Rescue!

We had an interesting visit from Mr Cooper from the RNLI this week. He talked to us about the lifeboat and answered lots of questions about how the lifeboat works, where the lifeboatmen sleep, what happens when there's an emergency and how quickly they have to get changed when there's a callout.

We pretended we were all on a boat and it started to sink. We had to quickly get lifejackets on - but there weren't enough for everyone....

Some people had very big lifejackets - so they wouldn't be very safe. We learned it was very important to have the right size and to fasten it properly so it would stay on and not go up right over our heads if we were in the water.

This is the same kind of lifejacket that the lifeboat crew wear. It inflates when they go in the water. Do you know what makes it inflate?

It has little silver tubes full of gas inside it. They cost £20 each and have to be replaced each time they are used. So every time the lifeboat crew train it costs lots of money!

When our boat sank we pretended to dial 999 and ask for the coastguard. They set off a pager to get the lifeboat crew. Mr Cooper had to put on his waterproofs very fast and come to save us.

He threw us a liferaft but not everyone could fit into it!

We looked at some different flares which people on boats could use in an emergency to show where they were. We weren't allowed to set any off though.

Last, the lifeboat threw us a rope and towed us to safety.

We had great fun and learned a lot too.

Did you know that the lifeboat crew (there are women as well as men) are all volunteers?

Did you know that the lifeboats are all paid for by donations?

We're going to raise some money for them at our class assembly. We think we can raise enough to pay for some cylinders of gas for the lifejackets for the crew to wear. We hope you can help raise money for them too.