Shetland+Kat's+Earthquake+Day

Shetland-Kat's Earthquake Day!  For the end of my topic on volcanoes and earthquakes, and for the last day of term i used an idea that i got from someone on TES.

Last night, i turned the school upside down, put paper cracks on the floors and walls, and had a car lifted half into the playground and half on the wall in the cover of darkness!!

This morning, we cordened off the school with police accident tape and waited for the children to begin to arrive. We kept them all outside until 9 am.

Meanwhile inside, i used 2 annie dolls and 3 members of staff as casualties - we had a broken leg, broken collar bone, a burn and the two annie dolls were dead. The staff members went to town with face paint and added cuts, grazes etc to themselves. They then positioned themselves strategically under furniture. Our French teacher was the casulaty with the burn, and I had asked her to not speak English to see how they dealt with that. It worked! They got a french dictionary and they guided her and tried to calm her and tried to pick out words she was saying.

We let the children in to the canteen and gave them a brief that there had been an incident in the school area over night. We appointed 2 safety officers to go into the danger area and report back. I went with them and encouraged them to find the casualties, notice things like water on the floor etc.We had labels made for the children, high vis jackets etc.

The safety officers spoke to casualties and reassured them a first aid team would be in shortly. They then came out and we took in the first aiders. Meanwhile the local ambulance driver was called and he did a mock 999 call with the children. He was on his way. They also did a mock 999 to police (library assistant!).

The first aiders came in and responded to the casulaties. Meanwhile the other children were thinking what they'd need, so some went to houses near by for blankets, and others went and evacuated 2 houses (parents) in case of further aftershocks. They took them to the 'rest and recovery' area in the canteen. The childrne used their survival boxes they'd made for learning logs homwork this week as well.

The paramedic came and explained what they'd do with the 'dead' and treated our other casualties. We stretcherd out the staff member with the broken leg!

Before we could make snack we had to check the water was safe, so we had to phone the local NOSWA worker who came to test the water with the children. We also had hot chocolate and sweets at snack time to calm nerves and keep the rescue teams energy levels up! The children went to the shop up the road for supplies.

Other children had to direct traffic, another child was a media corrrespondant who started writing a report of the incident.

After all the casualties in the building had been dealt with, we reminded them about the car in the playground.

Another mock 999 to the firebrigade, 20 mins later the fire engine arrived to cut out the casualty. They removed the door from the car with cutting equipment which was exciting to see.

We phoned all parents to let them know what was happening as it is a very small area and everyone would have been panicking with the ambulance and fire engine at the school!!!! And obviously we had the paramedic and fire brigade in on it too!!!

What a fantastic day!!! The children got swept up in the drama of it all and performed their duties brilliantly.