionella Risk Assessments).

Careers and Transitions Coordinator:

Responsible for ensuring that community partners and employers involved in work placements uphold inclusive, safe, and autism-friendly working environments. This includes ensuring that robust risk assessments are completed before each placement, verifying the host employer’s and public liability insurance, and conducting ongoing monitoring to ensure the environment remains safe and suitable for our learners.

Curriculum Managers and Co-ordinators:

Responsible for ensuring that on-site and community-based learning is safely planned and managed. They ensure that all relevant risk management procedures (including SOPs and Activity Safety Plans) are followed, effectively communicated to their teaching teams, and that all specific curriculum equipment and learning environments are safely maintained.

Human Resources:

Responsible for managing staff wellbeing initiatives (including the Employee Assistance Programme) and supporting occupational health referrals. HR ensures mandatory health and safety training is completed by all staff, checks driving licences and business insurance for college travel, and maintains the Employer’s Liability Insurance certificate on SharePoint.

Facilities:

Responsible for ensuring statutory premises checks—such as the 3-to-5-year fixed electrical testing and weekly fire alarm tests—are conducted and securely recorded. They arrange annual fire and emergency lighting servicing by specialist contractors. They also arrange statutory inspections, including the regular testing and inspection of portable electrical equipment (PAT testing) across the college. Furthermore, they ensure that visiting maintenance contractors are inducted safely, made aware of the asbestos register, and follow local safety rules while working on-site.

Site Supervisors:

Responsible for proactively inspecting buildings and external areas to keep them maintained to a high standard. They monitor daily housekeeping to ensure the building fabric remains in good condition and that gangways, exits, and emergency escape routes remain clear and unobstructed. They also play a key role in practical emergency evacuations and are responsible for immediately isolating and reporting any significant structural or equipment hazards.

Staff:

Follow safe working practices, adhere to all risk assessments, and actively participate in mandatory safety training. Staff have a legal duty to take reasonable care of themselves and others, support students in line with their individual plans, and immediately report any hazards, near-misses, or incidents using the College procedure.

Students:

Students are empowered to take reasonable care of themselves and others and to cooperate with college staff. We actively encourage students to participate in creating and shaping safety rules and accessible practices for their learning areas.

We will make Health and Safety arrangements and put processes and procedures in place to manage, monitor and review health & safety accordingly. To ensure our safety procedures remain up-to-date and easy to access, all specific operational arrangements are available digitally on the College’s interactive Health and Safety Hub, which is stored centrally on SharePoint. Staff must refer to the Hub for current procedures and safe systems of work regarding:

Risk Assessments:

Risk assessments are reviewed regularly and immediately following any incident or change in a student’s needs. Staff must use the new master risk assessment, Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and Activity Safety Plans located on SharePoint.

Emergency Procedures & First Aid:

Comprehensive emergency plans are maintained, including Personal Emergency Evacuation Plans (PEEPs) for students and staff who require them, regular testing of fire alarms, scheduled evacuation drills, the provision of evac chairs, and coordinated First Aid arrangements.

Hazard Management & Premises Compliance:

Detailed procedures covering Fire Safety, Hazardous Substances (COSHH), Legionella, Working at Heights, Manual Handling, Slips and Trips, Control of Contractors, and Display Screen Equipment (DSE).

Please note: While safe systems of work and core procedures are located on the Health and Safety Hub, curriculum and activity-specific risk assessments are stored in the Teaching, Learning and Assessment area, which can also be accessed through SharePoint.

All health, safety, and accident data collected will be stored and processed securely in compliance with the College’s Data Protection and GDPR policies. This includes personal information regarding injuries, occupational health, and near-miss reports. Accident reporting uses our secure electronic Databridge system.

The College will proactively manage health and safety performance using the HSG65 framework.

The College observes regulations, including, but not limited to:

Last updated: May 2026

Staff Lead: Principal