Australia's Science Forum

Hi All,
we have our main prep room off a corridoor which has no student access. All our chemicals are stored at the far end of this preproom in their own rooms and out of sight.
Yet the school inspectors inspecting us for our re-accreditation want all chemicals under lock and key even when we are nearby using them.
Does anyone have any guidelines in print that we can peruse?
~Robyn

Do try the CSIS, their are some guides in there. Your stock of chemicals that are unopen, but ready to use. Must be locked up, only the few bits in the prep room that are in daily use, do not have too. If that makes senses.

Lock always no matter what you never know who will walk in
Noona

LOCK UP ALWAYS!
And if only we could lock it up from those pesky teachers!

I had our chemical storeroom locked changed ( with the approval of Science Co-ordinator of course ) to stop one of our teachers from helping himself. When he asked "why" he was told that it is a "restricted area." The smaller science storeroom locked was changed as well for the same reason as he dumped all his "stuff" in there. Problem solved.

Margaret: I did enjoy reading how to fix that problem. I shall just follow your lead. Well done, shall see my HT today. Very nice plain and simple.

We always lock the door when there is no one in the lab. That way both the lab and prep room are locked.

Sharlene

We dont lock anything here during the day!
My teachers are great, the only one who sometimes helps himself is a chem teacher & I dont mind.
Prep rooms are always unlocked, labs are unlocked but I do ask that the doors are closed after class. Chemical store is unlocked but door is closed.
Students are not permitted into labs or prep rooms without a teacher or me.
All are happy with that and me too.

I think it's an OH&S issue.
CSIS Vol. 2 3.2.2.1 pg 5
"staff should ensure that:...doors to preparation rooms are never unlocked when laboratory is unoccupied."
Lou.

So true with what loopy quoted.
I am now in discussion about who can have free range access to the chemical room in our dept.
Trish

As of today, we only have two people that have the key to the chemical store, Head teacher and me. Got this idea from Chemtalk. It is just going to make it sooooooooooooooo much better. Should have done this years ago. Did not cost to much, and a little time from the GA chap.

Hi All,

To Lock or not to lock, I can see the occasion since the segregated room is not plainly visible, but I guess it takes one occasion to make things difficult as sometimes complacency kicks in. Look at things this way, if your prep room is in operation and you enter the Chemstore for retreval or return of your Chem/s and you leave the door open then this would categorise itself as the room being used. In this case the room cannot be locked. If the area was to be vacated, say for lunch when no supervision is possible then yes lock the room. Immediate access to the room for things like an incident or ventilation is nescessary, This would be the reason behind myself leaving the room unlocked.

By all means the preparation room doors must remain cliosed and locked at all times.

Cheers,

Robb.....