Workshop Induction Training

Guidance notes for Programme Leaders and staff involved in induction of students in Faculty workshops

Health and safety legislation makes it a requirement to provide safe work equipment, safe systems of work, safe handling, storage of articles and substances, a safe place of work and a safe working environment. Both staff and students new to the University must receive adequate instruction to enable them to work safely. This instruction is known as induction training

Training is the most important way of achieving competence and helps to convert information into safe working practices. Training combined with experience leads to competence. Training has to be correct from the start and standards must be maintained once the training has been completed.

New students are known to be more likely to have accidents than those who have had time to recognise the hazards of the workplace. The prime objective of induction training is to orientate new students into the existing health and safety climate and culture.

The Faculty operates Induction Training programmes for all new students and these should be the first training session attended by new students. In the use of practical based workshops inductions will be timetabled and signed off after completion by the student.

The typical content of a Safety Induction Training course is:-

• The basic legal duties of the employer & employee under the Health and Safety at Work(HSW) Act,
• The organisation of Health and Safety within the University (Safety Committees etc.),
• Safe working practices (dress code, colour coding of machines, local working practices),
• Specific hazards and risks to the area and how to identify them,
• Fire and emergency procedures,
• First aid and accident reporting,
• How to report unsafe situations or practices.

A register of training will be kept for more specific training such as workshop induction, the name and signature of attendance of the student, the course of study and full details of the outcome of the training should be held on the students file.

Local Arrangements in Art and Design for Workshop Inductions

The programme of induction will follow the following guidelines

• In workshops a supervising ratio of 1:15 is workable whilst the induction is verbal.
• For practical elements a higher supervising is required. In workshops using colour coded machinery a ratio of 1:5 will be adopted.
• Programme Leaders will liaise with Technical Service Managers where technical input is required for Inductions in advance so that an induction calendar can be created.
• Inductions to practical based workshops will have a theory and practical element in line with current British standards. Induction attendance will be signed by the students and the information held on the student record.
• Inductions for students whose programme demands core use of a workshop will take place first in the academic year (before Nov 30).
• After this date inductions will be held in the mornings only allowing workshops to open in the afternoon, this will address the problem of inducted students finding difficulty in getting into the workshops
• Where workshops are closed for inductions advance warning will be given to other users.
• From November a programme of Wed pm inductions will be introduced. These will be to mop up core students and induct students from other programmes who have permission to use a workshop. Wednesday workshops will be arranged by Technical Service Managers in the area and will follow demand.
• Inductions will not take place with less than 5 students under normal circumstances.

Definition of Core

A workshop induction is regarded as core when use of the workshop concerned is central to the programme of study.