Fire Risk Assessments for Schools

• •The Fire Safety Order places the duty on the “responsible person”. In a workplace this is normally the employer, so in a maintained school it is typically the employer of the staff (often the governing body or the local authority), and in an academy trust it is generally the trust as employer. Anyone else with control of the premises may also hold duties.
• •In a multi-academy trust, legal accountability generally sits with the trust, while day-to-day fire safety management is delegated to headteachers, site managers, or a central estates team. Delegating tasks does not transfer the legal duty; the responsible person remains accountable for ensuring assessments are done and findings are acted on.
• •Shared or multi-occupied premises (for example a school sharing a site with a nursery, leisure centre, or community facility) can create more than one responsible person. The Order requires them to cooperate and coordinate their fire safety arrangements.
• •The assessment must be carried out by a competent person with adequate training, experience, and knowledge. A trust may use an external fire risk assessor or a suitably trained internal person; there is no legal requirement to use an external assessor, provided competence can be demonstrated.

Sources: GOV.UK fire safety in the workplace; RRFSO 2005, Article 9, Article 9: risk assessment and review

• •Primary schools: young children who need close supervision and staff-led evacuation, early-years layouts, and secure-entry arrangements that must never obstruct escape routes.
• •Secondary schools: larger, often multi-block sites, higher occupancy, and more higher-risk practical spaces.
• •SEND and vulnerable occupants: pupils and staff with reduced mobility, sensory, or cognitive needs require personal emergency evacuation plans (PEEPs) and assisted-evacuation arrangements.
• •Sleeping accommodation: boarding or residential provision carries higher risk and stricter arrangements, and should be assessed distinctly from day-use school buildings.
• •Higher-risk spaces: science laboratories and prep rooms (gases, chemicals, naked flames), design-technology workshops, and kitchens with cooking appliances and extraction.
• •Halls, community use, and lettings: assembly, out-of-hours, and third-party use change occupancy and responsibility, and arrangements must be coordinated with hirers.
• •Contractors and building works: hot works, temporary isolation of systems, and construction on a live site introduce hazards the assessment must reflect.
• •Temporary and modular buildings: portacabins and modular classrooms must be included, with their own escape, detection, and alarm arrangements.
• •Evacuation arrangements: clear escape routes, assembly points, and a scheme that accounts for large numbers of children moving together.
• •Fire doors and compartmentation: doors that close and latch, intact fire-resisting walls and floors, and unobstructed escape routes are frequent failure points.
• •System dependencies: the assessment relies on a working fire detection and alarm system and functioning emergency lighting; keep those testing regimes current (see the related guides below).

Sources: Home Office FRA guide: educational premises; DfE Building Bulletin 100

• •Assessments never reviewed since the building was first assessed, sometimes years earlier, despite changes to layout or use.
• •Action plans with outstanding remedial items that were never tracked to completion.
• •No central view across a trust of which schools have a current assessment and which are overdue for review.
• •Fire door defects, damaged compartmentation, or obstructed escape routes identified in the assessment but not resolved.
• •PEEPs missing for pupils or staff who would need assistance to evacuate.
• •Evidence scattered across inboxes, local drives, and paper files, and hard to produce during an inspection.
• •Alarm, emergency lighting, and extinguisher servicing records not linked to the assessment, leaving gaps in the evidence chain.