SCHOOL FIRE DRILL.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXIX, Issue LXIX, 17 March 1915, Page 7

SCHOOL FIRE DRILL.

The pupils of the Hawera District High School are exercised in fire drill, and this afternoon a test alarm was given in the presence of Mr F. W. Pettett, Superintendent of the Hawera Fire Brigade, and a Star reporter. Obstacles, sugh as a coat, stool, and bicycle, were placed in different positions ' with a view to ascertaining the initiative of the children, and when the alarm was rung the children were all out of the class rooms and formed up '.' in a hollow square (with the infants in the centre) in the playground in 48 seconds, which the Superintendent considered a very creditable performance. The time; would have been about eight seconds less only for the fact of a new teacher waiting. The obstacles were carried outside by the first boy or girl who encountered them. The headmaster (Mr C. A. Strack) has the children well under control, and a teacher and a senior boy stand at the entrances to see fhat all are out safely .v" This fire drill should be useful to the children in after life, as it teaches them confidence and to know how to act in a'case of emergency. TKe Superintendent was very well pleased with what he witnessed.