Media Release

10th Feb 2009

Bushfires! How can parents feel confident their child at school will be safe in the case of a bushfire emergency?

Norton Summit Primary School SA evacuation success

Norton Summitt School is prepared for a bushfire emergency as seen in Victoria over the last few days. Infact they have been prepared since 2007. On Friday 10^th August, 2007 Norton Summit School, which is located in the wooded hills of Adelaide confirmed that parents could feel confident of their child’s safety in the case of a bushfire emergency.

The school developed a three tiered emergency and lockdown plan that included activation of the schools emergency alert followed by an evacuation by children to designated safe areas. The inclusion of a new communication system called EAARS enabled the safe collection and evacuation by parents of their children to their homes. EAARS provided the latest two – way online technology enabling the emergency manager to oversee and monitor each parents and/or responsible care-givers intention without the need for a large telephone commitment.

Principle Conradi was quoted saying, ”This was the smoothest mock evacuation in the history of the school. We had parents here within a few minutes”. More importantly the principle said, ”The level of relaxation with the pupils was vastly improved, no doubt because the pupils knew that their parents were communicating with the school using the new system”.

Emergency Manager Tanya Frohloff observed that there was only one phone call to the school office during the trial evacuation. Tanya said, “During previous mock emergency drills the schools phone system was overwhelmed”.

EAARS is incorporated into the schools emergency plan and allows any school emergency manager to activate the Emergency Alert using any online computer. Norton Summit School used both the schools computer and also used a wireless online notebook computer. The EAARS ALERT was received as a SMS text message on each child’s parent and or care-givers mobile phone and return messages were received back from parents some 2 minutes after activation. Approximately 40% of the children’s caregivers choose to provide EAARS ACTION RESPONSES, which are individual SMS messages transmitted to the emergency manager’s EAARS online system.

The EAARS state of art communication technology allowed the entire school mock evacuation to be managed by one emergency manager following the schools emergency plan.

Where:                        Norton Summit Primary School Crescent Drive Norton Summit SA 5136

School Contact:        Tanya Frohloff, Emergency Manager Mobile No: 0400189420

                                    E: admin@nortonps.sa.edu.au  P: 0883901771, F: 0883901063

For photos, interviews or information please contact Tanya Frohloff or Peter Cap.