Why Quality and Care of Sports Equipment Matters
Teachers, coaches and volunteers have a responsibility to protect students from harm… Adults teaching physical education, sport and physical activity will provide safe sessions where they think about what can be anticipated in the activity and organise to prevent incidents arising.
This is all quite a responsibility! Managing players, participants, spectators and kit to keep everyone active, happy and safe is no mean feat. The last thing a busy coach needs is faulty equipment or dodgy facilities on top of everything.
Safety first. Stadium, seating, pitch, court, field and changing rooms should all provide a solid, secure and safe background for the action. Equally, every bat, ball, post, net, locker and surface needs to be fit for purpose. This way, the focus can be on preparation, play and performance not hazard mitigation.
Unrewardingly, just like housework, keeping your sports facilities ever-ready and in safe condition takes a lot of hard work behind the scenes… but no one notices much, unless it’s not done and things turn messy!
So, top tip number one is to keep ahead of the game and make your approach to injury and damage prevention a continuous and structured routine. Have an experienced, qualified and capable grounds-person or manager, with a clear overview of your facilities, who gives positive support and direction to all staff responsible for any area of your PE and sports provision. It’s a good idea to have a structure to daily sports safety checks which everyone understands and can access.
Adopting good procedures can mean the difference between a minor and a severe injury, and can reduce the likelihood of such incidents occurring at all.
Of course, when it comes to pupil and player safety, your manager should, themselves, also have access to expert support. Professional, external annual sports safety inspection providers have qualified engineers with the training and expertise to spot faults and hazards that your everyday staff cannot be expected to notice or deal with. These specialist engineers, trained to comply with British and European Health and Safety standards, will ensure your equipment conforms to the required safety guidelines…vital reassurance for Ofsted, governors, school managers, parents, pupils and players.
When it comes to your major action spaces, here are a few key pointers to cover basics on a daily basis:
Sports Hall
- Floor well maintained and cleaned of slip hazards.
- Equipment stored safely, moved carefully and secured when being used.
- Equipment in good condition, not broken or damaged.
- Trip hazards minimised (such as dividing nets/curtains pulled back fully).
Playing Field
- Well maintained pitches – even surface, no holes/ruts/mounds, short grass.
- Checked for debris – stones, bottles, litter.
- Equipment well maintained and secured (goalposts, nets pegged properly, corner flags).
Artificial outdoor areas
- Astroturf surface is smooth and wrinkle free, no joints/stitching visible, no bald patches.
- Adequate sand/water applied.
- Checked for debris – bottles, litter.
- Equipment well maintained and secured.
- Dividing nets in good condition and fully extended/pulled back to prevent trip hazard.
- Adequate run-out space (from stored equipment or boundary fence).
Safety checks really are NOT optional. They are essential and ongoing, day by day, match by match, lesson by lesson. Sport invites bumps and injuries by its intrinsically active nature – but the facilities and equipment should help to keep them to a minimum, not amplify them.
- It’s an absolute necessity to ensure that all of your PE equipment in school is health and safety checked annually.
- Remove any condemned equipment immediately. (Don’t leave it in the hall and repurpose it to provide extra seating for pupils during assemblies).
- Secure your green spaces
- Fields are a luxury. If your school’s lucky enough to have one, make sure the pupils can use it all year round.
- Install good drainage.
- Build pathways so that everyone has access.
- Ensure you properly fence off the area to prevent the public (and their dogs) from wandering in and spoiling them
Just as in a match, preparation has a huge impact on the ultimate performance – so the facilities associated with the sports themselves can make an important difference. Having clean changing rooms with well-lit access, secure, solid lockers and non-slip, easy-clean floors give a feel good welcome to visitors and home teams alike. Having a decent boot scraper will please your cleaners too!
Equally, all your equipment will benefit from being cared for properly when off pitch. Good storage choices keep everything clean, secure, long-lasting, out of the way and easy to access to check for damage – thus also preventing possible unnecessary injuries caused by broken equipment or trip hazards. The Association for PE (afPE) provides some great guidance on what to look out for when it comes to equipment safety and care of resources.
In conclusion, it is so worth putting in the background effort to make sure every aspect of your PE and sports facilities and equipment is up to task BEFORE anyone actually uses it. With so much to think about, this can be daunting…but a regular safety routine, clear communication, and professional annual inspections won’t let pain stop play!
