Primary school children across Lancashire are being offered a new set of emergency preparedness lessons, with a Blackburn school helping to test the material before its wider rollout.
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The free Schools Community Resilience Project toolkit is aimed at Key Stage 2 pupils and is designed to help children prepare for emergencies and build resilience.
It was launched recently by the Lancashire Resilience Forum after Blackburn’s Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School helped to trial it.
The idea came from Sarah Riley, manager of Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Civil Contingencies team, during research for her PGCert qualification.
Her work highlighted the importance of schools having structured, multi-agency lesson plans covering a range of emergency-related topics.
Following the trial, the toolkit is now being rolled out in primary schools across Lancashire. It has also been designed so it can be used by youth organisations as well as schools.
According to Blackburn with Darwen Council, the lessons include topics such as preparing a ‘grab bag’ with essentials, understanding the roles of the emergency services and roleplaying 999 calls.
The toolkit has been endorsed by the University of Wolverhampton and includes six flexible lesson plans. It is mainly aimed at pupils in Years 3 to 6, but can be adapted for other age groups.
Councillor Julie Gunn, Blackburn with Darwen Council’s Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education, said the resource could help children understand how to keep themselves and others safe and prompt conversations at home about how families would respond in a crisis.
The toolkit is free to use and can be downloaded from Lancashire Prepared.
Link: https://www.lancashireprepared.org.uk/protect-your-community/schools-community-resilience-project
