This page has been compiled by Sally Wearing, our H&S Advisor. Please bear in mind that it can take a few days between new guidance emerging and Sally reading it all and writing a summary. If you have further questions that the info below doesn’t answer … please email sallywearing@outlook.com .
See all our Covid-19 pages:
- Main Covid-19 page
- Practices (this page)
- Performances
- Online Practices
- Insurance
Update on 20th July
This only applies to England. If you would like advice for other parts of the UK, please contact Sally Wearing at sallywearing@outlook.com.
We are now at Step 4 of the government’s Roadmap and most of the restrictions have been lifted. Please do not automatically assume it is safe to drop all the restrictions (such as social distancing) when you are practising simply because the guidance allows you to. You need to decide which restrictions to keep or remove, taking into account how Covid-19 can be transmitted and the basic steps we should take to prevent it spreading.
We strongly recommend that you read the Main Covid-19 page first, including the Government Guidance, before deciding how to practise. You should then consult all the members of your team about what they do or do not want to do.
Close contact: one of the most important controls is to limit the close contact we have with people we do not live with. This means minimising the number of people we come into close contact with, how close we get and how long for. All close contact should be minimised; you should consider what other close contact people in your team have, such as at work or with other teams or doing other activities. The government recommends increasing close contact gradually.
Outdoor practices: this is still the safest way to practise, so if you can practise outdoors, you should do so. If whole practices cannot be held outdoors, consider holding as much as possible outside.
Indoor practices: the risk of transmission is greater indoors. If you decide to practise indoors, you need to increase the ventilation as much as possible by introducing plenty of fresh air into your practice room.
Venues: any business or organisation hosting a practice should also comply with the applicable government guidance. Whoever manages it should tell you what they have done to minimise the risk of transmission and what you should do while using their venue. They are responsible for minimising the risk from their premises; you are responsible for managing the risks from your activities, e.g. dancing and playing music.
Risk Assessment for Practices
We recommend reviewing your existing risk assessment for practices to help you decide which controls you can remove or reduce and which you should keep in place to protect people:
- consider each control in turn
- keep all that are related to legal requirements (e.g. asking people not to come to practice if they have symptoms, have tested positive or are self-isolating)
- decide which of the other controls you will keep in place, relax or remove
- agree the decisions with all of your team.
We strongly recommend keeping the most important controls in place, including minimising close contact, good ventilation if indoors, good personal hygiene, etc.
If you have not already done a risk assessment for practices, you can use the template risk assessment below, which covers both outdoor and indoor practices. It is based on Step 3 of the Roadmap. As above, we recommend reviewing each of the controls in it and deciding whether your team wants to keep them in place or not.
Template Risk Assessment: This is provided in these formats:
- Template Risk Assessment for Practices (PDF) (opens in new window)
- Template Risk Assessment for Practices (Word Format) (editable version – downloads to your ‘downloads’ folder when clicked)
- Template Risk Assessment for Practices (Rich Text Format) (editable version – downloads to your ‘downloads’ folder when clicked)
You need to customise it to your team and venue; please start by reading these notes on How to use the Template Risk Assessments (PDF). If you use the template, please send any comments, criticisms or suggestions for improvements to Sally at sallywearing@outlook.com. She is always keen to get feedback.
Queries
If you still have queries that the above doesn’t answer … please email sallywearing@outlook.com
