To think we need to re-think security for children's schools and clubs following Southport

I don't think anyone (including OP) is suggesting the risk can be altogether removed, but that it should be considered to ensure clubs are 'safer'. Is that unreasonable?

Where do you draw a line with clubs ?
Secure the local football club or public park where the local kids team is playing ?

A risk asssssment and considering the risk is what OP is saying, seems reasonable? Obviously areas that can't be secured you'd hope would still have some sort of plan should something happen.

Is that you Mr Trump ?

Where do you draw a line with clubs ?
Secure the local football club or public park where the local kids team is playing ?

The rugby club on a Sunday ?

The cricket club in the summer ?

The events in Southport are truly horrific but very rare in UK.

The security measures that were put in place for my DD made use of the existing physical infrastructure. All it meant is that the sites which were schools and a leisure centre had suitable barriers already and it just needed sufficient adults to man them. It did mean that a minimum of three people including at lease one man had to be on the entrance/exit.

The clubs my kids go already have pretty stringent security measures in place, I assume we pay for them as part of the fees.

The perpetrator was born In Cardiff. You are spreading dangerous misinformation.

There are so many things that we need to take away from this case as a society and learn from. Not least, the systemic failures of our mental health services for young people, a conversation around how someone so vulnerable accesses harmful material online, the lack of intervention when someone had been identified as being a risk and (maybe) what additional security should be implemented in settings where children frequent.

Frankly, the bollox you’re spouting doesn’t even form part of the conversation.

Exactly.

The other arguments put forward also ‘well kids are at bigger risk of x, y, z” are so reductive because it really isn’t a case of ‘well we should only focus on the biggest risk and ignore the rest’.

I’m not advocating locking children up to keep them safe from everything but children’s clubs should now add this threat to the already hefty risk assessments that they will have to carry out for H&S and insurance purposes.

Thankfully after Dunblane there didn’t seem to be the attitude of ‘meh these things are so rare so why should we bother doing anything to prevent another?’ or focus so entirely on the problems with the offender and ignore practical ways to keep schools safe. Yes there needs to be better MH support but people will always slip through the cracks.

I'm very well aware that they do. It's what I do for a living.

My point is that these activities require an acceptance that we can't guarantee that someone with a knife won't run onto a football pitch and start stabbing people.

I'm not against securing schools, I'm just saying we can't remove the risk altogether.

That's not the logical extension, that's a hyperbolic reach to try and make a point.

Imo schools and clubs where there are lots of children to adults should have risk assessments anyway- OP feeling uncomfortable that her child's school doesn't seem to have any sort of protection isn't unreasonable. Risk mitigation also happens for those activities you have listed, do you think they don't?

The logical extension of this is to ban all school trips, outdoor learning, football clubs, soft play centres, scout camps etc or anywhere groups of children gather together.

We need to start thinking more about risk benefit rather than trying to remove every small risk. And in doing so expose children to the far greater risk of the Internet.

The school I work in definitely isn’t secure. The gates to the car park are always open due to deliveries and visitors etc and there is a 4ft metal fence around the perimeter of the yard which even I could jump over despite having arthritis. The kids spend half the day in this yard and outdoor work just outside the classrooms. Anyone could hurt them if they wanted to despite there being keypad entry to the main building. Honestly anyone could get in.

I've been saying this for the last few years.

Mumsnet HQ even gave me a prize for putting that in a question to ask a politician 2.5 years ago.

Many parents don't understand that online box in the corner of their living room , your child's bedroom or in your child's pocket is dangerous. For example you wouldn't take your child to a brothel or an orgy but you allow them to see the same stuff (and worse) in their own home.

My school has a wall with a metal fence surrounding it. The gates are locked during the day, monitored with cameras and an electronic key code entrance. The external doors are locked from the outside, though opened in the inside with a push button or emergency exit bar. Most do have glass, though this is reinforced glass.

We can't really do any more. It's been like this for many years.

Though if someone was really determined they could simply enter the grounds at the start of the day or end of the day, when the gates are unlocked.

YABU

There must be something going on in London or an alert before that time as every club my DD went to from May half term of that year had increased their security. She went to a different club every week over the summer holidays and you could only pick her up from the gates.

In fact the most dangerous things she has gone to are other kids parties where as long as you say you are a parent looking for your kid, if you don't accompany your child in, are you allowed in.

I believe Norway has the lowest reoffending rate and has some of the most progressive rehabilitation and soft prisons.

And Norway also had Anders Breivik.

100% this!!

What's the point in being terrified.
Instead look around the world see where the lowest crime races and see how advantage achieve that. I believe Norway has the lowest reoffending rate and has some of the most progressive rehabilitation and soft prisons.
You're never going to get rid of all the dangers but you can minimize the risk.
Be far more effective to put stringent controls on the internet, do a lot more work with emotional regulation in schools and much better parenting classes. Countries with really high murder rates particularly in schools have aggressive penal systems but don't work to rehabilitate.
Look at the US their schools are like fortresses and yet the number one cause of death in young people is murder. Their prison system is overflowing aggressive and has nothing to do with reform.
The Stockport killer should have been given intensive ongoing therapy at a very young age and monitored far more closely. If he haven't attacked those poor children class at a class he would have done it in a supermarket or at a concert or at a sporting event or a train or .....

Stop using the tragic death of three young girls to spread your misinformation.

The murderer was a British Christian.

Your misinformation is the same as that which created the riots.

More checks, controls and education for children, young people and parents around the dangers of the internet. It is mind blowing the information out there and the warping of children/young people and adult minds that takes place.

This should be the focus more than limiting the activity of our children and locking them inside buildings!

The difficulty with this is that groups children also need to be able to evacuate safely in the event of an emergency.

Schools can be equipped with electronic locks that automatically release when an alarm triggers. It's harder when the doors are manually locked.

My kids go to clubs where the doors are locked. They have no idea that the doors are locked, why would they? I can’t see how something they know nothing about is going to cause them anxiety.

Absolutely, no haha about it! What a strange comment.

If you know of schools that don't safeguard children you need to report your evidence to governors/LA and the local safeguarding board.

In my LA there are significant checks and very high expectations that children are safeguarded.

It’s not that simple. You would end up with a generation of kids riddled with anxiety and terrified to leave the house because of their paranoid parents.

A life is no life at all if you’re too scared to live it.