School fire safety

School fire safety probably isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when you think the thousands of children and staff returning to school this coming week or so. You may be totally ecstatic that your child is off to school. Dancing your way home from the school run. Or you may be trying to hide the tears at the school gate. But I can guarantee that you wont be thinking about school fire safety! The coronavirus pandemic has meant that a lot of school children across the county haven’t been to school since the schools were initially closed back in march. So with so much going on right now we want to make sure School fire safety is not forgotten.

Back to school..

So here we are September 2020. With thousands of kids returning to school without giving school fire safety a second thought. So we want to highlight the topic to you! weather you are a teacher, head teacher, school dinner lady, a parent or a students. It is up to us all to ensure that school fire safety is taken seriously. Ensuring safety guidance is followed so a disaster does not occur.

Here at MAGG Fire Services we have a lot of customers that are schools. Our goal is to ensure that school fire safety is a top priority. An it is given the acknowledgment it so rightly deserves. A school fire could be absolutely devastating causing so much disruption to so many children’s education. Not to mention the finical difficulties that it could bring.

We have highlighted the main school fire safety no no’s we come across when we are visiting schools. Weather it be to complete a full fire risk assessment, service fire extinguishers, or for passive fire protection works. Below we have put together a condensed list of the problems we come across in school fire safety and what you can do to help us tackle them.

School fire safety common issues..

• Misuse of electrical equipment. – Now we know that updating social media for teenagers (or maybe some staff) these days is VERY important!. But students bringing in their own phone chargers from home to make sure their phone is alive and working 24/7 does not comply with school fire safety. All electrical items that are used within schools are PAT tested each year to make sure they are safe to use.
• Wedging open of fire doors – students aren’t just to blame for this! Fire doors should be kept closed at all times. They need to be closed in order to be able to work correctly. This allows them to stop the spread of fire and smoke for the designated amount of time.
• Tampering with fire safety equipment, weather is be a fire extinguisher, fire alarm, fire door, or a sprinkler, all of these are important fire safety equipment and should not be messed with or damaged, this is the equipment that will be relied on if a fire is to happen so keep it in working order as it is there to save lives.
• False alarms – sometimes fire alarms can be set off during a science experiment or whilst cooking in home economics, make sure activities are planned correctly to minimize false alarms.

Here at MAGG we wish everyone involved a great start to the September term. If you need anymore help or advice we will be happy to assist you. Please call 01785 711088 or visit our contact us page for other ways to get in touch!