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LIKELIHOOD
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Of course, even serious risks may be tolerable where they are very unlikely. Imagine that you see a truck approaching from a few hundred metres away. You could make it back and forth across the road many times before it gets to you. Nonetheless, it is still possible that things will go wrong and the truck will hit you. In this circumstance, it is very likely that you would decide to tolerate the risk. The risk is serious, but it is very unlikely. The same applies to education settings. Past tragedies show that any activity can lead to serious injury to participants. So long as we take steps to control those risks, we can tolerate them on the basis that they are very, very unlikely.
Education and safety are not competing goals Public schools provide an education to all students, appropriate to their needs. It is this moral imperative that separates us from our private sector counterparts. We do not turn our backs on the students who need our help the most. Sometimes, we hear that the goals of education and safety compete. Some argue that we must set the goal of education against staff safety and that one side or the other must lose. This view does not stand close scrutiny. A student will not usually be violent towards others if their education meets their needs. The mere fact of their violent behaviour indicates that the student requires support. If our goal is to engage every student in learning, then our goal is that no student is violent.
CONSULT It will be a rare occasion when you are the only person affected by the risk you are assessing. When the risk affects other staff, you have a duty to consult with them about its management. Before deciding on how you will handle the risk, you must seek the views of the other affected parties. There is no point assessing a risk and coming up with a plan that nobody else can implement. Most plans will rely on other people being confident and competent to put controls in place. It is very unlikely that the control will be effective if it relies on a teacher or LSA who has no confidence in it. Such a control will not meet your WHS duties.
PROPOSED ACTION
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The final step is to consider what action you should take. You might consider that the risks are already managed. If so, you will be happy to proceed with the activity. Sometimes, you will want to stop and think about whether it is safe to proceed. You might want to take some action to ensure that the activity is safe. For example, in crossing a road that is wet and slippery, you might take more care. These steps are sometimes referred to by WHS specialists as “controls”. Or you may consider the risks to be so serious and so likely that you would not proceed with the activity at all. If it was almost certain that a bus would hit you, you wouldn’t even consider crossing the road.
This is not to say that violent behaviour is the fault of schools for failing to meet student needs. Some needs, like a stable home life, are not within our power to meet. A small cohort of students may even be unavoidably violent.
The goal of our work on occupational violence is not only to keep staff safe. We are working to improve education delivery. Raising the unsafe behaviour of students is a step towards better resources and strategies. By treating violence seriously, we can get our students the help they need. 33