School Parade or March Risk Assessment Template

Typical hazards & measures

• Weather hazards (heat, cold, wind, lightning) — Monitor forecasts and heat index, provide shade and water stations, adjust dress code to conditions, shorten or reroute in high winds, suspend for lightning under a pre-briefed shelter plan, and issue timely updates via SMS and steward announcements.
• Post-parade refreshments and allergens — Locate serving tables away from exits, label all ingredients, separate allergen-containing foods, supervise handwashing, seat allergic pupils with trained staff, carry auto-injectors at the table, and discard unlabelled donations rather than risking service.
• Vehicles within procession — Permit only inspected, insured vehicles with trained drivers at walking pace, position spotters at each corner, maintain a child-free exclusion bubble around wheels, prohibit reversing in crowds, and pre-check tow hitches, brakes and emergency cut-offs.
• Safeguarding and public interactions — Keep pupils within stewarded cordons, place staff along the parade edges, brief on declining gifts or unscheduled photos, require identifiable staff lanyards, and escalate any concerning approach to a supervisor while recording time, location and description.
• Communication failure during movement — Equip sector leads with radios and agreed hand signals, carry spare batteries and a whistle or air horn for “stop/evacuate,” set a designated tail, and brief a fallback regroup point so the procession can be re-formed quickly if mobiles or radios fail.