What does manual handling look like in outside school hours care?

Set-up and pack-down: the daily hazard

The defining feature of OSHC manual handling is that the same furniture is moved twice a day, every day, often by two or three staff in a short window before children arrive or after the last one leaves. Stacked plastic chairs are carried several at a time; trestle tables are folded, tipped and walked through doorways; heavy tubs of resources come off high shelves in a store room that was never designed for daily access. Each movement is manageable. Repeated across a term it is repetitive force, awkward posture and frequently high force from stacks that are too tall.

The controls follow the hierarchy. Eliminate: negotiate with the school to leave some furniture in place, or to store OSHC equipment in the room rather than in a distant store. Engineering: chair trolleys and table trolleys, tubs with handles on wheeled bases, shelving at waist height for the heaviest items. Administrative: a written set-up plan that shares the load across the team and across the week, and a realistic time allowance so nobody sprints a stack of chairs to be ready on time. Module 4 of the course, Risk Assessment and the Hierarchy of Controls, covers this reasoning and Module 7, Equipment, Aids and Room Design in Education and Care, the equipment; Module 3 includes an OSHC set-up scenario.

Stack limits matter. Agree how many chairs go in a carried stack and stick to it; most injuries here come from trying to save a trip. Team-lift trestle tables through doorways, with one person leading the count, and never let children carry adult furniture even when they offer.

Sports gear, outdoor equipment and vacation care

OSHC programs are physical. Portable soccer goals, bags of balls, gym mats, hurdles, crates of skipping ropes and shade structures come out for outdoor play and go back in afterwards, often across a playground and through gates. Gym mats and goals are two-person loads; a bag of balls is light but bulky and blocks your view of the ground. Take the route with the fewest steps and kerbs, prop doors and gates open first, and use a trolley or a cart wherever the surface allows.

Excursions on public transport and at venues add stairs, distances and unfamiliar environments. Plan who carries what, keep hands free for supervision, and treat a child who is injured or unwell on an excursion as a first-aid event, not a manual handling one — call for help and use a stretcher or wheelchair from the venue rather than carrying a school-aged child any distance.

• Keep heavy or bulky outdoor equipment stored at ground or waist level near the door it goes out of
• Check that goals, shade structures and mats are in good repair before moving them — a torn handle or a bent leg turns a routine carry into a sudden-force event
• Involve older children in carrying light items where your service's supervision and risk assessment allow; it is good for them and it is elimination for you
• On vacation care days, plan the excursion kit so that no one person is carrying the first-aid kit, the water, the sunscreen and the games bag

Kitchens, food and cleaning

Afternoon tea and vacation care lunches for large groups mean cartons of fruit, milk and juice, trays of food, urns and dishwashing. Deliveries should be dropped where they are stored, not at the front door for staff to relocate; heavy cartons belong on low shelves and light ones up high. An urn should be filled where it sits, not carried full, and a food trolley moves trays between the kitchen and the hall in one trip instead of several armfuls.

Cleaning at the end of the session — mopping a hall floor, wiping down tables, emptying bins — is sustained and repetitive work done when staff are tired. Use long-handled equipment, keep mop buckets on wheels and no more than half full, and share the cleaning list rather than defaulting it to whoever is left.

What the course covers for OSHC staff, and what your service must do

OSHC staff sometimes assume a childcare manual handling course is all cots and nappies. This one uses OSHC examples throughout — the school hall scenario, trestle tables and chair stacks, sports bags in place of buggies — because the principles are identical even though the loads are not. Module 5, Safe Movement Principles, covers planning a lift, keeping the load close, avoiding twisting through doorways, team lifts and knowing when not to lift. Module 6, Lifting, Carrying and Working with Children, addresses working with children of different ages, including when a school-aged child should not be lifted at all. Module 8, Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety, covers reporting a store room that is unsafe or a hall that arrives every afternoon in a state that takes an hour to fix.

The approved provider's duty is to assess the set-up and pack-down as the hazardous manual task it is, negotiate with the school over storage and furniture, provide trolleys and enough staff and time to do it safely, and train the team on the actual equipment and route. The Education and Care Services National Regulations also require safe premises, furniture and equipment for the children, so a store room that is dangerous for staff is a compliance question as well. This course supplies the theory; it is not approved or required by ACECQA or any regulatory authority and does not replace your service's own induction.

Common questions

Covered in the course

• Module 4: Risk Assessment and the Hierarchy of Controls
• Module 7: Equipment, Aids and Room Design in Education and Care
• Module 3: Identifying Hazardous Manual Tasks in Early Childhood Settings
• Module 5: Safe Movement Principles
• Module 6: Lifting, Carrying and Working with Children
• Module 8: Reporting, Incidents and Ongoing Safety

Related guides

• Is training required?
• Lifting toddlers
• Change tables with steps
• Floor work and back pain