After an Emergency
At St Joseph's School, the board ensures that the school is a physically and emotionally safe place where risks to health and safety (both physical and mental) are eliminated or minimised (Health and Safety at Work Act 2015; Education and Training Act 2020). This includes having procedures to follow after an emergency to keep our school community safe, resume normal operations, and provide appropriate and culturally responsive support.
Communication
We communicate with our school community and external groups (e.g. police, Oranga Tamariki, Ministry of Education) as needed.
- Our communication after an emergency aims to inform and reassure our school community, and minimise any speculation or misinformation.
- We debrief staff as appropriate and determine what information can be released to students and their parents/caregivers (this may be done in consultation with emergency services, the Ministry of Education, an affected whānau, a lawyer, and/or others). We consider the nature of the event, privacy and confidentiality, the wishes of those involved, and cultural factors.
- If there is media interest after an event, we follow our media policy – see Media and Publicity.
Support
We monitor the wellbeing of students and staff in the aftermath of an event, and provide culturally responsive support (and links to support networks) as needed.
- We provide appropriate support to those affected by the event. See Supporting Student Wellbeing and Staff Wellbeing.
- We may activate our response to traumatic incidents, including contacting the Ministry of Education regional office for support (e.g. Traumatic Incident team). See Managing Traumatic Incidents.
- We work with relevant health care services and community groups, as appropriate, and provide opportunities for the school community to come together (e.g. assembly).
Property
We check school property after an event to ensure it is safe.
This may involve:
- visually checking buildings and grounds and isolating unsafe buildings and grounds
- contacting external utilities providers to assure safety of water, electricity, gas, etc.
- organising urgent and non-urgent repairs and engaging an engineer (if needed)
- making an insurance claim (if needed).
Recording, reporting, and reviewing
We document and report any emergency event in accordance with regulatory requirements and our own processes. This may include reporting to the police and WorkSafe about any notifiable injury or illness, notifiable incident, or death. See Recording and Reporting Injuries and Illness.
We debrief and evaluate our response and consider ways to strengthen and improve our processes. This may involve:
- seeking feedback from our community
- restocking emergency supplies
- scheduling emergency drills.
Related policies
Resources
- Ministry of Education | Te Tāhuhu o te Mātauranga:
: Term 4 2025, Term 2 2022
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