Australia's Science Forum

Do any Labbies out there use self generated Risk Assessments? I work for DoE Tas and I belong to the Tasmanian Assoc of Laboratory Managers. We are having a PL tomorrow on RA's. I would prefer it if the 2 schools I work in would subscribe to something like Risk Assess. I'm currently using a 2 week free trial from them and they seem really easy to use. However, an ex Teacher who now works in OH&S for DoE is the "guest speaker". The person organising the PL is all for us developing a simple template of our own. I anticipate this is going to be a headache. So...just wondering if any one has an opinion on this, or uses a Lab Tech self generated RA. Thanks in advance.

Hey Lizzie,
Hopefully I can attach a copy of the risk assessment we use. All the best for your PL - please share if anything new or useful comes up!

My opinion is that Risk assess is a simple easy tool for generating an RA. The point of it is you are still supposed to do a risk assessment it just gives you a template and the phrases to do that. We and the teachers are still supposed to judge the risks involved and make judgments as to the inherent risks. We weerent doing RA for the first 6 years I was here. Once I introduced Risk assess we have had a 90% increase in doing them it does help that it is our system for requesting pracs.

Risk Assess is the most useful tool a teacher and a lab tech can have to work with right now. More so the lab tech because of the added function for lab timetabling when the teachers put in their risk assessments.
Lyn.
PS The only downside is when you have a blackout and can't access the internet.

I love Riskassess best thing no problems with it at all only took the teachers about a month to work out this is now the second year.

Said this somewhere before but I love it!!! Now we subscribe to Student Risk Assess too. It means that kids doing EEI's can assess their own risks, and it gives them something to print out and hold. RiskAssess stores the RA's you have created, although I always hit "save" and have created a folder based on year groups and subject lines, which enables teachers to re-visit experiments done last year, and just update. I also make use of the review notes to add comments for future reference - like suggested improvements, or a down-scaling suggestion etc.

Timetabling is almost the greatest tool on this program, coz now all staff members can see who ordered what & when they ordered it, and for which lesson etc. Makes them take some responsibility for not doubling up or at least having the conversation with me, e.g. "Do we have enough gear for two class sets of this?" AND it negates all comments like "Oh I'm sure I asked you last week..." because it time/date stamps when the order is submitted. Makes me accountable too, coz I have to tick off as experiments are prepared.

So, all round, it is SO-O-O-O much better than any other paper or electronic system because it does everything that is possible to do, within the parameters of inherent human behaviour!

I'm still finding it hard to get them to use it properly. If they don't think it's a risky prac, they just don't bother with it, and send me an email instead, which stuffs up the scheduling. Or they say " so and so did a risk assess for that, so I don't have to. Just print an extra copy (?) I've had a prac with the wrong chemicals listed that had been recopied (with the mistakes)by each teacher because they don't bother reading them.

Problem is my HOD is one of the worst, so I can't really say anything because that didn't work before. The tone was that I could take a long walk on a short jetty.

So glad I work for a DEC school. Have a great weekend folks, take care.

The Risk Assessment here is the way they book pracs. No risk assessment no booking no prac - Lucky have HOD support and department support with this.

It's good if that happens. It's week 3 and I'm already tired of banging my head against a wall.

TirzahKat wrote:The Risk Assessment here is the way they book pracs. No risk assessment no booking no prac - Lucky have HOD support and department support with this.

Me too, love it. Sometimes they'll copy someones thats wrong, give them what they ask for and take a walk. They don't do it again. They can't go crook if you did what they asked. You can't be expected to be a mind reader.