Year7 arson awareness
Warwickshire Fire & Rescue Service Prevention Team has recently been busy delivering important fire safety and arson awareness sessions to Y7 pupils in Warwickshire schools. The session continues the golden thread of our targeted education programme, building on knowledge and awareness gained during Y1 and Y5 sessions.
We introduce the concept of short- and long-term consequences of fire-play and arson. The students are shown quite a hard-hitting video of a young boy who suffered terrible burns and mental trauma after he was 'playing with fire' and then encouraged to share their thoughts about what they have seen. We then divide the students into small groups and each group is presented with a theme to discuss the consequences of arson fires which they are then encouraged to feed back to the class. These include environmental, financial, social & emotional, emergency services, legal and health. This is an opportunity for the students to be as creative as they like and to showcase their own ideas! We have had some fantastic diagrams, posters, flow charts, stage performances and even some rap performances!
When they are given the freedom to choose their own style of presentation, many of the students become very engaged with the topic and the message that they are trying to deliver. It can be loud, it can be messy, but it is always fun, and the students often exceed our expectations and produce some innovative performances!
Teachers feedback has been consistently positive as can be seen from some of the comments below:
Fantastic session - well planned and delivered. Students extremely engaged especially being a Friday last lesson! Thank you.
A really well planned and resourced session led by Sara. Really raised awareness among learners.
Brilliant presentation! Very knowledgeable and great energy to keep the students engaged.
The most enjoyable part of the session was Rebecca's delivery of the session and resources - an enjoyable engaging session for the learners
At the end of the hour-long session, each student is given a Fire Safety in the Home leaflet and an arson awareness pen to keep and are encouraged to share the important messages they have learned with family and friends.
We would love to deliver more of these sessions across the County so for any schools not already taking part, please contact us to book your slot. The topic sits well within the curriculum for Year 7's and is usually delivered as part of PHSE.
For more information you can contact Sara Beirne / Rebecca Roberts on 02476 314376