Fire, police and St John teams rushed to Kaponga School on Tuesday afternoon after the school's fire alarms were set off and "smoke" filled Room 6.
The staff and students were evacuated from the school in a drill planned by principal Shane Downs. "We have had lots of drills for earthquakes and fires recently, but I wanted to demonstrate to the kids what would really happen in an emergency."
All the emergency service teams were notified before the drill as were the staff, "however, we wanted the students to react as though it was the real thing".
Members of the Kaponga Volunteer Fire Brigade set up a smoke machine in one of the empty classrooms as the fire alarms were set off in the school. Shane made an emergency 111 call in front of the students as the "smoke" began to pour out of the classroom window.
"It was very scary," says Cobie Paterson (7). "I thought it was real."
"The most important part of the drill was to see what happens if we have students or staff missing," says Shane.
Eight students and a teacher were "trapped" inside the building for the fire service to locate and rescue. St John had a makeshift triage set up to treat the patients as they were rescued.
Payton Crowley (9) was one of the trapped students. "We hid in the corner of the classroom with the smoke machine, the firefighters came in and called out until they found us." Payton was carried out of the classroom and taken to the St John team who took her details and checked her blood pressure. "We were told to make it look real, so we coughed like we had been in smoke."
Jason Hurley, Kaponga fire chief, praises the school on its swift response through the drill. "The students were spot on with their evacuation, the classrooms were lined up outside by the time we arrived."
Jason says that while he has never been part of a drill this realistic before, "this will imprint on the children's minds, they will always remember today and know what to do in an emergency".
Senior Constable Jono Erwood of Stratford Police said the students were outstanding with their evacuation.
Jono broke the news to the students that it was all a drill and praised them on their response to the fire alarms.
After the students were told it was a drill and the "trapped" students were out of the triage, classrooms took turns crawling through the smokey classroom.
"We let the students crawl through to demonstrate the importance of 'get down, get low and get out'," says Jason.