Australia's Science Forum

Anybody using the risk assess site www.riskassess.com.au? Cost $160 per school and how usefull is it to organize daily pracs and keep a record of risk assessments by teachers & labbies on line?

Yes we do, It is great IF teachers use it. It ensures that there is a Risk Assessment done for every prac.
The staff here fill it out then email it to me. The I check it and it gives me the prac request as well as the risk assess.
it is well worth the cost

we have been using it for over a year. The teachers love it as they can type in the heading from last years prac and woosh there it is ready with all the stuff typed in from last time they did the prac. only draw back is they cant add diagrams or add an attachment.

But they love it and so do I. It gives me a 4 week schedule. Oh yes and no more issues with who got their order in first.
Superbug

Have been using this system for a while now. I think it has been really useful. Teachers put in their prac requests and you end up with the labs timetabled for at least four weeks ahead. This shows who has ordered what and at what time they actually put the prac request in. (Useful when they put in the prac say an hour or so before class, or after you have left for the day and they want it for first thing next morning. It is a record in black and white of unreasonable requests.) The pracs are kept online in your own database and are relatively easy to access unless you forget the actual name of the prac and you just have a vague memory of what name it was entered under. The hard part is training the teachers to use the system and to use it properly. So what else is new in our line of work. I occassionally get a prac that was pulled from the previous year and it still carries the date from twelve months ago. Still have to figure out what they did and retrain them to change the dates. Doesn't happen often though. Sometimes I still have to guess which text and page no. they are using and sometimes which internet site they have picked up their interesting prac from. Sometimes they don't list all of the equipment they use or give me the number of groups they will be working with.You might be told five groups and then when the class is in and sitting down and you see how many kids are there you rush back to the prep room and throw together another three or four sets of equipment. You know just normal stuff that we deal with on a daily basis. I have one teacher who emails the pracs but I don't believe that is really necessary if they have already put the prac on the risk assess system. Then you have teachers who don't sign the risk assessment which will turn it into a legal document. Sigh, god give me strength.
Lyn.

Thanks guys most helpful will try to train them all for the new year. Enjoy the opening of FUN & Fill In prac season with the end of year fast approaching us. So sick of sherbert, bath bombs, slime & dry ice.............

yep I agree with everybody else best system, even a not so computer savee teacher was the quickest to pick up on how to use it, she misses not getting to have a good chat when she books in.

The only thing I would recommend is you already have a good science procedures policy in place incase you have the odd rebel that thinks the risk assessment will overide everything else you already have in place and can therefore do anything they want because they're covered by the risk assessment.

Still the best thing we have done.

If they cause any trouble, like "do I really need to use RiskAssess just for this?" I tell them no, if they can provide an alternative risk assessment.

We have just bought a licence to prepare for full use next year. Already had a few complaints. One was so upset about it they said they might request to only teach maths. HoD and I are hoping he follows through with it as it would make our lives so much easier with him out of the science department!

Wayne that is so funny. I needed a laugh this morning. Just related so much to that situation.

RiskAssess already doing work for you Wayne. I've been trying to push it at my main school for a while now with little success. Hopefully, my methods of "no risk assessment or properly filled out req form, no prac" will slowly wear them down.

Thanks Lyn, glad you enjoyed my post. Q-Ran, that is going to be our policy next year no risk assessment no prac.

Wayne wrote:We have just bought a licence to prepare for full use next year. Already had a few complaints. One was so upset about it they said they might request to only teach maths. HoD and I are hoping he follows through with it as it would make our lives so much easier with him out of the science department!

OMG I could only pray that happens here

If only it had happened here. We introduced risk assess Term 4 last year and I love it. Most of my teachers comply. I still have the HOD who is very bad at it and a couple of others who use it intermittently.
Now all we need is to be sure that the teachers are actually reading what they sign.
I am logged in all the time and just check it a couple of times a day.

Yep, it's good if it gets used, and used properly.

well worth the money, saves the teachers time - if they read what they are signing.

I'm with Lyn - it's heaven. The timing recording is SO useful, for all the reason she listed. And at least it does challenge the teachers to consider the risks.

Interesting is when the PE/Science teachers, or Maths/Science teachers (i.e. not specifically Chemistry trained teachers) put in a prac request, when actually they are not rated "1" or "2" on the system. Can't remember which off the top of my head, but there's one prac where they got knocked back as "not suitably qualified to perform this prac" by the system

Also great, we are now subscribed to RiskAssess Student - which enables Seniors doing EEI's to perform their own Risk Assessments, without being able to access the teachers' work. Another great investment.

Gave all the information about Risk Assess program to the HOD last year and recommended we use it however he says that as far as the risk assessment goes we are covered under CSIS therefore the program is not necessary. Science orders are filled out on a requistion form and sticky taped to my bench. All I get on that piece of paper is date needed, teacher, class, period, room and the requirements.

Yes being a DEC school we do not have to do Risk assessments at all. Just follow the CSIS you are with in the law then. But you see a lot of private schools etc have to follow another law, so do need Risk Assessments, I do know it can be very confusing to some people.

The way I pushed it was that CSIS risk assesses the chemicals , but not the equipment. I mean, how many teachers would consider that metre rulers 'may be used for sword fighting', or that heat mats 'may be thrown ninja style'. And since we have a number of generalist and primary trained teachers taking science classes next year, we really want to cover ourselves.

Thanks for the feedback. As we only have a trial for 2 weeks was wondering in the full edition do you have access to all other schools practical assesments? So if you are using Pearsons as we do, can I type in Pearsons as a search in Yr 8 and recieve a list of all practicals already done by other schools or do we have to reinvent the wheel............again.