You may think that emergency lighting is not required in education. After all, schools and colleges are often considered to be a ‘daytime’ premises. However, all non-domestic buildings legal require emergency lighting, regardless of when they are primarily open.
An educational facility is a constant hub of activity, from the early morning right through until the last bell. There are then after school events, sports clubs, plays and performances. Due to the vast amount and variety of individuals at educational premises, emergency lighting needs to be readily available. It also needs to be in good working order so it can ensure the safety of people within the premises if there was an emergency and lighting was poor.
There are around 9,000,000 students in primary and secondary school education in the UK. Further to this, there are around 500,000 teachers within full and part time employment. This totals around 10,000,000 individuals, at least, in schools each day. Clear and suitable emergency lighting in education is essential for the safety of these people within the educational sector. The emergency lighting needs to be in good working order to ensure that staff and pupils are given the best possible opportunity to safely exit the building in the case of an emergency.
You need emergency lighting to protect the lives of staff and pupils in an emergency. Through emergency lighting, those within the building are given adequate lighting to safely exit the building. It is a statutory requirement under The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.
Emergency lighting is a very important feature of both safe school design and also practice. It is important that the emergency lighting in education buildings is maintained to a high standard. This means that you will know it is working when it is supposed to.
We would recommend that an internal member of your team checks the working order of the emergency lighting on a monthly basis. This should be a competent person that has the sufficient authority to report an issue to a professional emergency lighting team, like ourselves, so the emergency lighting can be repaired, maintained or replaced.
Further to this, an annual emergency lighting service is recommended to check and maintain that the emergency lighting is in good working order and can be relied upon in case of an emergency.
