The health and safety regulations in the UK are extensive and complex. School proprietors are responsible for upholding these laws to ensure children can learn in a space that is as safe and secure as possible. But it’s still important that children have proper access to all the resources and tools needed to enrich their learning experience, including going out on field trips.
As a teacher, you will have been trained and debriefed in health and safety protocols in your school. You’re aware that health and safety isn’t just a box-ticking exercise. As such, educating children in necessary health and safety practices provides them added protection and helps them to be more aware of their surroundings not only in the classroom but in their extracurricular life too. Find some resources here for teaching health and safety in the classroom.
HSE Classroom Health and Safety Checklist
For keeping the classroom up to health and safety standards, look no further than the Health and Safety Executive. On the link, teachers will find a checklist for classrooms to ensure they are always health and safety compliant.
The basis of the checklist, as HSE says, is to be used as a helpful tool and not a mandatory practice, as written risk assessments are not required for every classroom activity. The checklist covers the common high-risk situations in everyday classrooms. The worksheet is printable and items can be ticked off one by one, helping teachers to consider all areas of the space.
Primary Resources PSHE Activities
Start introducing children to the idea of health and safety with some of the worksheets available from Primary Resources. Activities take the form of PowerPoint presentations, printable worksheets to be filled in by the children, and instructions for activities to be carried out with the class as a whole.
The topics covered by Primary Resources help children to understand the reality of danger by encouraging them to search for potential risks in their everyday life, such as road safety risks, firework safety, and safety in school. Teachers can also find resources for teaching students about health and the importance of staying healthy. These include topics like smoking, drugs, and first aid.
TeacherVision Worksheets and Activities
TeacherVision is home to an extensive selection of resources for teaching health and safety topics for children of all ages, including those in KS1 and KS2. Resources are split up by age group meaning it’s easy to find worksheets and activities specific to the class you’re leading. Teachers can also find resources organised by topic, including safety, substance abuse, nutrition, and social or emotional issues.
Each activity contains information to give children context around a topic, and step by step instructions on how to carry out the activity. Enriching the childrens’ learning with props and games, like our Healthy Eating Posting Game, can be a way of encouraging them to participate and apply what they’ve learned.
Food Hygiene Worksheets
In early years, food is a source of curiosity and discovery for children so making them aware of food hygiene is important to ensure their safety now, and to help them form good habits in the future. High Speed Training brings us a collection of worksheets for KS1-3 completely free to download.
These worksheets take children through important processes and practices before and after preparing food and eating like washing their hands and storing ingredients correctly; where food should be stored in the fridge; how to check use-by dates; and what to do when accidents happen during cooking.
All teachers know that children learn well in role play. One way to get children engaged in food hygiene is through role-playing cooking and preparing food. Take role-play to new levels with an outdoor mud kitchen where children can go through the motions of cleaning, preparing, and storing food. Our Mud Kitchen Food Stones Collection offers a selection of props in a food hygiene activity or game.
Safer Internet Resources
With children spending a great deal of time online, teaching internet safety is just as important in school as road safety and learning about dangerous substances. Check the UK Safer Internet Centre for trustworthy e-safety teaching resources on the link above. The organisation partners with other companies internationally to promote internet safety for young people and offers a plethora of tips, advice, and resources for adults and children to educate about internet safety.
The website offers teachers teaching toolkits to approach topics like cyberbullying and sexual predators online with lesson plans, group tasks, quizzes, worksheets and more.
When working through internet safety with children and raising topics like bullying or stranger danger it’s important to recognise the different emotions that may come up and make sure children understand how they might feel in certain situations and what they need to do. Using a prop like our Soft Foam Emoji Dice could be useful as a prompt to get children talking about their feelings.
