About Us

If you visit our website and search for civil defence you can then download our latest Civil Defence Emergency Plan.

For your own preparation, I suggest you visit the Ministry of Civil Defence Get Ready, Get Thru site which has lots of useful information. It may be wise to plan and discuss with your family what you would do during a significant event and what your reunification plan is. If you work in the city, explain to your child/ren that after a large earthquake it may take a few hours for you to get back to Seatoun but there are lots of teachers and other adults that will look after them.  Internationally, adults have been caught in a Tsunami attempting to get their child from school.

We would follow our normal procedures which very briefly includes; drop, cover and hold until the end of the earthquake. At this time we would evacuate to the school field and assess the situation.

Our criteria for a tsunami risk earthquake is “if it is long and strong, be gone!”. If it is longer than one minute, or stronger than being able to stand up, we evacuate immediately to the old Pa site above the school. Students would walk in an orderly fashion out of the school, if possible pick up their jacket from their hook and then walk to the nearest set of stairs. We have assigned stairs for different year groups, but on the day, we would go to the set that has the least number of adults on it. We also know that the set to the south is higher than other exits.

In Term 1 we have a tsunami drill during class time.

In Term 4 we have a tsunami drill during interval/lunchtime. In this situation, we would not return to classes but immediately evacuate to the ridgeline.

We are grateful to Wellington Regional Council for providing access to the old ammunition bunker above the school. We store 1000 plastic ponchos, food and water in this bunker.  All teaching staff have a key to this bunker.

We have a fire drill every term.

We will only release your child to you or a person on our list (Hero).  If your child is collected by one of the contacts on your list, we record on our list who has taken your child/children and where they took them too. You would then come to school to find this information out.

This would only happen as a last resort based on health and safety considerations.  We would need to make this call on the day. Variables such as time of day, weather and emotional state of children would inform our thinking. We would keep children at school for as long as reasonable to give parents time to collect.

In addition to the two very large plastic water tanks on our court, we have two garages full of supplies. In these we have a substantial amount of bottled water. Some of this may have expired, but we have decided to retain this. In addition, we have approximately 1000 cans of food. We would expect the water to last a large number of days and the food to last 24 hours.

We also have one BBQ, many gas bottles and other supplies such as buckets, batteries, gloves, torches, shovels, axe and first aid supplies stored in this garage.

If we had children left at school late in the day / evening we would need to decide what is the best decision for them. If the tsunami risk had passed, we could either bring them back to school or decide to have them ‘billeted’ by other families. If this was the case, we would record who had taken children home.

Each year we practice our tsunami evacuation at lunchtime.  It would be good for parents to reiterate that we do not want children to leave the school grounds and go home. We evacuate to the Orauiti Pa site.  We practice our tsunami evacuation at least twice a year.

At this time, our advice from Civil Defence is to use our planned departure route and meet at the Oruaiti Pā site. If we feel that this is not a safe choice we would evacuate up Dorset Cove.

In an extreme event, this is possible. In this situation we would be relying on the community to help each other in many ways including looking after children.

Timeline for Reunification Drill

2pm– the school bell will be sounded for one minute signalling an earthquake. Students will drop, cover and hold.
2.01pm – students will evacuate the building under the control of their teacher
2.03pm – students will line up as they do for our regular fire drill and the roll will be taken
2.03pm – Seatoun Kindergarten children will arrive and join their brother/sister if applicable. Kindy children will wear a high visibility vest. Kindy children without school age siblings will sit with the Kindy Staff next to the Juniors. As parents arrive, they will go immediately to their child/children, provide comfort and support and assist the teacher if required.
2.10pm – Under the direction of the Principal, students will be relocated to be sitting in whānau groupings with the teacher of the youngest child.  Parents will be able to sit with their child at this time.
2.20pm – Under the direction of the Principal an ‘all clear’ will be signalled and, starting with the youngest children, the signing out of children will commence.  This is a time-consuming process, so parents, please bare-with us.
3.00pm – any child not collected will be dismissed as if it were a normal day (as this is a drill)

On arrival, parents or authorised alternatives will be directed to go immediately to their children. They will remain with their child/children and the class until we have been given the all clear by Civil Defence, when we will then commence signing students out.

We will start with the families with younger children. In an orderly and manageable fashion students will be released into the care of the parent/emergency contact.

Tables will be set up (or staff members in pink vests will be standing with clip boards) with alphabet signs indicating which person the collector reports to, according to the child’s surname.

Parents will need to line-up and wait to have their details recorded and then leave the area.

Parents with Kindergarten Children are to report to the Kindergarten teacher standing beside one of our staff with a pink vest.

The child/children’s name will be highlighted and the person collecting the child/children name will also be highlighted. If it is not the parent, then a record of where the child/children will be taken is also noted.

In an actual event, any children who are significantly injured will be recorded on the master list at reception. Collectors would be informed of the situation at this point.