Australia's Science Forum

I was at an inservice meeting with other techies yesterday and they mentioned the need to keep records of every prac every student does while at the school and archiving them for 90 years ( likely lifespan of student) in the likelihood that they come back with some illness etc from some experiment they did while at school.
This was completely news to me and just trying to get some clarification. Afterwards I thought that it may only apply to private schools and not DET.
This is just another example of extra work that we have to do to covers our backsides.

you'd think that would be covered in the teachers keeping the register records that they sign off each topic / dot point?

Any pracs ordered by teachers are written on a piece of paper specially designed for the purpose (and it is just the required equipment and nothing else) and stuck to my prep room bench. Once the order has been filled and returned the paper gets thrown out. On the teaching program that is used by staff, ideas for pracs are recorded in a column but not any details. I do have folders with senior chemistry and junior chemistry prac sheets which I file away - but only if I am given the sheets in the first place which doesn't always happen.

I had boxes of previous prac orders, taking up precious space - I binned them all last term.

I was told during my chemistry TAFE course that the minimum legal requirement was to keep a diary with the experiments ordered. I buy a diary with Science funds each year and I write the teacher's name, the class and the equipment and chemicals, etc that have been ordered on the date it is being conducted. Not beakers, glassware, etc - only special equipment. I only write down what is ordered from me, not experiments they get themselves. Only one older diary has ever been looked at and that was to check if my entry was the same as the teachers after a HSC complaint.

Teachers should be doing risk assessments. These are kept for future reference, as bordo said, incase there are problems later.

I didn't know about this! This is what I do though- every time a prac is ordered through RiskAssess (or via email) I write it down in weekly planner, mainly for my own organisation. The name/date/time of prac should match that from RA and I have kept the diaries from the last 2 years (mainly because I like to hoard things).

We write our orders in a book large one. And they are kept for 7 years. Did not know about keeping them for 90 years. We are a D ofE school.

My understanding is 30 years which still isn't the life of a child, or the time it can take some things to appear Asbestos for example. If they all use the riskassess program it is stored in a cloud. I also print out the previous weeks schedule each Monday from Riskassess and file usually only one double side A4 if I'm lucky. Bundled package every five years to archives. I'm more worried about covering my A..... than anyone else's.

This all comes in the Code of conduct, see your principal for smaller details, I believe we bundle up our order books in 10 year lots, and the D of E store ours, after they scan them.

I have foudn that RiskAssess suggest that you back up and save all your RiskAssess on your own computer system in case their system fails - they also only keep them a minimum time.. so every prac now is saved onto our school system

I keep RiskAssess orders in a file on my desktop, print off a hard copy and file in yr group, record daily orders in a diary and also highlight if a prac wasn't used as it is too easy for a teacher to tick off that they have done a prac. Don't call me Sherlock for nothing !

sunray18 wrote:I have foudn that RiskAssess suggest that you back up and save all your RiskAssess on your own computer system in case their system fails - they also only keep them a minimum time.. so every prac now is saved onto our school system

Do that too, RiskAssess just makes everything so much easier.

I tried backing up riskassess onto discs, but apparently the discs don't like it if you try to back up onto the same disc multiple times. gave up on that. Some of our teachers use risk assess, others don't. You can lead a horse to water...

With the DoE it is 70 years, our Principal just comfirmed it, we HAVE TOO keep records for 70 years. Sending to the DoE in ten years lots, starting this year. So next year we are thinking of risk assess,.

1. How much is it?
2. Does it do the risk for you?
3. And does it save its self, or need to go onto a disk?
4. For me, will it allow late orders???????????

Labbie can't remember how much exactly $250-260. a year.
Does the risk mostly for you
Save to a cloud/can save to own files as well
I'm afraid it will allow late orders up to you if you do them.

Give it a try

Hi Labbie
Our subscription this year cost $160 but I believe there has been a slight increase since. We also subscribe to the Student edition, but that doesn't get used as much as it should. If you go to the Riskassess website you can get a trial for a month. That's the best way to see what it does - you can play around with it, get the teachers to use it to see what they think. I also use Riskassess for RAs for chemicals I use in the prep room eg making up solutions.
Riskassess will store a copy of the RA, but they also suggest saving a copy yourself, in case their system fails - although they do have multiple back ups. We use Google Drive here, so I save a copy there as well. My Coordinator also likes me to keep a hard copy.

Teachers can still put in late orders, but what I like is the requests are time and date stamped when they are lodged. No arguments from teachers that they put the order in "days ago"!
I think it is great value for what it does and the labelling feature is so easy.

Thank you all so much, I now have some thing to go by. Lookes like its the way to go.

It will allow retrospective orders as well. This came back to haunt one of our staff who had a notifiable incident for which he hadn't done a RA (I was on holidays at the time) and he tried to say that he had. The date stamp said otherwise.

My bad Merilyn it was only $160 don't know where I got that figure.