Safety improved after accident

Laidley State High School where a student nearly died in a class exercise.

Rob Williams

A REPORT into the near-hanging of a 14-year-old student at Laidley State High School has been released a year after a classroom exercise went horribly wrong.

Two separate investigations, one by Education Queensland and another by Workplace Health and Safety (WHSQ), were launched after the June 1 incident.

About 60 students from three year 9 English classes watched on in horror as their male classmate hung from the roof with a rope noose tied around his neck and the teenager turned blue.

Education and Training director general Julie Grantham yesterday said the Education Queensland reassessed safety strategies and resources available to staff after the incident.

“As a result of our internal investigation and an investigation by Workplace Health and Safety, the department set up a taskforce to improve safety in our classrooms,” Ms Grantham said.

“The first action we needed to take was to modernise how risk management resources were made available to teaching and non-teaching staff and that has now been completed, ready to roll to schools in term two, 2010.”

The changes will mean that all teachers will have to complete a safety assessment of their lessons while they are being planned and before they are implemented in the classroom.

Education Queensland has refused to state if any disciplinary action was taken against the teacher involved, who was outside the classroom when the incident happened but rushed to the student’s aid.

Ms Grantham said it was a “terrible incident” which prompted the department’s Ethical Standards Unit to investigate the actions of staff.

A WHSQ spokeswoman said the department had issued an improvement notice to Education Queensland to improve its procedure for identifying and managing risk for classroom activities and supervision of students.