Importance Of Fire Drills

[Guest]

Hello im after a few ideas on how to get children do understand the importance of fire drills. i run a new pre-school setting and do fire drills on a regular basis but the children still dont responed to fire whistle they either just carry on playing or look out me with blank exspressions and only after i repeat process about 3 times do they stop what they are doing and come to me.i have explained to them the importance of the whistle but i feel im speaking a different lanuage.the children currently at the setting range from 2 and half to nearly four .

[Rea]

Its just practice I'm afraid. At playgroup when the alarm or whistle sounds all staff have a role in chivying the children to the exit, explaining all the time, they usually say 'if someones burnt the toast in the kitchen how quickly and quietly could they get outside?'. They still get the odd ones who want to carry on playing but mostly it works well. The hardest thing is getting parents to follow without collecting bags and coats.

Edited February 5, 2010 by Rea

[Guest]

What about putting a pretend fire on display (e.g. a sheet of cardboard painted with flames)?.

 

This will give the children a visual prompt and if you put it in different places each time it'll make both staff and children think about different scenarios rather than just leaving by the main exit.

 

RR

[Alison]

I try not to mention fire as it might be other reasons you need to get the children out of the building quickly, plus some children are worry worts and only need a suggestion of danger to worry about what if's and maybes

 

Fire drill as a whole might be alot for some of the children to understand but breaking it down into steps in a game might help, we play a game called the listening game I ask the children to do something and then make a fuss of the children who do it first

 

for example start off with the children doing simple actions "touch your head, touch your nose, clap you hands, stamp you feet," and while the children busy are doing whats been asked take them through the steps of the fire drill, they wont know that this is what your doing but it will make them follow you easier, then next time you start the game, blow the whistle so they know they are playing the "listening game" when they hear the whistle they have to listen for your instructions and follow you it wont take long to teach them to know what the whistle means and it also makes it a usefull tool should you need to do alternative evacuation proceedures as already noted who knows where the fire or other hazzard might be so it might be that you need to use a different exit or lead the children to a different assembley point

 

I hope that makes scense

[louby loo]

We often talk about this during cirlce time, we ring the bell and simply talk about why/what we would do. Over time I have found the children then seem to respond better during actual 'drills' because they are already familiar with the sound and know what is expected of them.

xx

[Beauvink]

I read this with interest - Hopefully if you have real fire detectors you set these off? Only saying this because in a real situation the children would not respond to a different signal or sound

[Gezabel]

I read this with interest - Hopefully if you have real fire detectors you set these off? Only saying this because in a real situation the children would not respond to a different signal or sound

I think this is a really good point. A while ago the fire officer came to check all the smoke alarms and the whole 'system'. This meant that the 'real alarm' was going off for 10 seconds at intervals of a couple of minutes for about half an hour. Though our children were, on the whole really good at exiting the building when we had our practices the 'real alarm' threw them completely.

 

Our fire drill record now has step by step instructions with the code numbers on how to set the alarm off and then reset it. No staff are told when this might occur I just decide when to do it. The result has been that children do now respond to the 'real sound' and staff are much better too - in the past staff knew we would be having a fire drill at whatever time and were kind of 'waiting for it'.

[Guest jenpercy]

I have told my staff that I will do this and I plan to choose a time when I know that staff or children are in the loo, or a staff member is on a break.

 

Last fire drill that my supervisor did, it was raining, so she got staff to go round putting shoes on before she blew the whistle!!!

 

Something to make you laugh. Our main room is a gym. The ceiling is so high that scaffolding has to be errected to get up there. A few years ago there was a smoke alarm up there which kept annoyingly bleeping low battery at us for wqhat seemed like weeks until they had to go up to look at the tank and then on the advice of the fire officer, they disconnected it. 3 years later a new fire officer demanded that it be reconnected. If we waited for that to go off before evacuating the children, we'd all be dead. We do have alarms in the other rooms though!

[mps09]

we use 'stop and freeze' to get the children's attention all through every sessions, to announce tidy up time, snack time, or any other 'announcements'.

 

So after the fire bell (or whistle) is blown I shout 'stop and freeze, that was the fire alarm everybody to the door and take a ring' we use an evacuation rope.

 

Works very effectively even for new children who just follow what everyone else does!

 

Hope that helps

[Bigsue]

We are in a village hall and have regular checks so we have the policy that when the checks happen and the alarm goes off we go out!!

 

I generally don't tell staff (I am Mean) because if they are in the loo etc they best move fast it could be real

 

Must do one tomorrow

 

Big Sue

[Guest]

We are in a village hall and have found in practice that it takes three quick blows of the whistle to get the full attention and then most children go to the whistle blower, and are then lead out of the door.

 

Rachel