Events

Last Friday Year 1 had a very exciting visit from the Forestville Fire Brigade. Four firemen gave a great presentation on fire safety using lots of visual aids and demonstrations. This included learning about good and bad fires. (Naturally birthday candles were considered good!). They also shared information about their role in the community and showed us their truck full of interesting equipment. They reinforced fire safety rules such as:
1. never play with matches
2. ring 000 if there is dangerous fire
3. go to the fireman if he comes to help you

Next

They also taught us special slogans to remember if we are caught in a dangerous fire - “Crawl down low and go go go” and “Stop Drop Cover Roll”. The children had LOTS of questions.

One of the fireman dressed with the full oxygen tank, face mask and gloves to talk with the children. This was to help children learn even though he sounded and looked "scary" he was there to help them.

For parents here are some important reminders:
1. install smoke alarms in your home
2. replace smoke alarm batteries when you change the clocks for daylight saving
3. teach children how to call 000 and give their home address - but never to do it for fun
4. have an evacuation plan
5. children were told to meet at your letterbox and never to re-enter a burning building

Enjoy the photos. We are very grateful to Forestville Fire Brigade for their willingness to teach our children such important lessons.

The school today conducted a Fire Drill to ensure our evacuation procedures were known and understood by staff and students. With so many new students and quite a few staff this is an important lesson. At least two fire drills are conducted each year. An emergency such as a fire is signaled by a siren or a continuous ringing of the fire alarm. On the alarm, each teacher with a class marshaled pupils out of the room and proceeded by the safest direct route to the allocated area and line up in class groups.


One child in Kindy wanted to know when we would see the drilling, so was probably a little disappointed with the lack of real action.  Junior classes assembled on the tiered grass area outside Transition (Little England). Secondary classes went to the school oval and assembled in Home Class groups. Student rolls were then checked by their Home Class Teacher.

Fire wardens are responsible for checking each building prior to going to the evacuation areas. After each fire drill a review is conducted to see where the exacuation procedure can be improved.

In the event of a fire at Lunchtime or Recess, everyone is to assemble in the same areas. Naturally for a Lockdown the procedure is different and drills for this will also be conducted during the year.

Last week's General Staff meeting at Covenant was dedicated to training staff on Anaphylaxis. This training is a regular reminder to staff of the importance in dealing safely with students (or staff) with life threatening allergies. In the coming weeks many students will be attending camps so the meeting was scheduled as a refresher in recognising danger signals and using the epi pen. The training was conducted by Geraldine Dunne from Westmead Children’s Hospital. As a school we are fortunate to have two sick bay rooms  and two nurses, Mel and Jacqui, who job share. Having an onsite nurse is a great comfort to parents who have children requiring treatment. All the staff are now skilled in using an epi pen and more alert to the dangers of allergies and severe reactions to foodstuffs or insects.