Australia's Science Forum

Hi everyone,

Our in-school online booking system is on it's last legs. What commercially available program (if any) do you use for teachers to book pracs?


Thanks!

RiskAssess: Does risk assessments and Booking of pracs Just changing to this program and seems to be working well.

I designed my own, IT department made computer program for it. they have to order 24 beforehand or they will be locked out
Be careful using RiskAss as risk assessment. There are changes in WHS 2012. Schools are supposed to do risk Management not just risk assessment. risk management include:
• Identifying hazards and assessing the risks of work performed.
• Making decisions about ways to eliminate or control those risks.
Last week I was attending PD; organised by RACI. Guest speakers were from Work cover.To quote work cover inspector “ONLY assessing risk without underlining how to manage that risk, is good case for the prosecution”.

Thanks! We have a system designed by a previous IT staff member. It is starting to breakdown and the time involved to fix, manage and maintain it is too great for our current IT members......

Risk Assess is convenient and when the teacher sets up the risk assessment for the prac there is a section "Certification by teacher" which references the Risk Management Guidelines HB 436:2004. Apparently teachers should be familiar with these guidelines and schools should have a copy of these Australian Standards. So either way if you go with risk assess or set up your own system you still have to understand and work with the Australian Standards guidelines. How many labbies out there have a copy of these guidelines? How many teachers are going to read it?
Lyn.

We use risk assess as well. Have just started this year and have managed to get all our teachers using it without too much fuss - our previous system was a hand written ordering system that was out of date and non-compliant with all the regulations. Risk assess now covers all compliancy and is an easy to use system. Julie

Nette,

RiskAssess! It is the only way to go. It timetables as well as assessing the risk.

There is a place where you can mitigate and manage risks, perhaps by identifying that safety glasses etc are required. An important factor is providing a comment where the specific class may have a high needs student (e.g. we have a vision impaired kid). Our teachers are required to acknowledge that they have such a student and identify what SPECIFIC management they'll be putting in place to mitigate the risks for that student. The training I have recently completed even suggested that for some classes a demo might be more appropriate, where behaviour management is an issue.

I have also started using the "Review Notes" feature to provide feedback so that teachers who haven't yet done the prac might have the chance to see what worked and what didn't, or what modifications I made to suit the equipment we actually have, when that is different from what I was asked for.

A wonderful feature is the "time/date lodged" feature, which clearly indicates to other staff which teacher ordered a prac FIRST! My HOD is insistent that teachers even submit a RA for a prac that is clearly No Risk, just to timetable it. I love this program. I'd do TV ads for it.

Thanks for all that! Very interesting with all the extra uses for the system.

Then of course everything falls apart when the teacher does the risk assessment and doesn't put it on the lab schedule. In the meantime other teachers put their requests in and the prac disappears into storage. So the conversation goes: "Where is my prac?" "What prac?" "The prac I ordered." "There is nothing on the lab schedule." "But it should be there." "Nup. It's not there." And seeing that it is supposed to be for a prac teacher who is taking the class I have to run around cobbling equipment together. It was a fairly simple prac but it tests how quickly you can respond in what is essentially an emergency. When you have a prac teacher on board it is nice to be able to smooth their way into the teaching profession.
Lyn.

Is there anyone out there from SA schools using RiskAssess? Can you let me know what you think of it?