Looking after sports equipment – How to reduce risk, prolong product life and save money
For over 12 years, Mark Harrod Ltd has been manufacturing and supplying a wide range of sports products to clubs, associations and schools with quality football goals and sporting equipment. As well as manufacturing and supplying the equipment, the team offers installation, maintenance and servicing support for its customers to help them ensure that the equipment remains safe in use for years to come. Mike Bugajski, has been visiting customers for 10 years to check that the products are being installed and maintained correctly and is concerned to find that, more often than not, basic guidelines are not being followed which could result in injury or damage to the product. Taking goal posts as an example, injuries are completely preventable if they are installed correctly, inspected regularly and used appropriately. Mike said: “All of our products are supplied with a general maintenance and safety guide outlining how products should be installed and checked. Health and safety is of upmost importance to any club, school or association offering sporting facilities and it’s their responsibility to provide equipment that is fit for purpose and maintained to the required standard. “None of the customers that I visit would refute this but they don’t always realise that by regularly checking their equipment, not only keeps it safe and in good working order, it saves them money too. I often go on site visits to find football posts that have been installed incorrectly to start with. Not only could this create a health and safety hazard, it could put pressure on the component parts and damage them requiring them to be replaced – an expense that could have been simply avoided by following the installation guide correctly. Similarly, I sometimes find that posts have been dragged along the ground instead of dropping down the wheels that have been specifically designed to make moving large, heavy equipment easier – again resulting in parts needing replacing. The examples are endless. “Of course, it is sometimes difficult for equipment to be monitored 24/7, especially if it is used out of hours by third parties and may be misused resulting in damage. However, these instances make the need for regular inspections even more important as the group/individual allowing their equipment to be used could be liable for any injuries sustained. Lack of respect for the equipment is out of our customers’ control but ultimately it will have implications for the ongoing safety of the products in question.” Mark Harrod Ltd can ease the burden of keeping an eye on equipment and provide customers with peace of mind, ensuring that goal posts and other equipment remain fit for purpose and safe to use. The general maintenance and safety guide provided with all Mark Harrod Ltd goal post products covers assembly, dismantling, checking, anchoring, moving and storage as well as inspection sheets for recording all observations made and for keeping as evidence of best practice. Service and Maintenance Contracts are available at an additional cost which ensure sports equipment at customers’ premises conforms to the BS8461:2012 Code of Practice, BS748:2004 AND BS8462:2012. Visit www.markharrod.com to download a copy of the maintenance and safety guide and to view the product range or call 01502 710039 to discuss the services available in more detail. Twitter – https://twitter.com/markharrodltd Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/markharrodlimited Customer testimonial: The goals for my club Bradenham Wanderers FC arrived, and I just wanted to say a BIG thank you for the wonderful service from start to finish, if only every company could operate a customer service like yours, life would be so easy. 5 star performance, or 10 out of 10 ,what ever way you look at it, the experience of dealing with you guys has been a pleasure. Harry Murfet Basic Maintenance and Safety Tips: • Always use manufacturer’s instructions and recommendations when assembling equipment • Check equipment a minimum of once a week and ALWAYS before any game or training activity • All equipment should be weighted and /or anchored at all times • Never drag equipment across the ground. This could cause damage to the product and the surface, whether natural or synthetic
Schools offered free service to help manage Ofsted inspections and improve results
Schools across England are being offered a high-tech solution to prepare for Ofsted inspections and improve results free of charge. Bluewave Education is offering its award-winning Common Inspection Frame work module for free to schools, as leaders face increasing budgetary challenges in the coming year. Managing director of Bluewave Education, Keith Wright, said: “Accurate assessment of a schools strengths and areas for development is an essential requirement for school improvement and school inspection. “For more than a decade Bluewave Education has provided school leaders with the structure, guidance and mechanisms to enable rigorous self-evaluation and facilitate the school improvement process. “With schools facing another year of financial uncertainty, our contribution to the sector is to remove some of the cost burden and to help them move on from the use of outdated systems based around paper and basic Word documents. “Our experience is that where schools make this transition, they rarely go back.” Bluewave SWIFT was developed by a group of education leaders who wanted to find a practical, modern day solution to managing school improvement and dealing more effectively with the processes involved. SWIFT allows schools to: – Create a clear and structured whole school self-evaluation – Identify and put in place key school improvement priorities – with direct links to school improvement plans* – Automatically feed Ofsted SEF/Common Inspection Framework evidence into other reports e.g. Safeguarding, Behaviour, Pupil Premium, Governance* – Include any or all of your staff can contribute to whole-school self-evaluation – Create departmental SEF’s/Common Inspection Frameworks Ofsted facility for academy chains In addition to offering their SEF for free to all schools, Bluewave Education is also offering a facility for academy chains, federations and Multi-Academy Trusts, whereby a Common Inspection Framework can be distributed to their family of schools and the responses can be aggregated for analysis and reporting. Mr Wright said: “This supports so many positive approaches to school-led improvement and it leads to far greater awareness and collaboration around strategic planning. “The only cost is a one-off set up fee determined by the number of schools in the family. “Whether we like it or not, schools have to act more like businesses every day. We help schools to think like a school and where necessary, work like a business. “This is recognised in our BETT award for supporting institutional leadership and management but most importantly in the feedback we get from the schools we work with”. For more help in preparing for Ofsted, see bluewavemosaic.com
Teacher absence tackled by new partnership between Schools Advisory Service and health app
The Schools Advisory Service (SAS), which provides teachers in the UK with absence insurance, has partnered with a Manchester-based healthcare company to provide members with GP appointments via smartphone. The SAS is working with Now Healthcare Group, utilising their Dr Now mobile app which connects users to a qualified doctor via Skype-style video chat. The partnership is set to begin on 1 April and will be available to the SAS’ 100,000 members nationwide. Dr Now is an ‘mHealth’ app which allows those who need to see a doctor the chance to book an appointment at the touch of a button and speak to one via video call on their Android or iOS smartphone. It can also deliver medicines straight to a patient’s home or office for ultimate convenience. The SAS previously relied upon a GP telephone service for when staff fell unwell, but this is to be Lee Dentith replaced with this new arrangement with Now Healthcare Group. Nearly 3 million teaching days are lost through sickness in schools in the UK every year, and the SAS is aiming to reduce this number by providing teachers with quick and easy healthcare – helping them avoid waiting times at the clinic and the hassle of taking time off to see a doctor. Director of Schools Advisory Service, Les Marshall, said: “Our new service from Now Healthcare Group will be an essential element of trying to prevent and reduce staff absences in schools. This service is just what teachers have been asking us to provide for years and to finally be able to provide a service of the highest quality from the market leader demonstrates why Schools Advisory Service is the UK’s largest supplier of staff absence insurance.” Founder & CEO of Now Healthcare Group, Lee Dentith, said: “Now Healthcare Group is thrilled to be working with Schools Advisory Service through this exclusive partnership. We’re looking to significantly reduce the number of sickness days lost by teachers and education workers by giving them access to a GP immediately through our mobile app platform, Dr Now / Now GP. Our partnership will benefit schools, teachers and children alike as we look to minimise disruption to pupils’ education across the country.” https://youtu.be/rHcdD0YKdbs Download the app from the App Store and Google Play.
Six steps to keeping classroom technology safe
Having technology in the classroom can help enhance student engagement with what’s being taught. Today, many schools have iPads, iPods or other tech devices, and measures should be put in place to keep these expensive products safe from being lost or stolen. Here are six safety steps to consider when keeping technology safe in the classroom, provided by gadget and mobile accessory brand Griffin Technology. 1. It’s important to take necessary precautions against theft in the classroom. Devices such as videocameras, iPads, and laptops should be put away in locked and secured places when not in use. 2. Always establish and enforce classroom procedures for student use of technology. Create a register to check-out and check-in equipment, so it’s always accounted for. 3. If you’re using an iOS device such as iPad or iPod, install the Find My iPhone app on these devices. If these gadgets are ever lost or stolen, the app can easily remotely track it, lock it or even erase data. 4. Invest in proper protection. This will ensure all expensive products are protected with a suitable case to defend against accidental drops. Cases that shield devices against drops and knocks should be purchased, and will add another layer of safety should a mishap occur. 5. Label each device that is used in the classroom. This way, there can be no confusion as to who owns the device. Sometimes, school equipment can be mixed up with pupils’ own devices, therefore it’s good to clearly identify school property. 6. For more expensive equipment and those devices used outside of the classroom, create a process by which supervision of its use must be carried out. This is good practice to roll out for new purchases with a high value, so that a responsible watch is taken over the device and it isn’t lost. For gadget protection and accessories, Griffin Technology provides a range of cases to suit tablets, smartphone and more. For iPads used in the classroom, the Survivor All-Terrain is recommended, as it has been tested to meet military standards making it super tough. When charging multiple devices, the MultDock2 Charging Station 10 and 30Bay provides the perfect security when hosting a number of iPads, tablets and smartphones all at once.
Performance related pay: make it fair and transparent
Recent research released by the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) and the National Union of Teachers (NUT) revealed that one in 12 teachers have been denied a salary increase since performance-related pay (PRP) was introduced in 2014. With the power and responsibility of PRP being given to schools, Damien Roberts, business development director at Schoolip by Derventio, looks at how teaching staff can gather the right information throughout the performance cycle, ensuring that the process is fair and transparent. Before its introduction in 2014, there was a lot of speculation amongst teachers around the PRP process and how it would work, so these statistics come as no surprise to me. It’s important for schools to examine this reaction and ensure staff understand exactly what needs to be done in order to achieve their objectives for pay progression. Damien Roberts Performance management in schools is traditionally initiated at the beginning of the academic year, but beyond the odd email or discussion in passing, the process often gets lost amongst the preoccupations of teaching, lesson planning and exam preparation. Schools should consider a system that combines the whole process in a central online system which can track progress, store evidence and maintain a constant dialogue between the staff member and their line manager. This will allow staff to highlight achievements or flag issues as and when they arise, as well as altering objectives at any point if needs be. Having an online blog to talk to one another ascertains a very transparent way of ensuring that everything is recorded, and can be used to reinforce outcomes from face-to-face meetings. While the ATL research found that over half of teachers believed that PRP increased their workload, this shouldn’t be the case if a school has an effective and efficient process in place. Removing the need for paper-based evidence and portfolios, and offering technology such as smartphone apps will help to put the power back into teachers’ hands and reduce the overall burden, allowing them to focus on the main priority: teaching their students. Making the process as accessible as possible for staff is also important. Nowadays, most people own a smartphone, and the ability to record evidence digitally using mobiles and upload it directly to an online system can help to reduce laborious paper administration. This way, nothing gets lost throughout the year and can easily be retrieved when staff need to demonstrate how they have met their objectives. Evidence can come in the form of photographs of students work or wall displays; after all, it’s important for OFSTED to walk into a classroom and see that the walls are teaching the students before the lesson has even begun. Evidence can even be shared through video, especially for lessons which may be harder to articulate and visualise on paper, for example, recording students doing coaching exercises during a PE lesson. Not only can this be used as evidence, but also shared as best practice with other teachers. To make PRP as fair as possible for staff, schools should consider software which is able to inform staff and their line managers when they might be missing specific evidence for objectives. This means ahead of the end-of-year review, the teacher knows whether or not they’ve hit their target, so it won’t come as a surprise if they haven’t quite met pay progression. With efficient and simple ways of incorporating all areas of performance management, schools can be completely transparent with staff, enabling them to understand exactly what needs to be accomplished throughout the year. With digital capabilities in place, rather than staff feeling the burden of having to provide paper-based evidence, they can provide as much as they want, confident in the knowledge that they’re meeting both theirs and the schools overall objectives. SchooliP by Derventio brings together the three main elements of school improvement including: performance management, improvement planning and self-evaluation. It helps to improve the standard of teaching and learning within schools by providing the tools to support teachers with organising their evidence for appraisal and pay progression. For more information, visit: www.schoolip.co.uk
Avoiding the tech trap
Currently, there is a global movement in education to become smarter. Businesses have been competing to be more digitally intelligent and energy efficient for some time and schools are becoming no different. This shouldn’t mean a tablet computer for every pupil. Instead it means using existing data in new ways: intelligent ways. Here Carl Plant, CEO of digital technology expert bITjAM gives best practice advice for schools looking to become digital leaders. In a study conducted by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in September 2015, doubts were raised as to the benefit of increased technology in schools. The report stated that students who used computers frequently in school were attaining poorer results than those who used computers infrequently – once or twice a week. The reality is schools can become better at using digital tools even without a considerable investment in new machines or advanced technologies. Instead, the shift requires looking at current issues and implementing simple digital solutions. Using tech in schools should do three things: solve problems (not create them), engage pupils and aid communication. So what current problems do schools face? Save paper, go digital A couple of years ago it was recorded that the average school consumed the equivalent of 74 trees worth of paper a year. When you combine this knowledge with the latest government statistics that state there are just under 25,000 schools in the UK, that’s a considerable effect on the environment and an unnecessary expenditure. Students are largely required to work on paper and will be for the foreseeable future. However, ways to minimise carbon consumption and become more efficient can be sought elsewhere. In secondary schools and colleges, for example, timetables are invaluable to pupils and yet faculties hand them out on pieces of paper – destined to be lost, binned or succumb to wear. By using existing databases in a more intelligent way and tapping into the rising number of tablets and smart phones, schools and colleges can cut down on carbon consumption by taking advantage of technology. bITjAM recently worked with Stoke-on-Trent College to create a timetable app students could access on their smart phones. The app, called Logga, is a smart approach to the traditional problems schools face with paper timetables. Logga allows schools to minimise the amount of paper used, while also engaging students. The app also negates any excuses of pupils claiming to have lost their timetable. In addition, Logga opens up another means of communication between teachers and pupils. Task management features allow notes to be made regarding attendance and achievements, providing pupils, teachers and parents with historical information at the touch of a button. The great news is this app doesn’t require radical technical changes to a school’s IT infrastructure. All the information is currently available, it’s just a matter of using it in a more intelligent way. It sounds obvious, but technology in schools needs to have a practical use and make logical sense. There’s no use kitting out the IT lab with expensive iMacs simply because a budget exists. Track work experience When talking to schools and colleges we’ve come across another common problem to which we’ve created a digital solution. Although no longer compulsory, students are often encouraged to take part in work experience. Unfortunately, few schools have a reliable tracking system for work experience, and even fewer actually give students the tools to put together a relevant and clear CV even before they leave school. With competition for university places and jobs as high as it’s ever been, it’s become just as important to record out of school activities as it is curricular ones. Again, what schools need is a smarter framework in place to keep track of students’ extra-curricular activities, like work experience, Duke of Edinburgh, volunteering and other skills development. bITjAM was recently involved in an EU-funded project conducting research into the core skills gap. What became brutally obvious during this research is that students and businesses alike don’t seem to know what they want when it comes to work experience. To help, we’re developing an app on which students can record all their extracurricular activity. They can then use their digital CV towards employment or UCAS as an accurate portrayal of skills and experience. Businesses can look at this record and make informed decisions when taking on young people for work experience and apprenticeships. This way, technology can open up another means of communication, this time between businesses and potential employees. Using technology in an educational environment doesn’t have to be more of a distraction than a benefit, so long as there are clearly defined goals. By simply looking at existing data in a smarter way, schools and colleges can make a conscious effort to reduce their effect on the environment, minimise costs and increase engagement. Uncoincidentally, these are the same goals driving hospitals, factories, shops and a number of other businesses to become smarter too. It’s really not a matter of whether you take the steps, but when. bITjAM would like to invite schools and colleges to get in touch with their challenges and see how the company can help to implement digital solutions. To get in touch, go to www.bitjam.org.uk.
£44 MILLION OFF-SITE SCHEME STARTS ON SITE IN EAST LONDON
The £44 million Riverside Schools off-site project – the largest ever in the education sector – has started on site in Barking. The scheme for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham was awarded to the Portakabin Group and is using a Yorkon off-site solution to deliver an innovative three-school campus. Now under construction, the 23,000sqm Riverside Schools campus will provide places for 2,645 children from 0-19 years on a six hectare site. The development will integrate provision for nursery, primary, special needs, secondary, and sixth form pupils, and will be operated by the multi-academy trust, Partnership Learning. The Portakabin Group is the main contractor for this pioneering project. The contract was procured and awarded by the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham via the Council’s local education partnership, Thames Partnership for Learning. It is funded by the Education Funding Agency. Commenting at the ground breaking, Councillor Evelyn Carpenter, Cabinet Member for Education and Schools at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham said, “I am very proud of the team for progressing the project so robustly. The off-site solution will help us to very quickly meet the urgent need for school places and deliver more outstanding schools in a good quality and modern educational environment. This will add to our ongoing work to help every child in Barking and Dagenham realise their highest aspirations.” Simon Ambler, Director of the Portakabin Group said, “This is our seventh project for the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and follows on from the two earlier phases on the City Farm site near to the Riverside Schools campus, that are now in use. The scheme is one of the largest school projects now under construction in the UK and will create much needed additional school places for one of the fastest growing school-age populations in the country.” He added, “We are delighted to be part of a major development that will be at the heart of a vibrant new community with design-inspired public places and amenities.” Designed by Surface to Air and constructed using a Yorkon off-site solution for the curriculum areas, the scheme comprises an 1,800-place secondary school, a 630-place primary school, a special educational needs (SEN) school, and a 55-place nursery. The use of off-site construction will significantly reduce the programme time. The structure is now in production in York at the same time as the major ground works are progressed on site in East London. The project has been scheduled to complete the primary and SEN facilities at an earlier stage, in time for the start of the 2016/17 academic year to meet the urgent demand for places in the borough. The rest of the campus will be completed late Spring 2017. The Riverside Schools scheme is being developed in the Barking Riverside regeneration area, which is close to Barking town centre and part of the Thames Gateway development. Early phases of substantial housebuilding have already been completed with further plans for 12,000 new homes increasing the need for education provision. For further information about off-site building solutions from the Portakabin Group for primary and secondary education, call 0845 2000 123, email info@yorkon.co.uk or visit www.yorkon.info.