New Health & Safety Legislation & School Sport

New Health & Safety Legislation & School Sport Back to Secondary

What needs to be notified in the education sector?  Approved by Worksafe NZ, this resource supports the education sector to make decisions on what health and safety events do and do not need to be notified.

 Students on Work Experience: A health and safety guide for schools and employers. Created for schools and employers to support them when students go on work experience, outside of a formal Gateway programme.

 Health and Safety Guidance for School Sport Created with SportNZ, regional sports co-ordinators and the Secondary School Sports Council.

Guidance on the Code of Practice for School Exempt Laboratories New Zealand Association of Science Educators (NZASE) has worked with the Ministry to create this guide to support science educators.

Well-being webpage This webpage brings together useful resources from a number of organisations to help schools and ECEs manage a variety of wellbeing issues. 

MoE have trained a number of people in their regional offices to provide schools with assistance and their contacts are listed HERE. In addition, MoE have agreed to host a workshop for Regional Secondary School Sports Directors (RSDs) on June 13 so they will be able to offer more specific, practical advice to schools at that point and will be an important point of contact for you if you have any questions.

The intent of the legislation is not to curtail education outside of the classroom (EOTC) experiences or sport, but to keep everyone safe while enjoying these educational activities. Many are drawing a straight line from incident/accident to prosecution/liability.  There is a middle step – reasonable and practicable steps to address and manage risk (good practice) - which is what schools will have been doing already, prior to the new legislation.  An accident itself does not mean liability unless the PCBU (Boards) and Officers (Principals and senior management) willingly and knowingly put people at risk of harm, or failed to identify risks and implement policies and procedures to actively manage them.

The belief that teachers can now be criminally liable for activities they supervise or are involved in is no different than the situation under the previous Act, where negligence or placing young people in harm’s way was done knowingly and without mitigation.  There is still the same duty of care expected under the amendment that was introduced on April 4 as was there previously.  

It is reasonable to expect people to comply with the law, and liability for those who don’t comply can’t be expected to be the responsibility of schools and principals.  For example, a school might issue a general statement at the beginning of the year expecting parents or those transporting students to have a licence, a registered and warranted car and to ensure the carriage of those students is lawful (eg not in the boot).  But there is no criminal liability if this expectation is not complied with. It is not “reasonable” to expect teachers to check the licences of all drivers, and that is not the intention of the Act - teachers will not be “criminally liable” for others breaking the law.

No school was prosecuted under the old Health and Safety legislation.  The previous maximum fine for principals under the old Act was 500k, now it is 600k. There are tiers of liability and the reference to 600k fines refers to a situation where a principal willingly and knowingly puts a young person at risk that results in an accident.

The MoE website has more information HERE including the steps schools should take to review their processes and practices.  They also have a guideline resource and sample policies and templates. For sample policies, procedures and checklists click HERE.

A dual NZSTA and Ministry resource, the guide has been peer reviewed by over 80 schools and the Health and Safety Sector Reference Group, made up of principal associations, PPTA, NZEI and NZSTA. NZSTA have also sent all schools a copy of this guide.

To ensure a positive health and safety culture, as well as compliance, the general expectation is that schools will review their practices in this area to ensure they are meeting the requirements. The review  in itself is good practise in ensuring that policies and procedures in identifying and mitigating the risks around extra-curricular activities keep everyone safe.