1:5 SOURCES AND TECHNIQUES.
Identify several sources of primary and secondary information and appropriate specific techniques for obtaining information needed.
1:6 RESEARCH PLAN.
Produce a detailed research plan for obtaining relevant information.
2:1 RANGE OF INFORMATION.
Interview With Castleford High School Caretaker: Mr A. Lee
When any sub-system including, break glass, smoke alarm etc is activated, an alarm is sounded throughout every building in the school, there is a full evacuation where everyone is taken to the schools all-weather pitch. Then the students organise themselves into year groups and then into there form group where they are registered by electronic registers. The school is being checked for any outbreaks of fire whilst this is happening by using the fire protection control board which records heat in different areas in the school and smoke levels.
The fire safety point is on the All weather pitch, which is looked onto by the science and art blocks.
The Safety Control panel indicates in which area the alarm has been activated. The control panel has all the different area with three lights next to the heading. One light is for Smoke alarm activation and one for Break glass activation.
The school uses a safety control panel which tells us where any of the break glasses or smoke alarms have been activated.
The school uses a GENT Safety (Fire) Protection System.
Fire Alarm Klaxons are located on every corridor in the school building, Butler Hall, Sports hall and Gymnasium.
There will be at least two false alarms each term where a student will activate the alarm maliciously, this will cause a full school evacuation, but cannot be helped if a student does activate the alarm.
The Fire service is contacted automatically when the alarm is activated (not for a fire drill) through the safety control panel, which is linked up to the fire service headquarters that contact the nearest fire station to the school, which is the Castleford Fire Service.
Key to Castleford high School Map:
L1 – L13 & A15, A16 = Modern Languages Classrooms.
L12, T28, T73, S43, T54 = I.T Suites
S38 – S42 & S44 – S49 = Science Classrooms
M28 – M32 & M36, M37, M70 = Maths Classrooms
T55 – T64 & F68 – F69 = Technology Classrooms
A65 – A67 = Art Classrooms
N33 – N35 = Special needs Classrooms
Re1 & Re2 = Religious Education Classrooms
P1 – P4 = Performing Arts Classrooms
G50 – G53 = Geography & History Classrooms
Prep = Science Preparation Room
FA = First Aid
CT = Caretakers Room
KI = Kitchens
IT = Schools Computer Technician Room
Sub-system tally chart:
Area Of School Sub-Systems are in:
The Gent Protection System:
The schools system is a Gent 24 network so can be overviewed 24 hours a day in case of any out of school hour incidents. Gent design, supply and commission fire-engineering systems to the needs of the customer. They have a wide range of Fire Protection System products that they use.
Information from West Yorkshire Fire Service:
What happens at the incident of the fire?
Rapid Deployment Safety Crew:
The appliance mobilised in this capacity should stand by at the Command Support Unit. The role of its crew is to provide emergency safety cover to crews involved in operations as at the direction of the Incident Commander. They should not become involved in the normal requirements of the incident.
The 1st alarm will deploy Fire Fighters and the Fire Engine to the site of the incident and will engage in fighting the fire with the crew from that local fire station. If the fire is too large for this crew to fight then the 2nd alarm will deploy two more pumps, etc.
2.2: EVALUATION OF PROGRESS.
2.3: EDITING OF INFORMATION.
During my time collecting research I found out that I had a large amount. I didn’t need all this information, so I had to carry out an editing process. Either to compress the information or pick relevant parts that are needed.
Examples of where I did this are:
- My interview with the Schools caretaker. Some of the answers to my question were very long, detailed and in pars complicated. So I edited out the unimportant parts, compressed the long explanation to shorter and easier to understand answers.
- I collected a large number of images both digital camera and Internet, most of which I did not need to use. So I picked out the more relevant images and used these.
- I researched the Gent Protection System Internet web site and found a lot of information some of which was relevant and some that was not needed when I read through the information found. So I edited the text to make it less complex and easier to understand but left it still with the same meaning required.
- The information from the West Yorkshire Fire Service web site was in text list and I thought it would be easier to read if it was in table form. So I edited the information into a table.
- I edited text information and images from other Fire Protection System web-sites e.g. Chubb, etc.
3.1: ANALYSIS OF INFORMATION.
The information I gathered in Section 2 needed careful analysis before I could suggest possible changes that could be made to the Fire Protection System at Castleford High School. My information was gathered in a number of ways as primary research through interviews and observations, and as secondary research through the Internet.
Interview with School Caretaker;
The number of false alarms in the school is on the increase and when happens is a major disruption to the school day. This is a factor that needs to be resolves somehow. The first step was t put C.C.T.V cameras in corridors that are near the break time (recess) points in the school, to observe if possible vandal activation. This does work in seeing who has activated the alarm, but doesn’t stop them from actually activating the alarm. The cameras were put up for security reasons and for observation during the school day for actions of vandalism. If they make the students think they will be seen activating the alarm then they may not activate a false alarm.
The evacuation routine can sometimes be hectic, but is very efficient when it comes to the end result of registering all the students in the school into their form groups. A way to combat this would be for each classroom have different fire safety points around the school premises. Not for the entire student body to be evacuated to the all weather pitch. There all two main points that could be used as fire safety points: All weather pitch and Tennis Courts. The bottom end of the school could evacuate to the all weather pitch classes including: Maths, Science, Technology, Performing Arts, Religious Education and Art block. The top end of the school could evacuate to the tennis courts classes including, Modern languages and Physical education classes being held in the sports hall and gymnasium. Then classes should be registered into the classes that they were present in at the time of the alarm activation. The System is checked on a regular basis by professional GENT surveyors, who check the whole system for faults, and if need be ask the school to do a organised (all staff knowing that there will be an alarm) Fire drill. This is to see whether the system is effective and all components are in working and put to the safety standard of a Fire Protection System. Each part of the systems is linked to the control panel. The main sub-system are the break-glasses and smoke detectors, these all have to be in working order to be at company standard. All sub-systems have to be checked and changed when necessary this included the fire extinguisher which are checked and depending on there situation would either be changed, re-filled if used or signed for if up to standard. Fire blankets have to have a international standard mark on them to show that they are capable of helping with a small fire, in a technology class or science lab for example.
Observation of System on walk through;
Break glasses and smoke detectors are situated in reasonable good locations around the site, an increased number in blocks such as Science, Technology and Art where there is more risk of a fire starting. There are Break glasses located on every corridor in the school. This makes it easy to activate the fire protection system if there is a fire, in any part of the site. With an increased number of activation points the system control panel needs to be checked regularly by GENT so that it is possible to indicate where the alarm has been activated in the building.
There is an exit at the one end of every corridor, except for upper floor corridors where the exit is at the bottom of every set of stairs. This makes for an evenly distributed evacuation as not all the students are trying to evacuate through a small amount of exits. In total there are 16 exits, 15 of which are exits to the outer site of the school. So there are 15 exits from the school building, that are used in evacuation. The audible fire klaxons from my experience of a alarm are that they are more than suitable to alert the school of fire alarm activation. There are a lot of doorways in the corridors of the school. These are all fire doors to suspend a fire from travelling through the school corridors quicker than if they weren’t there. On my walk round I found that some of these doorways were pegged open with doorstops. This I later found out was done for lesson change over to make the flow of student continuous and faster than if the doors were closed. In the blocks such as science and technology I found out that the doors were kept closed and that the open doors were in block such as maths, modern languages and on the corridors lending from the lower end of the school to the top end of the school. All the exits are kept unlocked at all times through the school day so make for easy access during a fire evacuation. When a full evacuation is undergone, all the students are registered, the school is checked for any fires of false activation and the students are let back into the school to resume normal school lessons, the whole process takes up to about 30 minutes. From the alarm being activated to every student being back in his or her lesson. This is very quick for a school of over 1000.
West Yorkshire Fire Service;
The Fire Service has only ever been called to the school once in the last 6 years. This incident was a vandalism fire, which was started on the school field among the trees and bushes and didn’t risk the school building. When the Fire service arrived the situation was dealt with calmly and very quickly. Even though the incident happened at the dinner break, given the chance for the students to crowd the area for a sight of the fire, it didn’t disrupt the school day of time of lessons, as it wasn’t in the school building.
Strengths of System;
The high number of sub-systems on the school premises makes the school able to deal with a fire incident if a fire does break out. It is easy to activate the alarm if there is a fire in the school building.
The Fire alarm klaxons are heard all round the school and alert the school to the activation of the fire alarm. When the System is activated the alarm can be heard in every class and room on the school premises, which makes it easy for the teachers to evacuate there classes from the school to the fire safety point.
The high amount of break glasses around the school. Easy to activate the system when a fire activation is needed.
The location of the break glasses around the school. The location of all the system sub-system around the site is excellent, break glasses are located in points of most need but are still located on every corridor in the school making it virtually impossible not to be able to activate the alarm if need be.
Number of sub-systems e.g. fire extinguishers in key points of the school. The sub-system like fire extinguishes are in hot spot locations such as science classrooms and technology classrooms where there is more risk of a fire breaking out as flames and heat tools are used. They are at easy to get to places so no time is wasted trying to get a fire extinguisher.
The location of the Fire Safety point. The all weather pitch is situated about 30 metres from the school building, and is a very good safety location in case there is ever a fire at the school. It is large enough to hold all the student body, but does cause trouble when all the student body is trying to get on to the all weather through on double gate, which is about 4.5metres wide. So to get over 1000 students and all the school staff onto the all weather pitch can take a considerable time. This is a factor which could be changed to make the evacuation routine faster and more manageable. Using the tennis courts as the fire safety point for the top end of the school would put all student with lessons in the modern languages block not having to travel the longer distance to the all weather pitch, and also a decrease in the number of students trying to get on to the all weather pitch.
