Over 120 pupils from Omakau School and Roxburgh Area School completed 13 modules as part of Think Safe Brain, covering a wide range of skills and safe practice, including firearm and animal safety, what to do around downed powerlines and how to tourniquet a wound.
Organiser Harriet Bremner-Pinckney, who farms at Jericho Station, near Manapouri, founded the Think Safe Brain campaign several years ago.
She hoped to bring a new view of farm safety, by making practical changes to everyday farm life.
The day was a way to bring adults and children together to have a meaningful conversation about recognising and dealing with risks, and children were key to this, she said.
"[The campaign] empowers kids to make lifesaving decisions."
Those children could grow up with a new outlook on health and safety, she said.
"It’s about the community coming together, celebrating farming ... celebrating their kids and their future farmers or agribusiness workers and making sure they grow up understanding what it means to really look after themselves and ultimately come home alive."
While the campaign could not train children for every situation they came up against, it could help them become safe and effective decision-makers.
"[Children] love going out on the farm and they love telling Mum and Dad how to look after themselves and stay safe."
At present, safety changes were made as a reaction rather than a prevention, Mrs Bremner-Pinckney said.
"We have to wait for someone to die before there's any change."
Some farmers had taken good luck as good management, but you could not "base safety off luck — because luck runs out".
"We need to be preventative in our behaviours and actions to save lives," Mrs Bremner-Pinckney said.
In the future, she hoped to take the campaign nationwide and have the ability to revisit schools so children could build their knowledge.
Each family took one of Mrs Bremner-Pinckney’s books home with them, which was a great way to drive home what they had learned, she said.
Omakau School principal Adelle Banks said pupils had loved the safety day.
"We’re a rural school and a rural community, so farm safety day has got a really important message about safety around machinery and on the farm."
She hoped the safety day could return to the school in a few years, to continue to reinforce the message around farm safety.
