48 • FIRESAFETY&SECURITY
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Fire safety in
school design
»»“DANGEROUS AND DILAPIDATED”,
“wasteful” “school buildings are failing
our children and teachers”. A damning
report from RIBA on the UK’s school
building stock, but what can be done to
rectify the situation from a door hardware
perspective?
A recent report by RIBA, titled Better
Spaces for Learning, has revealed some
disappointing facts on the UK’s school
buildings situation. Key revelations
included:
• One in five teachers have considered
quitting because of the wretched
condition of the school buildings they
have to teach in
• Over-engineered schools, with
Government-specified equipment
that only costly consultants know how
to operate, is costing £150 million per
year which could have been avoided
if schools were designed better
• The Government’s Education
Funding Agency’s new school
building programme is too rigid and
is leading to waste and poor value for
tax payers
RIBA has also identified that a school
that has been design ed well can reduce
running and maintenance costs, while
also encouraging good behaviour
of pupils and increasing
the level of safety in the
building.
One very crucial
element to make
with school design
is the consideration
of fire safety,
and how best to
protect pupils,
teachers and the
wider community.
Statistics show that
the fire service are
called out to more than
2,000 schools in the UK to
put out a fire, ranging from small
rubbish fires to larger more damaging
fires that seriously affect the operation of
the school.
LOCKSMITHJOURNAL.CO.UK | NOV/DEC 2016
Regrettably, many fires in schools are
started deliberately, and also alarmingly
during school time. Therefore, focusing
on achieving the highest level of safety
and knowing what needs to be done
within the property to ensure fire
is managed effectively and safely is
paramount to reducing disruption times,
stopping schools from burning down and
preventing a loss of life.
ESCAPE ROUTES
Escape routes are vital to every building,
especially schools. There will normally be
one or two alternative short escape routes,
leading to the final exit door or a door to a
protected stairway.
Escape routes need to have fire resistant
walls and ceilings, and fire doors should
be fitted to stop the spread of fire. Routes
need to be regularly checked to ensure
that they are not obstructed, and that
fire exit doors are unlocked and operate
correctly.
Other common problems to look out
for are: broken door closers, damaged fire
doors, missing or damaged ceiling tiles.
FIRE DOORS - NEVER PROP
OR WEDGE OPEN
Fire doors can meet all required
standards and be entirely suitable on
paper, but once a building is ready for
occupancy, fire doors will only serve their
purpose if they are used correctly.
For example, fire doors should never
ever be propped or wedged open. This
is an extremely dangerous thing to do as
a fire door made from heavy duty and
specially engineered materials and is
sealed accordingly to prevent the spread
of fire, but it does not work if the door is
being held open. Perhaps users of the
buildings feel that propping open a fire
door gives means of a quicker escape,
or facilitates the movement of high
volumes of pupils through a corridor,
but realistically all this may end up
doing is causing much more detrimental
damage should a fire spread further than
necessary.