Practical, independent support for Boards of Management and principals: safety statements, risk assessments and emergency arrangements shaped around your building, your pupils and the issue in front of you.
You receive a written proposal with a fixed fee. Nothing starts until you have approved it.
A standard review is issued within ten working days of receiving a complete document set or of the site visit, and sooner by written agreement where an inspection deadline applies.
Every engagement is led by Frank Black MIIRSM CertIOSH, from the first conversation to the final report.
The work starts with your school, not a template. Schools usually get in touch with one of these.
This support is for primary and post primary schools, including ETB schools. It also covers mainstream schools that run special classes, such as autism classes.
Whatever the starting point, the first step is to look at what you have and work out what matters most. If something falls outside what Optimal Assurance can do, such as work that needs a fire engineer, you will be told clearly and pointed to the right person.
Staff in every school are being encouraged to nominate a safety representative. The role is to consult with the Board and make representations to it on safety, health and welfare matters, and a safety representative has a right to inspect, including immediately where there has been an accident or dangerous occurrence or there is an imminent risk.
When a Health and Safety Authority inspector visits, they review the safety statement and seek to establish how far it is being implemented. They will also seek to meet the staff safety representative, if one has been nominated.
Section 20 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires the safety statement to set out the arrangements for appointing a safety representative and for consulting staff. In many school statements that is missing, or it names someone who has left.
A review checks the statement and the practice behind it, so that your Board, your principal and your safety representative are all working from the same document.
Each is scoped to your school and priced as a fixed fee in a written proposal.
An independent read of your safety statement and risk assessments against how your school actually runs.
For schools that need a fresh start. A complete safety statement and risk assessment register written for your school.
A yearly cycle that keeps the statement current between inspections.
Available alongside any of the above, or on their own.
Fees are set out in a written proposal after an initial conversation, so you know exactly what is included before anything starts.
A short email is enough: the school, and what you would like looked at.
It sets out exactly what is included, with a fixed fee. Nothing starts until you have approved it.
You receive plain, practical findings in a form the principal and the Board can act on.
These are the points that come up most often. Each one is something a review looks at in your school.
The employer, which means the Board of Management, or the ETB in an ETB school. The duty is to provide a safe place of work so far as is reasonably practicable. It is not a duty to prevent every accident, which is why recorded, proportionate decisions matter.
The hazards identified and the risks assessed, how the safety of staff, pupils, visitors and contractors is managed, the procedures for an emergency, the cooperation required from staff, and the arrangements for appointing safety representatives and consulting staff. The Board should also check that it is being implemented, and revise it where issues arise.
Yes. They should cover all school activities, including tours and sports events away from the school, and not only the building and the yard.
No. The legal duty stays with the employer. A safety representative has the rights and functions the Act gives them, and no additional duties.
An injury at work that leaves an employee unable to do their normal work for more than three consecutive days, not counting the day of the accident, must be reported to the Health and Safety Authority. Occupational injury leave may also be available, subject to the conditions in the Department's circular.
The employer must assess the risks to her and her unborn child and take action. That can mean adjusting her working conditions, offering alternative work, or granting health and safety leave, and it is worth having the process written down before it is needed.
The Department's emergency works grant exists for urgent and unforeseen works that deal with an immediate risk to health, life, property or the environment. A clear record of the risk and the decision to act supports any application.
General information only, not legal advice. Requirements depend on your school's circumstances, and this page is not a substitute for the Board's own obligations.
Your school is advised by someone who has responded to real emergencies as a frontline medical professional, and who knows what helps, and what gets in the way, when minutes count. That experience shapes every review, so that everyone in your school knows what to do, who does what, and how to respond appropriately when something happens.
In a school, that means working through the situations nobody wants to meet unprepared: an allergic reaction, a seizure in the yard, a head injury at lunchtime, getting every pupil out safely, including those who need extra help. When staff know the plan and have practised it, people stay calm and children are safer.
Two practical ninety minute sessions, delivered in person and working through real scenarios with the room.
You always know where you stand.
Every engagement is led directly by Frank Black MIIRSM CertIOSH, who brings hands on experience from frontline emergency response, event medical coordination and safety critical environments. That practical background is supported by formal education in health and safety and by postgraduate study in Managing Risk and System Change at Trinity College Dublin.
You deal with him from the first conversation to the last, and findings are explained in plain language.
Send a few lines about your school and what you would like looked at, and you will receive a reply with how the work would be approached.
