Australia's Science Forum

Morning everyone,

when your school/campus does an emergency evacuation, what happens, & once everyone's at the assembly area, do you do a roll call of classes/home room groups to tick off all the kids, or do you have appointed staff clear rooms & buildings as they evacuate & that's how you confirm there's no one left on site?

Cheers,

We do a roll call on the oval, cross check the absent sheet with the late arrivals etc. The GA if on the grounds lock's up the different blocks, and checks each area. Some of our head teachers have jobs to do, like check windows. It is quite well set up.

Students line up in homerooms, homeroom teachers mark the roll, office staff bring staff roll and student rolls.
Other staff have different duties, maintenance staff check gounds, each block has a teacher/staff member deligated to check, I do the Science block and take the first aid kit.
Hope that helps

I know we should do drills twice a year, but does anybody do lock down drills?

We always have a drill during class time - about 20 min before the end of a period followed by lunch or recess. The class teacher is responsible for clearing the room and shepherding the class to the assembly point. Each teacher does a roll call and reports to their head teacher who reports to the fire marshall. One of the deputies is responsible for any kids on an unsupervised period in the quad.
The science teachers are responsible for ensuring the gas and electricity mains in the labs are off.
I am responsible for the Chemical Register and have to carry it to the assembly point and pass it to the fire marshall.
I'm not sure if anyone has to do a sweep of all rooms - but I'm pretty sure no-one would check on the Chem Store to see if I was there.
My head teacher would miss me, though, and report my absence.

As for a lock down drill - it's been talked about, but so far nothing has happened.

Carol

We seem to do the same as everybody else. Kids assemble in home room groups. Adults get their names checked off by certain staff members. I usually do the lock-up, checking rooms etc in my labs. To tell the truth haven't ever carried the Chemical Register down. If I Suggest it I'll guess I'll have another thing to remember.

My child was involved in an actual lockdown at her primary school. It was interesting to see how responsibly the senior primary students behaved in that situation, especially as it was a lunch hour and there were kids all over the joint and their classroom teachers were away up at the staffroom at the other end of the school. The biggest boys ran around and gathered up all the kids in their class, scooped up one little girl who had frozen to the spot on the playground, and got the bigger girls to count heads. Then two largish island boys literally sat on a boy who was being hysterical and silly and winding up all the kids.

Funny thing is then they come to High School and give themselves permission to be babies all over again.

what was the actual lockdown?

Looks like we doo the same as most people with some role variations. Here are some key points though:

Admin takes out a copy of the science register along with a whole school register of chemicals.

After making sure the science block is safe and evacuated, my job is to go to the entrance of the school , stop people coming in, record who goes out and direct emergency services to where required. We have radios for a number of key positions.

We practice this at various time of the day (some deliberatly timed to cause maximum confusion as this is what will really happen), three times a year minimum.

We also do lockdown drills three times a year.

After doing it a number of times we think we have the best solution for our school layout and have invited emergency services along to watch and critique.

Darryl

We do what everyone else does concerning fire drills. We also have a lockdown drill every term. Sometimes during class sometimes during lunch. The kids are pretty well drilled about lockdown and they need to get to the nearest allocated room. I think its important to practise the lunch time drills as this is potentially diabolical. Only thing is my door dosent lock from the inside, I just have sit up against the door

We do the same as above, everyone has a job to do but it usually ends up with everybody (including the staff) running from the buildings screaming then up over the fences into the countryside.

Hi bindibagi
If you give me your email address I will send you a copy of our evac and lockdown
Noona

We also have a lock down each term. A Fire drill twice a year.

Thank you Richard. That scenario cracked me up.
Lyn.

We had a lockdown practice this week. We'd finally gotten everyone locked into their labs, and all was quiet. Next thing, there's a relief teacher out of her lab, door left wide open, banging on another lab door, wanting to know was the practice finished! Sigh!!!! I think we've got some problems to iron out. At least noone from the second lab opened the door.
Cecilia

Some people just don't take it seriously do they? We had an evac drill a week ago, & it was drizzling with rain at the time.
I have to clear my building of people then report, & as I was heading to the assembly area on the oval afterwards, I came across 3 groups of students AND STAFF huddling under eaves & porches to keep dry!!!
When I tried to herd them all out, one of the teachers actually said "but I don't want to get my hair wet, it'll go all frizzy" !!??

With that sort of example being set it's no wonder the kids amble over to the oval at a snail's pace.
It will be a big shock if we ever actually have a fire (please no......I don't think my nerves could take it!! )

Thanks for your input everyone,

BTW - the actual lockdown, Macca my friend, was never fully revealed, but I think it was an alleged parent having an alleged psycho moment in the front office, where it was alleged that staff students and any other mortal would allegedly be physically harmed if and when said psycho decided to leave the front office. Allegedly.

Others alleged it was "just a drill" which fully explains why the teachers arrived at the classroom, commando style, moving below the level of the windows, and entering the classroom by the service door at the back of the storeroom. Mmmm, yes. A drill.

Our Fire/Bomb evacuation procedure is for all to depart the blocks and head down to the bottom oval.
Various people have different jobs, I have to grab the first aid kit, a 2 litre bottle of water and the chemical register.
Head teachers are responsible forensureing classrooms are empty and doors closed.
Down on the oval the kids are checked in "homeroom" groups and the various checks made as per most places.

The amusing feature is the Principal and deputies running around with hard hats and vests in different colours to indicate their importance. Even the office girls looking after the rolls have vests.

I have often thought that if someone wanted to wreck havoc with a gun, he could call in a bomb scare first then he would have everybody in easy range on the oval

We have had a couple of interesting hoax bomb threats causing evacuations over the last few years. Last year one of our kids sent a bomb threat to the school via e-mail. Didn't think it through very well as he used his DET address to send it from. He was very quickly tracked down.

About 5 years ago the hoax call was traced to the public telephone on the school premises just outside the front office Another student had even heard the boy making the call. The interesting thing is, the perpetrator of that call is now employed by the school to look after its computer network hopefully he no longer has a desire to sabotage the school

One thing I got very concerned about though was, during the e-mail bomb threat last year I happened to be out of the school doing shopping. I had signed out in the appropriate book in the Science staff room so my absence from the school had been properly recorded.

When I returned and found out about the evacuation I discovered no-one had noticed my absence and even asked to look in the sign out book. If it was a real incident I could have been unconscious in the prep room and no-one making any checks to find out if I was any where around.
I took my concerns straight to the OH & S committee and more checks on SASS and teachers aids are now made during evacuations. I also instructed my children to look out for me and ask someone if they can't see me. Realistically, where is a fire most likely to start but in science.

Wendy (today is sports carnival day so there are no teachers or students in the school, peace and quiet and time to sit at the computer )

I have often thought that if someone wanted to wreck havoc with a gun, he could call in a bomb scare first then he would have everybody in easy range on the oval

OK, needed that laugh today. Thanks.

we are having a lock down today at 9. just had a teacher come into the prep to "see if this room is of any use to us" WHAT!!!! " i guess i will just get them to hide under the tables in the class room" where exactly and what was she hoping to find in my prep room? pretty sure the idea behind a lock down is for everyone to saty where they are and not move around the school, inside or out? UGH!