St Mary's Catholic School students and teachers are better prepared for tsunami than most with the school undertaking an evacuation drill today.

The evacuation involved the entire school of 370 students, 17 teachers and 10 teacher assistants.

St Mary's Catholic School deputy principal Janet McCarroll talks on camera below about the process involved in executing a school evacuation.

It is an annual event for the school, which is located on the harbour edge between Harvey Street and 13^th Avenue.

Deputy principal Janet McCarroll says the school's Waimapu estuary boundary makes tsunami threat a real one for the school and means the evacuation drill is essential.

The Waimapu estuary is close to the classrooms.

She says the last tsunami that struck the region, in 2010, came right up onto the school's playground.

For the evacuation, the students were not told it was today to make for a more realistic exercise.

Roll call before the march begins.

Western Bay of Plenty Civil Defence manager Alan Pearce was at the school in conjunction with the evacuation drill and he was impressed with how it went.

The students rallied and then marched uphill to a small park on Fraser Street by its intersection with 15^th Avenue.

This process took the school 17 minutes – a time Alan believes good.

He says not all schools can do this, but he is pleased they have taken steps to ensure safety of the children and teachers.

This is the fifth year the school has had a tsunami drill and Janet says the timing of this year's was prompted by the recent earthquakes and Japanese tsunami.