Cornwall Fire & Rescue Service Newsdesk

at 14/01/2005 10:48

Cornwall County Fire Brigade’s Community Fire Safety Advisors will now be targeting Secondary Schools as part of their important educational programme. The main message to this age group will be the dangers of arson.

Arson is now the largest single cause of major fires in the UK - and it is on the increase. At its worst, arson leads to loss of life. Yet even persistent and pervasive minor arson sets a strongly detrimental (and visually harmful) tone to deprived communities and contributes to social exclusion.

The theme of the lesson is set around a Court Room. The idea originated from Tyne and Wear Fire and Rescue Service and has now been incorporated in to Cornwall’s Fire Safety Education package. The scheme is designed to make pupils aware of how dangerous arson can be and what the penalties are if found guilty in a court of law.

Sarah Webber, Community Fire Safety Advisor explains: “Research shows that students only remember 10% of information given in the form of a lecture, but if they are actively involved, the percentage rises to 70% or 80%, hence the reason we are following Tyne and Wears example of a Court Room Drama”.
She continued: “Pupils in year 7 will act out different roles that make up a court room such as:- the Judge, Witnesses, the Jury, the Accused and Defence, the Community Fire Safety Advisor’s will play the part of the Prosecution”.

To make the court room more realistic the Community Fire Safety Advisor’s will provide props and costumes for the young actors so they really feel the part they are playing, along with a script that gives them background information and ideas of what they will need to say when they are questioned.

The court room drama fits perfectly into the Personal, Social, Health Education and Citizenship curriculum’s and covers a number of elements that pupils are required to achieve. It has been trialled at Wadebridge Comprehensive School as part of the “Prison Me No Way” day that also included workshops from other agencies, the workshop proved to be very popular with the children of year 7.

During the “Prison Me No Way” day the pupils were given evaluation forms, to see how the children responded to the Court Room Drama as you can see below it was a great hit.

“We got to do things rather than sit and listen.”

“Court room drama, it was tense and we could see how hard it was for the person accused and everybody got to take part.”

“Debated, gave our opinion and looked at the consequences of our actions.”


The Community Fire Safety Advisor’s, with the help of the Arson Task Force, have identified 3 schools which will be piloting the programme in the first year, Saltash Community School, Richard Lander School and Redruth School.
If you would like anymore information on the new programme please contact the Community Fire Safety Officer’s - Sarah Webber at St Austell Fire Station, Rachel Hoare at Bodmin Fire Station or Erin Orton at Falmouth Fire Station