Get Firewise

Get Firewise for year 1 and 2 is a sequenced programme of learning experiences designed to give five and six year olds knowledge, attitudes and behaviours that will keep them safe around fire. 

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About Get Firewise

The Get Firewise programme is cross-curricula with a strong literacy focus. It meets the objectives of Te Marautanga o Aotearoa | The New Zealand Curriculum (2008)(external link) with additional content updates.

Get Firewise is a flexible programme and can be used as a short term topic using literacy and topic time over two or three weeks. It can also be used as a whole term topic using an inquiry learning approach.

Watch the video for a snapshot view of what our Get Firewise programme offers. From curriculum insights, classroom teaching, a firefighter visit to interactive and fun experiences on a fire station. It can be used as a promotional tool for schools.

Key outcomes of the Firewise programme

Get Firewise is focused on ensuring students:

  • understand that fire can be dangerous
  • can show they know how to prevent fires starting
  • can show they know how to get themselves out of a burning building quickly and safely to a safe meeting place.

These outcomes can be identified as achieved through completion of the assessment data and activities provided below.

Teachers may choose to use one or more of these simple activities to assess their class against each outcome. You may choose to use the same or different activities for diagnostic and summative assessment.

Firewise assessment data and programme feedback

Thank you for taking the time to complete this feedback form. Having student assessment data helps us to make sure the programme is working in the way it is intended. Having feedback on the programme and its resources will help us to ensure the programme remains current and best meets the needs of teachers, kaiako and students.

There are four sections to the feedback form:

  1. Contact and school details
  2. Assessment data
  3. Feedback on the Firewise resources/programme
  4. Feedback on the firefighter visit.

Supporting documents

Fill in the online form below or download the PDF version [PDF, 237 KB]

Firewise assessment and feedback form

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Firefighter visit

While the Get Firewise programme is designed to be delivered solely by teachers, a visit by firefighters or designated Firewise coordinators can occur near the end, or after the learning programme has been completed.

The firefighter visit is a structured presentation to the class that summarises and reinforces the key learning in the Get Firewise. It is usually about 30-to 45-minutes.

This presentation focuses on:

  • being safe with matches, lighters and candles
  • the speed of fire
  • escaping from a room that has smoke in it.

The firefighter or Firewise coordinator will discuss this presentation with you and can adapt it to meet the identified needs of your class. The presentation is designed around gaining responses from students and should be delivered to one class at a time to be effective. The firefighters will not deliver presentations to groups of classes because the students’ retention of safety behaviours is compromised.

Please note: A firefighter presentation supports, but it is not a substitute for, the learning programme. Students must have completed, or have almost completed, Get Firewise, before a firefighter can visit. Not all locations will have firefighters available, and Firefighters that visit are on duty, this means they may be called away if there is an emergency.

To check the availability and/or arrange for a firefighter or Firewise coordinator to visit your class, please use the contact form.

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