Daily Fire Registers

[ninjafish]

Hello all.

 

Not technically an MIS question but partly related.

 

What do your schools do about student fire registers for students?

 

Currently ours print out a report every day which includes the mornings registers about 9am. 99.9% of the time they are simply shredded at the end of the day which seems like a huge waste of manpower, toner and paper.

 

Ideally the report would print automatically to multiple printers (incase of no paper etc) when the fire alarm sounds. Not sure how feasible this would be.

[GREED]

Would you not be considering an electronic approach for this, in 2016?

[ninjafish]

I would love an electronic solution however the cost of the electronic device (on per form group would be required) would hugely out way the current method. May be a few years down the line if we implement tablet devices.

[GREED]

Understood. What about BYOD for an electronic solution - staff use their own mobiles.

[forkies]

We looked at electronic but it just didn't cover all the bases for our health and safety. What if the server room was on fire? What if it fails, update broke the app, battery dies, lost/stolen.

 

We have the fire register printed on scrap usually, doesn't cost a lot realistically. You could downsize it to A5 instead of A4 as well. That would half your costs?

 

Alternative is to have 1 printed and then only print out absent students each day, then in the event of a fire alarm, the blank register is taken and any missing students are reported to the attendance officer who has the list of absent students for the day (along with the sign in/out book). That would reduce costs significantly, however every time a student moves reg group or joins/leaves that register would need reprinting.

 

Personally I think the last option is the best in terms of cost.

[GREED]

Or you look at software that can cache your attendance info and so even if your server room burns data is still available?

 

I have fears of the old days when admins would sit and wait for lists to print while the fire alarm is ringing...

[Bigbird7]

We haven't committed to it yet but the latest version of Groupcall's Emerge has Fire Registers built in. I need to check how this would work if servers were offline.

[GREED]

We haven't committed to it yet but the latest version of Groupcall's Emerge has Fire Registers built in. I need to check how this would work if servers were offline.

It does yes. It works the same as taking attendance normally in that it can cache the attendance offline (originally for when you go out of wireless, on a school trip etc), let's you take the fire register quickly in single taps, and then see who is missing, and importantly who is missing who should be there!

[MatthewL]

Print a master list and laminate and either have an absence report printed each day or use something like a chinagraph pen and mark on the laminated sheets who is absent each day.

[RichP]

We may be alone here, but we abandoned printed and digital registers for evacuation some time ago and have never looked back! We have 10 buildings on our site, and when the fire alarm sounds teaching staff take their class and line them up in their year groups in a safe location. Non-teaching staff then, where it is safe to do so, sweep through the buildings for stragglers. Realistically the register is useful from a behaviour management perspective, but if a building is on fire the fire brigade will be checking for people regardless of whether everyone has been ticked off.

[forkies]

During a major incident you need to know who is missing to inform parents. This is part of our critical incident policy which was advised to us by the LA. Might just be a local thing though.

[GREED]

This does come up a number of times during this conversation... that the fire department will sweep regardless...

 

My question would be: if there is a real fire, would you or more importantly would the parents want to know if someone was missing? How quickly would you be able to identify that? 30 mins? An hour? Do you care?

 

Would it help the fire chiefs to know if someone was unaccounted for?

[MatthewL]

From a fire officer point of view, on arrival the first thing they will want to know is what is on fire and where, is everyone accounted for, who is in charge and are key services shut down failing that where can they be isolated i.e. gas and electricity. If everyone is accounted for they will not commit inside unless there is a need to to fight a fire if there is one. F&R will not commit if there is no need as it endangers FRS personnel.

[winng]

Print a master list and laminate and either have an absence report printed each day or use something like a chinagraph pen and mark on the laminated sheets who is absent each day.

 

Clearly the only practical and robust system to adopt!

[GREED]

Clearly the only practical and robust system to adopt!

So long as the laminater is working

[bobsmith]

When I spoke to the fire service last what they most wanted was for us to have cleared the buildings of people.

 

There are so many problems with paper registers that it's only use is to occupy the time of the form tutors and students while they wait around on the field.

 

The issue with the register is that for it to be any good it has to be fool proof - and it never is.

[ninjafish]

Thank you all for the comments, it seems that there is no "Best practice" for this. personally i think paper is the most reliable as it can not be out of charge or out of sync but at the same time it is out of date as soon as you print it. Its interesting that some places dont do registers i assumed they were a mandotory task for schols when thre was a fire alarm.

[NB9457]

We may be alone here, but we abandoned printed and digital registers for evacuation some time ago and have never looked back! We have 10 buildings on our site, and when the fire alarm sounds teaching staff take their class and line them up in their year groups in a safe location. Non-teaching staff then, where it is safe to do so, sweep through the buildings for stragglers. Realistically the register is useful from a behaviour management perspective, but if a building is on fire the fire brigade will be checking for people regardless of whether everyone has been ticked off.

 

IMO it's never safe to sweep through a building that could potentially be on fire. You wouldn't immediately know where the fire was, how quick it could spread, if there is any fuel that could make it go up quicker, etc, etc.

 

This is why we have fire alarms and why we are told not to go near the building until we have been given the all clear.

[bobsmith]

the trick is to clear it as you exit, if you are legging it out ahead of the students then I'd be asking questions...

 

I don't think there is a real need to go back and clear the building after you've all left it, just don't leave any kids behind.

[forkies]

During a few scheduled drills and some real fires (small but real) we have had from the point of alarm to roll call completed in around 7 minutes. The longest being 10 minutes, these are recorded in the fire register. By the time the FRS arrive we have all the information ready for them. I think it is always best to know who is missing, as @MatthewL said FRS will do a sweep but only provisional. If there is people missing then it is escalated. No need to take extra risk if it is not needed, luckily we have not been in this situation.

 

Again IMO paper registers, with just a absent student list. Which is identical to what we do for staff already.

[Meldrew]

When I spoke to the fire service last what they most wanted was for us to have cleared the buildings of people.

 

There are so many problems with paper registers that it's only use is to occupy the time of the form tutors and students while they wait around on the field.

 

The issue with the register is that for it to be any good it has to be fool proof - and it never is.

 

We are told the same. The fire brigade don't care about a register list; they just want to know if the building has been cleared. We have a number of support staff that check areas are clear and report to our principal. A reasonably updated register list is kept by tutors inside their staff lanyard so they can take a register as belt and braces.

 

Meldrew

[MatthewL]

As part of a fire procedure in somewhere like an office or school certain people weather it be teachers or office staff are to do a sweep of the area they are in and check its clear and then these report to the fire warden who will be outside taking the lead on it all and its that person FRS will go to weather that be an office manager or caretaker it doesn't matter who is the most senior its the person who is the warden. The main aim is to get everyone out safely and as quickly but not rushed that people have accidents and accounted for. Registers are worthless as said to FRS they just need to know who is missing.

 

A teacher should know how many is in a class, so when outside do a quick count to determine if anyone is missing, a register takes too long, its only once someone is missing you need to see who it is.

[vikpaw]

Accounting for people is too difficult. In an office, maybe, but with 100s of staff and students moving around, the possibility of someone entering the site late, leaving early, dawdling, skiving etc. makes it way too difficult to account for all.

 

Sweep as you exit is the way to go. With wardens and all that.

 

I like the head count idea too, the teacher in charge should know how many to expect. That's quick and easy.

 

I can't believe the number of schools where students return to form groups. What's the point relying on the mornings register and students doing a huge mixup. It's makes way more sense for the class teacher to keep the students with them and lead them out. Never been at a school where this happens though!

 

Usually whoever discovers the fire and raises the alarm or a nearby adult would have responsibility to make sure the immediate vicinity is clear and would have the info to pass on. The rest of the areas are cleared as a precaution.

 

We currently have some new fire alarms that only go off in the building where it was activated.

 

The fire chief can assess the risk based on info given. Relying on registers is foolish , they can't get them right on a daily basis, why rely on them in an emergency.

 

Just my humble point of view.

[Ecclesbury]

I think the rationale behind getting into Form groups is for ease of crowd control. Every student should know exactly where they need to get to during a fire drill. If that location changed every time there was a drill based on which class they were in I can imagine some chaos. It also means that supply teachers, or very new teachers who might not know (or have forgotten!) where they need to go in a fire drill can at least be told by the students. Although I do appreciate the point about the class teacher having a much better common sense grasp of who might be missing.

 

Is anyone else having the same kind of fun with lock down policies and drills?

 

The approach I like with lockdowns is to harness the power of common sense. Accurate roll calls are so problematic that I'm advocating for only the reporting of anything that is unusual. So a class teacher reports where a student has left and not returned, or where they have taken in a student (or staff) that would not normally be with them. This way you quickly get to the useful info without having to wade through lists of people who are where they should be. This way the drill becomes much more focused on the physical locking down of the building, rather than on producing a roll call. I know they are not the same thing but I think the same kind of thinking could be applied to fire drills.

[vikpaw]

I don't see crowd control when every class Y7 and above that is in sets split up to go to different areas, whilst having a private conversation.

I get your point, but to be honest, get clear, get safe with your group.

At my old school (that I went to) sometimes we'd just be out at the back of the rugby pitch. I'm not even sure if they did a roll call, when it was a bomb threat you just got clear.

 

In the middle east we routinely do lock-in drills if the threat is outside the building, for this you obviously stay with your current group, and anyone passing by joins, if they can get in before you lock the door! It makes sense for me to have the group stay together. That way live info on whether a student has just nipped to the toilet, gone home, just arrived etc. is valid with the current teacher/supervisor responsible for them at the time.

 

I've done dummy drills back in the UK and kept back students deliberately, and they don't even get missed. If taking registers was fool proof we wouldn't have reports that tell us when they aren't taken, and constant reminders to staff to do them properly, and the myriad other techniques we use to make sure they are done. We all know it's a weak point, I just don't know why management obsessively insist it's a reliable safety measure. It makes 'them' feel like they are doing the right thing, but I don't believe it is useful.