YOUNGSTERS at Sticklands Primary School in Evershot have been flying the flag for fire safety.

Year Three and Year Four pupils at the school have been recognised for their efforts as they were awarded the SAFE-D (Safety Awareness and Fire Education – Dorset) Gold Award from Dorset Fire and Rescue Service.

The programme was designed by the fire service to educate children of all ages about fire safety and how to keep themselves and others safe.

There are three levels to the SAFE-D award, with the bronze achieved through learning about fire safety either on a visit to the Safewise Safety Centre or an in-school visit from the fire service.

The silver award is achieved through the pupils taking what they have learnt home and sharing it with the family before demonstrating that they remembered what they have learnt by doing a quiz.

The final gold award recognises those who take what they have learnt and share it with their local community.

At Sticklands 28 children from the Kingfisher Class visited the SafeWise facility in Weymouth in November last year to achieve the bronze award before scoring an impressive 98.8 per cent in their silver award quiz in January.

The achieved the gold standard when three fire officers from the Maiden Newton Fire Station visited the school and were impressed by the children’s display of their knowledge and understanding of fire safety through a series of playlets that were written and performed entirely by the children themselves and presented to the fire service team and all the other children in the school.

As a reward the children had the excitement of climbing inside the fire engine the officers had brought with them and operating the hose.

Kingfisher’s class teacher Anna Low said she was very proud of the children’s achievement.

She added: “They worked very hard to come up with a super presentation which they delivered to the whole school, quizzing their audience to ensure that they had got their fire safety message across.”