This information applies to both campuses, all programs.
Why do we practice drills?
We practice drills each term to prepare for emergencies such as fire or people on site that shouldn't be (among other reasons).
Luckily, they are very rarely needed.
How do we prepare for a drill?
We are required to practice a lockdown and an evacuation each term.
Teachers will prepare students to understand what is involved in an evacuation on this occasion (where we go, what we take), and for the first lockdown later in the term.
Starting from Term 2, we start to provide less prior notice, as we need to practice on the spot, authentic responses and time them.
By term 4, we run authentic drills, with very little warning to anyone other than the leadership team.
We always debrief afterwards, so that students know it was a practice.
What happens during an actual evacuation?Students leave everything in the classroom and walk calmly to the campus oval until the problem is resolved.
If for some reason, the oval is unavailable -
- Senior Campus students walk to the Sports Club on Ney Road, and
- Junior Campus students walk to the PCYC facility.
Why do they leave everything?
- The process of packing / collecting bags consumes time.
- The actual emergency or problem may be in a student's bag (bomb / explosive / chemical) which means that the student would be taking the problem to the crowd.
Does the school communicate during an actual evacuation?
No. We communicate after the evacuation.
The focus of the staff is on the student and staff safety.
Why?
Safety is our priority - for your children, and for our staff.
We need to focus on that, not writing messages on various platforms, and then accepting more people to the site, and then signing people out.
Contacting you would probably prompt some of you to race to the school to collect your students.
While this is an understandable response, the priority during an actual evacuation is to keep the students and staff safely away from the emergency and keep the area in and around the College clear for the fire and police to do their work.
It may also be creating panic in the community for something insignificant.
Evacuations at other schools have been called because of staff smelling the smoke from burnt toast but thinking it was a fire.
As soon as we can, we communicate with you.