Emergency Drills
A further clarification from the Ministry of Education about emergency drills at centre.
First determine what drills are relevant to your location, and then carry out each of these drills with children at least every 3 months.
As a centre, first determine which drills are relevant to your centre for example: fire, earthquake, and sheltering in place (that’s 3 drills). For Centres near water where an earthquake could lead to a tsunami, your earthquake drill should also include practise/discussion of what the families would need to do in case of a tsunami.
Those drills must be carried out every 3 months with children (so that’s 3 drills every 3 months, or 12 drills per year). But they don’t have to cover each day of the week, just need to be sensible about mixing it up to ensure different groups of parents and children practiced the different drills regularly. And if you had, say a large number of new enrolled families on a Monday halfway through the term, you might choose to run the drills for them.
There may be further guidance coming from the Ministry of Education in the coming weeks.
Our infant programme (Space, Babies Can Play) sessions as licensed sessions are covered by this ruling as well so that means one drill of a type each term (covering all relevant types of drills).