1. Have children express their feelings. Youngsters will be able to draw pictures and dictate sentences, while older children will be able to illustrate their own stories. With everyone participating, this will draw out your shy, timid children who may not want to take part in a verbal discussion.

2. Make a bound book of class’ experiences and keep it in class library. Perhaps you can have students ‘rent’ it for a night to share with their families.

3. If you do not have Pen Pals, why not try to find a class in another part of country or world that has not experienced a hurricane. Your pupils will then become teachers as they explain what happened.

4. Instead of writing, your class could make a cassette or videotape. If sending it to Pen Pals, make sure you check on privacy policies in your school.

5. Use children’s experiences to have lessons on adjectives, adverbs, similes, and onomatopoeia.

6. Answer who, what, where, when, why, and how as you write opening paragraph of a story. Do it on overhead projector and obtain input from class members.

Health and Safety and KS1 & KS2 Curriculum.

Government Action

The Government determined that Health and Safety become part of curriculum in 2002 and defined that all pupils of should receive some 40 hours of H&S teaching before end of their schooling.

HSE has already produced materials which are being used to give a Basic Safety Induction to work for pupils going out on Work Experience from schools and colleges.

Safety has actually already entered syllabus in a fairly defined way and QCA have already produced a statutory statement and defined NVQ standards at higher levels, which are already used for qualifying members of HSE Inspectorate.

DfES have also played their part through their own expert tem and information delivered through Teachernet. National Curriculum for Health and Safety

The QCA statutory statement with regards to safety in curriculum states that it :

“applies to science, design and technology, information and communication technology, art and design, and physical education.”

In brief QCA has indicated that pupils must be taught whole range of concepts surrounding risk assessment and control including:

•Identifying Hazards and Risks. •Controlling and reducing hazards and risks. •Risk Assessment techniques . •To take care for their own and other’s Health and Safety.

The QCA have also issued guidance which was drawn up after consultation with HSE and this indicates that they have a view that RISK should be core of approach and they feel that teachers will have already introduced their pupils to concept of risk. The whole thrust of QCA guidance tells teacher to ensure that pupils are taught about risk at an appropriate level throughout their time in school. They see this as helping to ensure that pupils are better equipped to deal with risks with situations of uncertainty and change both in and out of school. QCA see main objectives of delivery of a Health and Safety curriculum as being a tool to ensure that pupils are able to: •recognise existence of hazards, risks and uncertainty in a range of contexts; •assess their own ability, and ability of others, to deal with different situations; •assess consequences when dealing with hazards presented to themselves and to others (for example, within school, environment, home); •seek advice from appropriate sources to minimise and manage risk; •understand that rules and regulations follow from risk assessment and help define individual and collective responsibility.

In addition already part of H&S is part of National Healthy Schools initiative for Primary Schools.

HSE and Curriculum HSE has set up a small Risk Education Team based in Central Expertise Policy and Support Division of Policy Group Directorate in London . Their stated intention is to: “influence degree to which risk management techniques are taught in schools and other educational establishments…..” They are developing four projects of which two are of interest insofar as curriculum is concerned.

•They seek to raise level f risk teaching in schools. •They seek to provide risk teaching materials for teachers and lecturers.

We can see that HSE has had a part to play in all initiatives regarding curriculum and has also addressed areas of concern, targeting primary school children in three sectors where deaths have occurred.

Thus Farming, Railways and Construction Sites all have had curriculum materials produced highlighting risks and unsafe behaviour and aiming to educate and modify behaviours.

These are looked at later in this section.

HSE Resources for Primary School

The resources provided for a Safety initiative within curriculum by HSE are very well produced and should be easily integrated into any Primary School syllabus. Stay Safe On Farm, Stay Safe Railway Safety, and Stay Safe Building Site Safety all contain, games, cartoons and puzzles to encourage children to think about hazards which exist in all these industries, and how to avoid them. These industries often act as a magnet to children who don’t understand dangers they present and treat them like playgrounds. This is also why special consideration needs to be given to ongoing construction or maintenance works taking place on school sites. Stay Safe booklets have been distributed at schools across country, and can be ordered free of charge from HSE Books on but access to pdf versions are given below. •Stay Safe on Farm - Leaflet with puzzles and colouring exercise suitable for Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/staysafe.pdf •Stay Safe Railway Safety - Stay Safe Railways a website for Children to Learn about being safe and keeping safe around Railways This is a Multimedia Game/Scenario type program with a safety theme suitable for Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/education/railway/index.html •Stay Safe Building Site Safety - This has a series of comic strips/Posters and colouring exercises with game type questions and completion exercises – suitable Years 4-6 www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/misc447.pdf •You will find other items which may be integrated in Resources in Headteaher’s Safety In addition HSE has also produced videos aimed at parents, teachers and older children to raise awareness. A four minute video Open Farms Healthy Children, is available on HSE’s web FREE site www.hse.gov.uk/campaigns/killfields/ecoli.htm which ensures parents, teachers and others are aware of hidden risks of picking up E-coli from animals.

The video Safe! – Helping children to stay safe on farms, which has been distributed to all Local Authority education departments, also shows children hazards that exist on farms. Copies of 'Safe! - Helping children to stay safe on farms' price £20.00 + VAT, are also available for purchase from HSE Books, Other Resources - Emergency Services.

Whilst HSE and DfES and others all have a central part to play.