School Site Safety Team

The School Site Safety Team involves children from the Project at Dunoon Primary School. This activity was decided in view of the fact that this is the children’s building and they will be its end users on completion.

At the outset, the children were provided with an induction and PPE. Every week, they undertake escorted visits to the site with a checklist to monitor various safety issues. After the visit, a discussion is held where the children highlight good and bad practice witnessed on their visits.

We are encouraging the children to consider the site safety issues around the site and to report them in a professional and organised fashion to the site managers and staff. A report is then prepared and issued back to the children highlighting what category of issue this raises and the actions taken to remedy it.

The children are provided with awards throughout the school term for any proactive actions they take themselves without intervention or suggestion from the staff. The aim is to have a quiz or award ceremony with the children at the end of the year.

We are attempting with this exercise to not only educate the children around the site safety issues that arise on a construction site, but we are also educating them at a young age to consider the different activities that are involved. This encourages the children to see the wider picture in respect of the different roles within construction, and hopefully to engender an interest in the industry and possibly lead to future interest in construction careers.