Get Ready Week

Issue: Volume 95, Number 18

Posted: 10 October 2016
Reference #: 1H9d4o

We know that when kids are involved in preparing for emergencies and learning about natural hazards, they encourage their families to be more prepared and play a more active role in responding to and recovering from emergencies.

The Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management and Civil Defence groups across the country use the week of the UN’s International Day for Natural Disaster Reduction (13 October) to encourage people to talk about their plans for an emergency.

Teaching resources for get ready week and beyond

  • Find the Get Ready Week teaching unit in the latest Starters & Strategies magazine(external link) (page 16 and 17) 
  • A bilingual resource for younger children, Me Noho Takatū, meaning ‘be prepared’ has been developed by a Hawke’s Bay collaborative working group and includes a book based on Ngāti Kahungunu legends relating to local hazards, waiata/songs, and a kaiako/teacher’s pack with teaching and learning ideas. Find it at goo.gl/p3MdbW.
  • Activity sheets have also been developed by the Hawke’s Bay group and are available in Te Reo Māori(external link) and English(external link) 

What’s the plan, Stan?

The new-look What’s the plan Stan? resource is coming.

This well-known guide for teaching emergency preparedness in primary classrooms is now online on the WhatsThePlanStan website(external link) 

As well as expanding to include years 1–3, the resource features information for school leaders, fact sheets and interactive quizzes, and suggestions for teaching and learning programmes focusing on emergency events and the impacts they could have on your community.

What’s the plan Stan? and the New Zealand curriculum

Vision

What’s the plan Stan? aligns with The New Zealand Curriculum’s vision of what we want for young people, particularly regarding them being:

  • confident – resourceful and resilient enough to cope with emergency events
  • connected – aware of hazards around them, and being responsible members of their communities through helping to reduce the risk of disasters
  • actively involved – participating and contributing to the wellbeing of New Zealand by being prepared
  • lifelong learners – making informed decisions to keep themselves and others safe from the impacts for emergencies throughout their lives.

Principles

When making decisions about your school’s local curriculum, What’s the plan Stan? is consistent with The New Zealand Curriculum’s principles of community engagement, coherence and future focus. It has meaning for students, connects with their wider lives, and engages the support of their families, whānau and communities.

Key competencies

These are the competencies students need to live, learn, work and contribute as active members of their communities. For this work, the following are relevant:

  • Participating and contributing: contributing to class discussion; participating in group tasks, especially those based on preparing for the impacts of emergency events; contributing ideas and problem solving strategies.
  • Thinking: exploring new ideas; making connections with prior knowledge; thinking critically about actions and reactions; being a problem solver; being able to analyse real and hypothetical situations.
  • Using language, symbols, and texts: recognising symbols or words that warn of hazards, or represent those that help you; using clear language to describe a problem and its solution; creating texts about emergency preparedness for a target audience.
  • Relating to others: showing empathy and care for classmates; working constructively as part of a group; demonstrating how to keep others safe as well as yourself.
  • Managing self: acting safely and responsibly around equipment; able to work independently on a task; listening to and following instructions carefully; dealing with a hypothetical emergency situation in the same way you would deal with a real one; showing initiative.

Learning areas

What’s the plan Stan? fits well under the following learning areas:

  • Health and Physical Education: Safety Management
  • Social Studies: Conceptual strands – Identity, Culture and Organisation; and Continuity and Change
  • Science: Nature of Science and Planet Earth and Beyond


Disaster awareness education can be a context for an integrated learning approach, including across other learning areas (English, mathematics, technology, the arts and languages) and is suitable for use in LEOTC.

To find out more visit WhatsThePlanStan website(external link)

BY Education Gazette editors
Education Gazette | Tukutuku Kōrero, reporter@edgazette.govt.nz

Posted: 6:06 pm, 10 October 2016

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