In a real life emergency, knowing a few safety tips will help you to stay calm and help yourself and others. Remember not to put yourself in danger and alert the emergency services as soon as possible. School planning will take care of your children's safety in an emergency.

Go in, stay in, tune in

In a major emergency, if you are not involved in the incident, but are close by or believe you may be in danger, the best advice is to go inside a safe building, stay inside until you are advised to do otherwise, and tune in to local radio or TV for information.

Of course, there are always going to be particular occasions when you should not 'go in', for example if there is a fire, or you are advised differently by the emergency services or your own common sense.

If you find yourself in the middle of an emergency, your common sense and instincts will usually tell you what to do. However, it is important to:

• make sure 999 has been called if people are injured or if there is a threat to life
• not put yourself or others in danger
• follow the advice of the emergency services
• try to remain calm and think before acting, and try to reassure others
• check for injuries - remember to help yourself before attempting to help others

If you are not involved in the incident, but are close by or believe you may be in danger, in most cases the advice is:

• go inside a safe building
• stay inside until you are advised to do otherwise
• tune in to local radio or TV for more information

Local radio stations

BBC Radio Stoke	94.6FM	www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/programmes
Signal One 102.6FM	102.6FM	www.signal1.co.uk/
Signal Two	1170AM	www.signal2.co.uk
BBC Radio Derby	104.5FM / 1116FM	www.bbc.co.uk/derby/programmes
BRMB	96.4FM	www.brmb.co.uk/
BBC Radio Shropshire	96.0FM	www.bbc.co.uk/shropshire/programmes
BBC Radio West Midlands	95.6FM	www.bbc.co.uk/wm/programmes
Touch FM	101.6FM / 102.4FM	www.101touchfm.co.uk/

What to do if you're not at home

 

Schools

If your children are at school you will naturally want to collect them as soon as possible in the event of a major emergency. But it may not be safe to do so. Please tune in to your local radio station for advice and for details of the arrangements your local council has made for letting parents know when to collect their children from school.

All schools have plans to cope with local emergencies such as fire and flood, and teachers and support staff do all they can to look after the pupils in their charge. You can find out more about school emergency planning by using the Teachernet link below.