The Practical assessment should be the easiest part of the exam – you are not under exam conditions and can take your time to make sure you get it right first time.
There are 2 parts to the assessment:
- The Observation sheets, and
- The report to management.
The Observation Sheets are worth 30 marks – this is half of the marks you need to pass. You need to look around your workplace for hazards and note them down.
Look for 25 – 30 hazards and note them down in Column 1.
For each hazard you must include a CONSEQUENCE, in other words the Unwanted effect.
For every hazard you must give an IMMEDIATE Action with a timescale of 2 days or less, and a LONGER TERM action – see example of an overloaded circuit
Immediate action – unplug some of the appliances – timescale within 30 minutes.
Longer term action – fit more sockets – timescale 3 weeks.
Write the Immediate and Longer term actions in Column 2 and the timescales in Column 3.
The Report for Management is worth – 70 marks and needs to be organised under the following headings:
Introduction, Executive summary, Main findings, Conclusion and Recommendations
The Introduction worth 5 marks – you need to write a word picture of your organisation – its purpose, number of employees, activities taking place during the inspection, equipment in use at the time of the inspection.
The Executive summary worth 5 marks – complete this after you have written the rest of the report as it is a Summary of:
- The Conclusion
- The Recommendations
The Main findings worth 30 marks – here you need to write about the significant hazards you have observed, give some details – you should also include actions that the employer take to reduce/remove the hazard and the consequences of a worker getting hurt if the action is not taken.
Do’s
- Write about, at least, 5 different hazards or groups of hazards eg put all fire hazards into one group and electrical hazards into another group.
- You should identify possible breaches of legislation and explain how the legislation has been breached.
- Explain the significance of not taking action by explaining legal, moral and financial implications.
Don’ts
- Use the same words as you used in in the Observation sheets to describe the hazards, give more details.
- Don’t just give the title of the legislation that has been breached but explain how it has been breached, for example the worker trips on an uneven floor – legislation breached is the HASWA (Section 2) as the employer should have provided a safe workplace.
The Conclusion is worth 15 marks – Note, 3 or 4 lines won’t give you a mark of 15, you need to ‘discuss’ the main points of the main findings and SUMMARISE them. Give some thought to this – 15 marks is a lot to lose!
The Recommendations are worth 15 marks – and MUST:
- Follow on from the Conclusion, if the points are not in your conclusion then they won’t score marks in the Recommendations.
- Give the Resource Implications in terms of Cost or Time. Don’t put – ‘no cost implications as work is carried out by internal staff’, give this cost in terms of hours spent.
- Give a suitable timescale for the recommendations.
*Please note that this blog post refers to the old syllabus (before 5th September 2019) for The NEBOSH Certificate examinations. If you require further information on either the old or new syllabus, you can contact us; info@rrc.co.uk / 0208 944 3100
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Eva Ainscough Env(NEBOSH) Dip, GradIOSH, CBIFM, M.Phil, M.Ed, BA, RSA(Dip)
RRC Tutor & NEBOSH Practical Assessment Marker