You need to ask yourself the following questions before embarking on a site visit:

• Have you made a pre-visit?
• What are your aims?
• What do you hope the pupils will gain from the visit?
• Which parts of the curriculum do you hope to support by a visit to the Safety Centre?

Preparing for a visit

• You need to decide where the visit will fit in the sequence of your planned activities. Is it to be an introduction, the main focus or the culmination of the topic/project?
• Visit our web site to familiarise and update yourself with the Safety Centre experience. Also to check national curriculum links and follow-up suggestions.
• Decide how much information you are going to give the pupils before the visit and what you are going to let them discover for themselves.
• Make sure you do not tell the pupils too much about the Safety Centre experience. The interactive nature of the different scenarios requires a problem solving approach from pupils. Too much prior knowledge could pre-empt innovative involvement.
• Have the pupils been given name badges?
• Are the children likely to be frightened by any of the scenarios; e.g. have they recently had a member of the family involved in a house fire?
• Have the pupils the necessary skills that will help them to make the most of their visit? A visit requires a variety of skills, particularly visual.

Recording is an essential part of a visit. As the scenarios are mostly interactive, written recording would be inappropriate. If you wish to use photographic evidence, video recording or tape recording, please let us know.

The school curriculum and the National Curriculum: Value, aims and purposes