Support children and young people’s health and safety

Every child should feel safe and protected. One of the main things should be to help the children feel safe and protected at all times in the setting. All the areas the children have access to should be according to the child’s comfort and security. Children should be given equal opportunities, all children including those with addional needs should be considered when planning a learning environment. Factors to be considered for indoor play are:
Space: Is there enough space for all the children to play. Do any of the tables and chairs need moving if the children are having story time in big groups or circle time.
Light: Light may need to be changed if children are watching the smart board.
Temperature: Is it the right temperature for the children to play in, is it too hot or too cold.
Whilst outdoors we need to consider:
Clothing: The children may need different clothing for an activity, willies in the digging patch and aprons when painting or water area.
Weather: Does the weather permit us to carry out an activity. The playground may not be open if its icy, covered in snow or heavy rain.
Cleanliness: Is the area clean and litter free. Is there any broken glass or other harmful things lying around?
All potential hazards in the setting must be dealt with accordingly to the preschool written procedures or brought to the attention of the relevant member of staff.
All the staff should make sure: * The work place is safe, * Temperature, lighting, safety and welfare requirements. * All resources are safe to use and set out properly. * Materials are handled, stored and used safely. * Give new employee information, instruction, training supervision.
All members of staff including new staff, students, volunteers and supply staff must be made aware of the schools health and safety policy. A risk assessment should be carried out on any activity that has associated hazards. It is important to provide challenging and exciting play opportunities and activities that encourage children to develop and explore whilst maintaining their physical safety and emotional welfare. Children often have accidents because they are learning and developing too fast this makes it hard for adults to keep up. To avoid accidents the childcare setting should provide adult supervision at all times, play equipment should design and appropriate modifications to the childcare environment. The design, location and maintenance of play areas are important to enclosing children’s safety during play for example: * The layout of one activity should not interfere with another layout. * Repair and replace old worn out play equipment. * Making sure all play equipment is suitable for the age group.
Making sure children are aware of safe behaviour when using play equipment can also help to maintain their safety and protect them from unnecessary accidents.
All aspects of health and safety in all work environments and also provides guidance for those specifically working with children and young people, for instance risk education guidance, general teaching requirements for health and safety guidance and incident reporting guidance, all of which are in place for staff to plan and provide healthy and safe environments and services for those in their care(health and safety executive)HSE also provides health and safety guidance and health and safety law guidance. HSE’s guidance is in place so that the workers and businesses can follow and plan for a healthy and safe environment. The current health and safety policies and procedures which are implemented and acted upon in our preschool are as follows, note that currently an outside company has been hired to identify and solve health risks and hazards, which are carried out on an annual basis, every morning a risk