Fire Safety in Independent Schools
An independent school is a more complicated building to keep safe from fire than its outward calm suggests. The estate is often a mixture of grand older buildings and newer additions, the day runs well beyond normal school hours into prep, clubs and boarding, and the activities under one roof can range from a chemistry laboratory to a commercial kitchen to a theatre with stage scenery. Each of those adds its own hazards, and the people relying on the arrangements working, many of them children, are not always able to recognise danger or act on it quickly. The good news is that the principles of keeping a school safe are well established, and most of the work is steady attention to a handful of fundamentals rather than anything exotic.
The starting point for every school is a legal one. Legislation requires every school to carry out a fire risk assessment, which must identify the hazards and the people at risk and put suitable general fire precautions in place to protect pupils, staff and visitors. This is not a one off exercise, since hazards identified should be removed or reduced, and the residual risk managed and kept under review, with every member of staff playing a part in spotting hazards and making sure the measures stay in good order. The points that follow are drawn from established guidance for schools, with the particular circumstances of independent and boarding schools in mind throughout.
Who is actually responsible
In an independent school the Responsible Person under fire safety law is usually the proprietor, the board of governors or the trustees, who are also the employer. The day to day management is almost always delegated to a bursar or an estates manager, and that delegation is sensible, but the legal accountability stays with the proprietor or board across the whole estate. This matters because fire safety in these schools is rarely confined to a single modern teaching block. It reaches into sanatoria, music schools, sports pavilions, listed houses and, where pupils sleep on site, the boarding houses, and the duty holder is answerable for all of it.
Where school fires start
A fire needs three things together, a source of ignition, fuel and oxygen, and since oxygen is freely available in the air, the practical work is keeping ignition sources away from anything that will burn. In a school the ignition sources are varied, including the open flames of science and technology lessons, heated surfaces in kitchens, deep fat fryers, boiler rooms and a great deal of electrical and process equipment. The fuel is just as varied, from combustible displays and stored sports mats to flammable liquids in the laboratory and the accumulation of waste that gathers in storage areas and hidden corners.
The everyday measures that keep the two apart are unglamorous but effective. Combustible materials, coats and clothing should be kept clear of heaters, lighting and other heat generating equipment, flammable liquids should be held in a locked store away from any source of ignition and only in the small quantities a work period needs, and laboratory gas supplies should be isolated outside school hours. Heated surfaces in kitchens need to be kept clean and clear of grease and packaging, deep fat fryers should be thermostatically controlled, and boiler rooms should never be used to store combustibles. Electrical equipment should be inspected and maintained on a regular cycle, with damaged fittings, flickering lights, overloaded circuits and trailing extension leads all reported and dealt with rather than tolerated.
Arson is a real risk in schoolsSchools are among the more common targets for deliberate fire setting, often out of hours, so prevention is as much about security as housekeeping. Following the locking up procedure, keeping equipment and combustibles off windowsills, reporting damage to fences, gates and security lighting, supervising visitors and contractors, and politely challenging anyone unfamiliar on site all reduce the opportunity for a fire to be started in the first place.
Escape routes and fire doors
An escape route is only useful if it is clear and the doors along it do their job. Routes should be kept free of artwork, displays, wastepaper bins and combustible storage, noticeboards on escape routes should be covered with non combustible material, and every fire exit should be checked at the start of the day so it can be opened easily and immediately while the premises are occupied. Fire doors are a particular weakness in busy schools, where the temptation to wedge them open is strong, so any door found wedged or failing to close properly needs to be reported and corrected, since a fire door held open is no protection at all. A periodic fire door inspection is the way to confirm that these doors will perform when they are needed, especially in older buildings where decades of alterations may have left gaps in the protection.
Boarding houses bring a higher bar
Where pupils sleep on site, the fire safety question changes in character, because people who are asleep are far more vulnerable than people who are awake and dressed. Boarding is governed by the national standards for boarding as well as by fire safety law, and together these set a higher bar for detection, protected escape, rehearsed night evacuations and overnight staffing. Each boarding house should be assessed in its own right rather than folded into a single assessment for the whole school, since the layout, the age of the children and the staffing pattern differ from house to house. Night drills, however unpopular, are the only honest test of whether a sleeping house can be cleared safely, and they routinely reveal issues that a daytime walk round never would.
Listed and historic buildings
Many independent schools occupy listed or historic buildings, and these constrain what you are allowed to alter without lowering the standard of fire safety that the law expects. The answer is not to give up on protection, nor to propose works that conservation officers would never approve, but to assess the building realistically and identify proportionate measures that protect both the occupants and the fabric. Concealed voids, original timber and complex roof spaces all deserve close attention in these buildings, and a good assessment works with the constraints rather than pretending they are not there.
If a fire breaks out
When a fire is discovered, the alarm is raised by operating the nearest call point, and a designated person, often the school office or a senior member of staff, calls the fire and rescue service and tells the operator the location and severity of the fire and whether anyone is trapped or hazardous substances may be involved. On the alarm, everyone leaves by the nearest escape route and goes directly to an assembly point well away from the building, with the person in charge of each class indicating the route, closing doors behind them and, crucially, not stopping for belongings, not using lifts and not risking themselves to save property. Once classes have gathered, staff account for every pupil through a roll call that also includes visitors and contractors, and nobody re-enters until the fire and rescue service or another authorised person confirms it is safe.
How that evacuation is actually delivered should be set out in a clear fire evacuation plan that everyone understands, with particular thought given to anyone who cannot use the stairs unaided. Refuges, where disabled pupils, staff or visitors can wait for assistance, need to be identified, and the staff who would help them need to know what to do and to have practised it. Where assisted descent is required, evacuation chair training makes sure the people who would carry it out are confident with the equipment rather than meeting it for the first time in an emergency.
Tackling a fire is the exception, not the ruleStaff should only attempt to use an extinguisher once the alarm has been raised, the fire and rescue service has been called and evacuation is under way, and only on a small fire in its early stages, with a clear escape route behind them and the right training. If the fire grows despite one extinguisher, or there are gas cylinders, aerosols, burning gas, explosive or toxic materials or a metal such as magnesium involved, it should be left to the fire and rescue service.
Pulling it together
None of these measures works in isolation. A successful approach to fire safety in an independent school comes from a competent fire risk assessment that reflects how the buildings are actually used, the simplest evacuation arrangements that will keep everyone safe, equipment that is maintained and tested, and an ongoing programme of staff training and drills matched to the complexity of the site. This guidance gives the basic steps that help keep a school safe, but it does not replace a fire risk assessment or formal staff training, and a fire professional should be consulted on anything significant or complex. As independent assessors covering the North West, North Wales and the West Midlands, that is precisely the work we do, looking at the school as it really operates and recommending measures that protect pupils and staff without unnecessary cost or disruption.
Fire safety support for independent schools
From boarding houses and listed buildings to laboratories and kitchens, our ABBE Level 4 qualified assessors can review your whole estate and set out a clear, proportionate plan. If you would like to discuss your school, please get in touch.
Get in touch Independent school fire safetyThis article is provided for general guidance and does not constitute professional advice for any specific premises, nor does it replace a fire risk assessment or formal staff training. It draws on published fire safety guidance for schools. Considerable care has been taken to ensure accuracy at the time of writing, but legislation and guidance change over time. Fletcher Risk Management Limited provides Fire Risk Assessments, Fire Door Inspections and Fire Safety Training across the North West, North Wales and the West Midlands.