Managed by Ophea, the Ontario Physical Activity Safety Standards in Education (OPASSE) represent the minimum standard for risk management practices for school boards in Ontario. They focus the attention of teachers, intramural supervisors, coaches, and outside activity providers on safe practices, in every activity, in order to minimize the element of risk. OPASSE includes a concussion protocol to help prevent and identify suspected concussions and manage a student’s safe return to learning and to physical activity. OPASSE is one component of a strong risk management toolkit for outdoor education.
School boards may RAISE the standards in OPASSE, but they are strongly encouraged not to LOWER them.
Teachers should always check with their school board to ensure alignment with their school board’s policies and procedures.
How to Access OPASSE:
- Visit safety.ophea.net
- Select Elementary (Grades 1−8) or Secondary (Grades 9-12)
- Select the activity. The activity pages are listed alphabetically, with outdoor education activity pages listed together starting with Outdoor Education. Each activity page includes the following sections:
- Title
- General Introductory Information
- Equipment
- Clothing/Footwear/Jewellery
- Facilities
- Environmental Considerations
- Special Rules/Instructions
- Supervision
- First Aid
- Definitions
- Select Curricular, Interschool, or Intramural, based on the setting of the activity.
