Martyn's Law for schools and colleges

Schools, colleges, sixth forms and childcare settings are in a distinct position under Martyn's Law: always standard tier, whatever their size.

That removes the largest question immediately, and it means the work in front of you is smaller than the coverage of this Act might suggest.

Always standard tier

A secondary school with 1,500 pupils on roll is standard tier. A sixth form college with 2,000 is standard tier. A nursery with 40 is in scope only if 200 or more people could reasonably be present, which most nurseries cannot manage.

Educational premises never fall into the enhanced tier, so the section 6 public protection measures, the designated senior individual and the compliance document filed with the SIA do not apply to you.

Are you in scope?

The threshold is 200 or more people who could reasonably be expected to be present at the same time, counting pupils, staff, visitors and contractors together.

For any secondary school and the large majority of primaries, this is met before you finish counting the pupils. The exercise is usually confirming the figure rather than discovering it.

Two things worth checking:

• Peak occasions. Open evenings, productions, sports days and parents' evenings can bring more people onto the site than a school day does.
• Lettings. If your hall is hired at weekends, the hirer's numbers count towards what could reasonably be present.

How to count your venue capacity sets out the accepted methods, though most schools will simply use roll plus staff.

What you probably already have

Schools start further ahead than almost any other premises type. Most already have:

• A lockdown policy, often required by the local authority or trust.
• A fire evacuation plan, practised regularly.
• An emergency communication route to parents.
• Staff who have actually rehearsed an emergency procedure, which is rare elsewhere.

So the honest question is not "what do we build" but "where are the gaps against the four procedures".

Where the gaps usually are

Mapping a typical school's existing planning onto section 5:

Evacuation — usually well covered by the fire plan, with one caveat. Fire evacuation sends everyone to a single assembly point. If the danger is at or near that point, you need a second one and a rule for choosing it. Many school fire plans have no alternative.

Invacuation — often the weakest. Schools plan for lockdown (stay in the classroom) and for evacuation (go to the field), but moving people into the building from outside, mid-breaktime, with 400 children on the yard, is a different problem and frequently unplanned.

Lockdown — usually the strongest. Most schools have this policy already. Check that it covers the perimeter as well as classrooms, and that the person who holds the keys is not a single point of failure.

Communication — usually strong for parents, weaker internally. How the member of staff on the far field is told something is happening, when the tannoy does not reach them, is the question worth testing.

Who carries the duty

The duty sits with whoever has control of the premises.

• Maintained school: usually the governing body.
• Academy or free school: the trust.
• Multi-academy trust: the trust holds it, but the duty applies per premises — each school site is assessed on its own.
• Independent school: the proprietor or governing body.

In practice the work is delegated, most often to the school business manager or the site manager. Record both: who holds the duty, and who does the work. A trust running eleven schools has eleven sets of procedures to keep current, which is a portfolio problem — see Martyn's Law for multi-site organisations.

Lettings and community use

A school hall hired to a community group at the weekend brings people into your building who have not sat through your staff training.

Two practical steps:

1. Include lettings in the capacity figure. A Saturday hirer filling the hall is part of what could reasonably be expected.
2. Brief hirers the way you brief staff. A one-page summary in the lettings pack, acknowledged at booking, covering the second exit, the invacuation room and who to call.

Staff awareness

The Act requires that people working at the premises are aware of the procedures and can follow them. In a school that is a large group — teaching staff, support staff, site team, catering, and often a substantial supply and volunteer population.

Two features of schools make this harder than it looks: supply staff, who may be in the building for a day, and turnover, which means a register taken in September is out of date by February.

Folding it into existing safeguarding or health and safety induction is the pragmatic answer, and gives you the record. Staff awareness: what the law actually requires covers what is proportionate.

A sensible order of work

1. Confirm you are over 200. For most schools this takes a minute.
2. Record who holds the duty and who is delegated to do the work.
3. Read your existing lockdown and fire policies against the four procedures, and note the gaps — invacuation and internal communication are the usual ones.
4. Write the missing procedures rather than rewriting what already works.
5. Fold awareness into existing induction, and keep the record.

The scope checker will confirm your tier and duties in about two minutes.