Date: Nov 11, 2013
A few weeks ago, PSG (Parent Support Group) is trying to look for volunteer parents to participate in an Emergency Exercise / Fire Drill Exercise for my son’s primary school. Most of the parents hear the word “acting” or “role playing”… they all rejected. So, the the P1 (Primary One) student’s parents are being asked to volunteer. So, I say “YES!"
This is my role card.
I suppose to bang the table and ask to see the principal. I am looking for my son, who is missing in school during the fire.
This is an exercise prepared by MOE’s Security and EMergency Planning Office (SEMPO) for the school.
Don’t play play.
There will be big BOOM big BANG! Very loud EXPLOSIONS.
There will be smoke.
More smokes.
There will be fire. (Wind blow the cloth from below and red orange lights shining on the cloth.)
There will be students got burned (3rd degree burns).
And screaming too.
Some burned both their arms.
Some burned their legs.
Students crying in pain.
Don’t play play!
Even teacher also got burned. (looks very painful).
There will be fake parent and fake daughter (or son) trying to inquire about the where about of their child. There will be table banging. There will be unreasonable demands. There will be screaming.
And how can the show ends without real firemen.
Firemen jobs is to put out the fire in the science lab that explode.
Ambulance will drive the injured away.
Father and son separated.
Real police is at the scene.
There will also be reporters from Berita Harian, Lianhe Zhaobao, and Straights Time, trying to get into the school gate and trying to find out what is going on.
All these simulations are done pretty accurately to test out the teachers and emergency response procedures of the schools.
Yes, we are testing the teachers and admins and headmasters on how to handle all these situations.
I think 99% of the school teachers and students knew there is a fire drill exercise.
Fire drill exercise, means, fire alarms sounded, and every one go to the assembly area. That’s it.
But 99% of these teachers and students DID NOT KNOW it is a full simulations that involves loud bangs, explosions, fire, injured teachers and students.
They did not know there will be reporters trying to get into the schools.
They did not know there will be missing students.
They did not know there will be blood, and screamings.
They did not know there will be firemen, fire truck, ambulance and police rush into the school.
IT WAS AWESOME!
All these is to test the teachers knowledge of the emergency response procedures.
All these teachers has gone thru training every years and this is the time to put into good use.
In fact, I think this is the first full simulations exercise.
Hey, did I mentioned that there will be TWO professional camera men going around the school to film and document down all these events.
We - the actors and actresses (parents and teachers) are asked to act as real as possible to test out teacher’s knowledge and how cool they handle the situations.
So, here is the verdict.
I think this school (my son’s school is prepared). Most of the teachers does not know what happened.
There are 1-2 teachers are really traumatised. They thought it is real.
But most of the teachers are able to carry out what they have been trained for.
They gathered all students in the basketball courts.
They start taking attendance. Try to see who is missing.
The teachers blocked parents to go to the assembly area for one reason, not to add unnecessary fear to the students.
“Why his daddy is here? where is mine?” (got it?)
So, parents are brought to a parents holding area.
OK. Parents holding area can see fire truck. Hold on, isn’t it too close to the explosion location? Just opposite?
(Yeap, feedback this to the principal.)
I can see from the windows at the holding area that the teachers are wearing the green vest and start searching room by room, floor by floor.
Later I overhead… “This student torn her NAME TAG off, that is why nobody know where is she. We have to sent all teachers a photo of that student on their phones to help look out for that students.” of course the students are asked to purposely tear the name tag away. Wahahahahaha
Later, I walked into a dark room accidentally and surprise to see 10 over students are in the dark room. I asked the teacher why? They told me, during this situations, some students really got scared about seeing the terrible scene (with explosion and blood on injured students), so, they were brought here for rest and teacher explain calmly to them what have happened. I see.
Oh ya… they set up the holding area at CARE 3 (Primary One) that is my son’s class. So, I wrote this on his exercise booklet.
“Daddy was here … Ken” Wahahahahahaha
After the exercise which takes place about 1 1/2 hour. All students gathered at the hall to debrief. Explanation of the exercise were told by the disiplne master.
All parent volunteers and teachers (the actors and actresses) were debrief in the library in front of MOE staffs to make sure we feed back what had happened and what is lacked what is done properly. So, overall, this school should score quite good for good handling.
Something to celebrate for. The food catering is here.
All the helpers have good food to eat.
Sorry Jay, you can eat free biscuits only. Wahahahaha.
And the school give us a small token and appreciation of our hard work.
This is indeed a memorable event for me. COOL!
I cannot wait to see the video on how we do. I think all of us “act” pretty naturally. Wahahahahaha
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