Safety of our children is the most important for us. Safety Audits for Day Cares, Play schools & Pre-School help in ensuring we are creating a safer environment for the children. It has become imperative to take safety very seriously and schools should step forward and get these Safety Audits conducted at their premises. We as parents should also request the schools to get such audits conducted regularly as we all are concerned about the safety of our children especially younger ones who go to play schools and day care centres.

The purpose of such an audit is to work with schools to identify safety practices and policies in the school premises and to make recommendations to help schools create the safest environment possible for the children.

School Safety is also crucial because when choosing a preschool, day care or play school for their children, parents consider a number of factors, including cost, location, curriculum, hours of operation and environment. A school environment should be safe, above all things, and ensuring safety in a school setting encompasses a number of considerations.

Why is a Safety Audit Essential?

A Safety Audit is essential and can benefit day care centres, playschools and pre-schools in the following ways:

• Improve the safety and health environment in the centre
• Prevent & minimise child injuries and illnesses
• Increase health and environmental safety awareness amongst teachers, students and the management staff
• Identify & understand regulations that may apply the institution
• Detect areas that need improvement in the premises to ensure complete safety for children
• Find sources for more information about regulations and assistance

Safe and secure common school areas result are possible when there is a comprehensive process to continuously plan, implement, and evaluate the safety and security of the entire school. This occurs when schools conduct scheduled ‘school safety audits,’ remediate identified weaknesses or gaps, and update their practices when more effective procedures or new technologies become available. These audits also help to prevent crisis situations, and they establish the protocols for an effective response system when a crisis actually arises.

The recent incident at a day-care has really shaken everyone and many have started questioning the safety measures of day cares and play schools. It is obvious that no child can go through every day completely unhurt.

There will be times where they will trip and hurt their knee or bump into a table and get a bruise.

These are all normal incidents. As parents and teachers that are various measures that can be taken to prevent common injuries. Safety regulations and rules and regular safety checks can help minimise the risk of children getting hurt.

Safety Reports for Planning and Training

Keeping a copy of safety, accident or incident reports can be extremely useful for the school. The management should review and analyse the reports regularly, possibly every quarter.   Is there a pattern to the incidents such as times or location?  I patterns such as:

• Install safety guards like door blocks and finger & corner guards to keep injuries at bay if there are accidents occurring near the doors & windows
• Assign one staff member next to always be next to the slide as children are prone to get hurt while playing on the slide
• If there are accidents happening during the dispersal time find out the reason behind it and keep a check on it immediately
• If children are getting hurt in the play area then check or the flooring or the number of children playing at one go
• If there are incidents between a specific time-period then check with the staff working during those hours. Sit together and figure out options to keep the children safe.
• Hire a CPR and first aid certification organization to come to your facility and train your employees.
• Use an integrated pest management program to prevent infestations before they happen in order to avoid the unnecessary use of pesticides

Yes, accidents happen. But there are several steps that can be taken to keep safety as a top priority. Conducting a safety audit is one of the most important steps to ensure this. The fewer accidents that occur, the happier the children and the parents would be. The children would look forward to spending time at their play school or day care centre and the parents would be tension free as they know that their children are in safe hands when they are away.

This article was previously published on Safetykart.

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