My child’s council nursery in Edinburgh has started padlocking the garden gate so no parents/visitors etc can access for child safety which I understand however....this is the route they would take once out the building and then through the playground to the fire assembly point. Should this playground gate be padlocked during nursery time does anyone know?

Many thanks

This is the age old 'security v safety' dilemma. I agree that the gate should be secured in some way; however it is also important to guard against unauthorised entry. My own recommendation is that a good quality combination lock is fitted, to which all staff have the code. Also, I suggest that the numbers are all the same i.e. 9999, or similar. Resorting to a key is not robust enough, as the key may be in the building whilst everyone is out in the garden.

As a fire exit it should be able to open without the need of a key during the time the premises are open. There is a number of ways this can be achieved by being able to open the gate from the inside without a key and requiring a key to open from the outside.

Sorry to resurface this...... However, we have the same issues in our SEND provisions. The gates cannot be left unsecured from the inside as the children / young people can open them and abscond. Equally the fire risk assessor has told us to remove the padlocks or gate latches. All the the provisions in our Trust have the same keyed alike lock and all staff have a key which is worn with their ID lanyard. From a risk point of view, there is more risk involved with a child escaping than there is with the lock on the external gate. So, we constantly have the security v fire safety dilemma, and other workable solutions would be welcomed.

 

 

Is this a gate from an external yard? The key words are RISK ASSESSMENT as oppose to auditing against perfect world text book scenarios and based on the measures already in place it shouldn't be too hard to find a risk assessed solution to meet both fire & safeguarding needs