The Sea Company

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

EPISODE 9 - THE FIRE DRILL


When we were mapping out the restoration room, the children became interested in signs that might be placed around our HQ building. We used an English lesson to discuss and make any signs that would be displayed: No Smoking; EXIT; THIS WAY TO ….. etc. They became particularly engaged with Fire Exits which led on to the discussion of what a fire door is and what we do if there is a fire. We read our school fire drill, which the children found to be lacking in some vital points of information but were fascinated by phrases such as ‘evacuation procedure’ and ‘assembly point’.

We decided to make an effective fire drill for our HQ and realised that we didn’t know much about the outside area, but quickly decided there was a car park round the back which would be the assembly point. (Some of the children started to get interested in what the car park was like so we will go into this later.) The fire drill discussion was really lively as the children were really worried about safety and whether the priority was to help fight the fire or to get everyone out safely. We had a lengthy discussion about the type of alarm – bell / ambulance type siren or computer generated high pitched beeping so tried some of these out to gauge loudness and effectiveness - anyone walking into our classroom at this point would have wondered what the hell was going on. Discussions about a register to check who was at the assembly point prompted concerns about check in systems to the building – do we have a record of everyone who might be in the building at any one time. (Again something to follow up later.)

The fire drills which the children then wrote were very effective and to the point.

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