Beach Education Day @ Ahipara Surf Rescue
On Tuesday, Te Kauru Students attended Beach Educations session which is a full day surf safety course delivered at the beach by surf lifeguards. Beach Ed is age-appropriate learning for school year levels 1-8.
The day was organised into modules. Below the modules are set out into different headings.
Tour of club
The first activity was to have a tour of the club. We got to touch all of their equipment and ask lots of questions. We learnt about the different equipment they use for saving lives, including the use of the RB boats, jet-skis, paddle boards and rescue tubes. The lifeguards explained that quite often, paddle boards are faster to respond compared with the RB boats or the jet-skis. This is because it takes a while to prep the motorized equipment for rescues, where the paddle boards are quick and easy to get into the water.
Beach Safety
Next we learnt all about beach safety, how to identify a rip, keeping ourselves safe in the sun and they showed us their first aid kit. Each life guard needs to be able to perform first aid.
We even played a game to help us remember the 'Slip, Slop, Slap, Wrap, Slide' rules of being sunsmart.
Water Activities
The next module was by far to the most exciting. First we had to make sure that everyone was safe on the beach, but drawing a large square in the sand. Everyone had to stay in the square. We used all our parent helpers to do the same in the water. This was to ensure that everyone was visible in the water, and didn't go to deep.In the water, the students experienced mock rescues. The students were in pairs, and had to save their friend. Students had to make sure that they clipped the flotation device around the buddy, and ensure the strap was around their own shoulder before swimming back to shore.
A HUGE thank you to Liam, Val, Emma, Ariana - our very helpful and supportive life guards.