Are corrosive substances in your school safe?

Acid attacks – which include assaults using any corrosive substance, many of which are actually strong alkalis – are reported to have more than doubled in England since 2012. Matt Endean, deputy director at CLEAPSS, thinks that not all school staff are sufficiently concerned about the security of chemicals on their premises. ‘They don’t worry about the fact schools are rather insecure sites,’ he says. CLEAPPS, with the Home Office, has produced ‘Secure your chemicals’ (pdf), a document with practical advice for securing chemicals used in education.