Fire education needed?

A level pyrotechnics

MissAdventure

I think it's an excellent idea for achools to teach fire safety.
It coukd include an element of first aid, too.

We used to invite local firemen into school to talk to the children, primary age. It's far more meaningful and serious coming from a man in uniform, (!!), and the warnings stay with the children from a young age.

GrannySomerset

Yes, let’s add compulsory fire safety lessons to the already overloaded school curriculum. Is there anything that teachers shouldn’t be responsible for teaching?

True, but sometimes there are more valuable lessons to be taught than a morning of teaching Algebra or Adverbs.

But I would say that, (independent school), where we are allowed to tweek the curriculum and teach what we feel is most important at any particular time!

Local firemen would bring a fire engine to my children's primary school events, the children could climb into the fire engine and became very interested in what they had to say.

They were volunteer firemen and it helped that some of them were parents of pupils.

When my boy first came here, I choked on a sweet; breathed in, and down it went, sideways.

I was shocked and really afraid to realise he had not the faintest idea what to do, and I was probably going to die.

I managed eventually to gesticulate that he should hit my back, and he tap tapped so gently. It was awful - i was losing my vision, and could feel my eyes rolling back.
I shoved him out of the way and let myself fall backwards onto my bookcase, and luckily it loosened the sweet, which i managed to throw up.

We spent the afternoon just staring at each other in wonderment and disgust.

So, just be aware, if you're spending time, just you and your grandchild.
I'm not blamng the school, by the way, its just very basic knowledge.

A good way of educating young people, rather than young children, would be to take them to the sites where wildfires have happened very recently, and explain the impact on the environment, wildlife and humans so they can see for themselves the devastation that the fires have caused. That might increase peer pressure on the ones who start a lot of the fires, so it carries a stigma rather than being a status thing to do.

Watching the soldiers digging trenches to create firebreaks in South Wales today, I also wonder if one of the penalties should be community service for those who deliberately start fires, helping the soldiers to dig them.

How scary for you MissAdventure. Glad you had the presence of mind to take over the situation.

All state funded schools in England are required to teach first aid as part of health education for all key stages. In primary schools, pupils learn essential skills such as how to make an emergency call and how to respond to common injuries. In secondary schools, pupils build on this foundation by learning additional skills, including cardiopulmonary resuscitation and how to use an automated external defibrillator.

I would say this is best done by a fire officer visiting the school and giving a talk during an assembly or similar, then following it up with an activity that allows the pupils to do something practical.
Unfortunately the fire officers are all rather busy at the moment and the schools are on holiday.

Lots of us will remember being tsught to cross the road safely. Then there was the Green Cross Code. Admittedly I'm going back to the dark ages when zebra crossings were a new thing and car ownership was rising quickly, but I don't remember any of us being dismissive of it.

Basic safety does sometimes need to be taught. We're risk assessing constantly even if we don't realise it. Better off being aware of what the risks might be I reckon.

They use tv ads here though I suppose these days that might not work as well as it once did because of alternative social media platforms. Of course, younger ones can’t use them anymore so that’s not possible, either. We have bushfires somewhere in our State every single year, mostly caused by people rather than nature. They broadcast fire ban days on tv and radio. Most of our fires are enormous, many hectares and very frightening.

"Look left, look right, look left again. If all is clear...."
Also "Never go off with a stranger".
Even a certain DJ telling us to "clunk, click, every trip"

It goeß to show how much that info has stayed people's heads, that we can still remember the messages.

How situations change in the blink of an eye.
Until the recent spate of heatwaves the Fire Service's main work came from road traffic accidents. Fires were quite rare. The pressure on the Fire Service must be intolerable at the moment. We owe our fire officers a great debt of gratitude.

butterandjam

When I was a kid we made fires, cooked on them, had bonfires etc . My kids do the same and so do the GC.

Schools don't need to do this. It's another of the every day skills to be learned at home with parents; along with crossing the road, cooking, swimming, using everyday tools safely (needles, scissors, knives, hammer and saw).

What ought to be done, is not the same as what actually happens.

Our local Facebook page is littered with people looking for someone to turn a dress up, sew buttons on, hang pictures and a whole slew of very minor domestic tasks that we remembered seeing being done at home - and clearly did not teach our own children !

As for crossing the road. My sister taught geography at a secondary school and used to take her 16 year olds on field trips to local towns and villages to study them. The first thing she did was gather the children in a group and teach them how to cross a road, not to step backwards into the road. This was because they went everywhere by car and shopped in pedestrian shopping malls and precincts, so never needed to know how to cross roads.

Casdon

A good way of educating young people, rather than young children, would be to take them to the sites where wildfires have happened very recently, and explain the impact on the environment, wildlife and humans so they can see for themselves the devastation that the fires have caused. That might increase peer pressure on the ones who start a lot of the fires, so it carries a stigma rather than being a status thing to do.

Watching the soldiers digging trenches to create firebreaks in South Wales today, I also wonder if one of the penalties should be community service for those who deliberately start fires, helping the soldiers to dig them.

Yes, agree wholeheartedly.

That is very,very upsetting. When we went and saw the bushfire area and ruined house of our daughter and her family I took a long time to get over it.I can still picture the traces of smoke coming from blackened trees and the melted washing machine. Vile.

Crikey missadventure, I am not minimising what happened, it sounds terrifying but you do have a captivating way of describing a scene.

Thanks, (i think!)
I'd actually forgotten all about it, but it was truly terrifying, and the worst of it was, it was a cough lozenge I choked on.

sorry I should't laugh thank goodness you were ok

This isn't something new is it? the teaching of dangers. I can remember the transport police (??) or maybe the rail people coming in to school to do a talk about the dangers of railway lines, specifically electric ones. It was quite frankly terrifying but my parents had never mentioned they were dangerous!!

Even in FE we have outside agencies come in during tutorials to talk about dangerous stuff and some not so dangerous stuff like icash. The problem is with kids, they don't really listen to their parents

I always proposed simplified (if necessary) first aid/fire courses to be given to the the service users in the compamy where I worked.

Not that anyone took any notice, but nights, in particular had one staff person on, with witj several service users.

I asked one of our service users what he would do if I fell down the stalrs, and he couldnt wake me up.
He said he'd make sure my legs were together,

MissAdventure

I always proposed simplified (if necessary) first aid/fire courses to be given to the the service users in the compamy where I worked.

Not that anyone took any notice, but nights, in particular had one staff person on, with witj several service users.

I asked one of our service users what he would do if I fell down the stalrs, and he couldnt wake me up.
He said he'd make sure my legs were together,

Cheeky bugger !

Post of the day MissA. 😄😄