Introduction
The Country Fire Authority (CFA) has a number of education programs that deliver to over 18,000
students every year. These programs focus primarily on creating awareness of fire safety strategies.
One of CFA’s corporate goals is to build and strengthen self-reliant, resilient communities. Fire safety
education for children is an important part of achieving this goal. CFA continues to seek new
approaches to disseminate fire safety education and is committed to continuous improvement in
this space.
In 2011 a qualitative research study was conducted on behalf of CFA to identify what schools
expected and needed from fire safety education programs and resources for secondary students.
The study found the following:
 Teachers were apprehensive of approaching fire safety education themselves due to the
unfamiliarity with the content. However, with consultation with an expert (CFA) teachers
believed that a fire safety education program delivered by teachers would be best with the
option of having a guest speaker.
 The approach to fire safety education needs to be flexible and have the ability to adapt to
the varying nature of secondary schools. Secondary schools need to have resources
available to them to carry out this type of education as well as support. There needs to be a
standalone program (FSY) available for when the curriculum is simply too full to incorporate
any other program.
 For fire safety education to be incorporated into the school curriculum it should be fully
resourced and easy to implement.
Additionally, CFA receives numerous requests from secondary schools requesting resources and
teaching materials to support student learning, particularly from VCAL teachers. These resources
have been created to support VCAL teachers in teaching fire safety education to their students
How to use this resource
This resource has been created for VCAL teachers to use within the classroom. The four units:
Lessons learnt, home fire safety, Landscaping for bushfire and Bushfire preparedness have been
created to be modified for foundation, intermediate and senior levels. Each of the units varies in
length from four to nine weeks. Ideally these units will be delivered as part of an all hazards
approach and could include resources from other emergency services organisations such as SES,
Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria. The units have been designed to align with the school
calendar year with the home fire safety unit being run around the ‘change your clock’ campaign and
the bushfire preparedness unit being run during the pre-summer preparedness period.
Assessment
The four units have been mapped to the appropriate VCAL outcomes and elements at foundation,
intermediate and senior level across the strands of Literacy, numeracy and personal development
skills. The units do not assess ALL of the outcomes and elements for these strands and teachers
should refer to the appropriate VCAA assessment guides for further information. Additionally, the
four units can be modified for foundation, intermediate or senior students.
Further information
Soft copies of all the VCAL curriculum documents and teaching and learning resources can be
obtained from the CFA website at http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/kids-schools/secondary-schoolresources/ . Additionally, CFA has developed an online teacher professional development module on
how to incorporate fire safety education within the classroom which can also be accessed through
the CFA website at http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/kids-schools/secondary-school-resources/. A
certificate will be generated upon completion of the module for your records and VIT registration. If
you have any queries or comments regarding these resources please email the secondary education
team at secondarycurriculumenquiries@cfa.vic.gov.au
If you are interested in booking a visit from one of our trained presenters to come to your school
and speak to your students about fire safety education please request a booking through our online
booking system which can be found at http://www.cfa.vic.gov.au/kids-schools/fire-safe-youth/
Yours faithfully
Vassie Kakolyris
CFA
Community Development Coordinator –
Secondary Education
Communities & Communication
Gwynne Brennan
CFA
Manager Community Resilience
Communities & Communication