Does your primary school have lockdowns drills?

Yep, I work in a Primary School. We have an invacuation drill later on this week. We had fire drills last week.

Our school doesn't. We are very rural, and sometimes get sheep on the school field. Once a baby deer got into the school building through an open fire door!

Yes. My DD did in primary school. It’s definitely a norm for this generation as I don’t remember them at school

@HairOfFineStraw then they would close the blinds

Never heard of this in my puff. Also Scottish.

Yes these drills are yearly in primary schools. A bull ran loose in a primary school near me and thankfully the school went into very quick lockdown, though it was at the start of the school day. The bull had to be shot dead it was so out of control. Scary stuff.

I've been part of fire drills in secondary school and I'm always amazed at how well the pupils do.

Dd is in y6 and I think she’s mentioned this once but I think it was done as dog in the playground as others have mentioned. I don’t think schools do it enough tbh. I was a high school teacher for 13 years and I have never seem a lockdown drill

This makes more sense to me. A cow, dog or air ambulance they'd all want to look out the window!

Yes we're in SE London and the DC primary school have done lockdown drills

DC1 told me about it once or twice

Parents were not informed, didn't really expect to be

I attended primary school in SE London in the late 80s/early 90s and I clearly remember drills where we left the building and went into the school field...and being made to face away from the school building etc

This was at a time of IRA bombings- bombs in dustbins at station (I remember at London Victoria) I don't remember being particularly alarmed about the drills we did, it was just one of those things

I work in a P.S. I have never heard of this in U.K.

I'd never been aware of this until today, funnily enough. One of my year 5 pupils told me when he came for his music lesson that they'd been practising hiding under desks "in case there was ever a snake in the playground". He was very scornful about the likelihood of this happening in Devon. I said something bland about well, schools all have to have the same rules, that's the law. Perhaps a school in a different country had a problem with a snake once so they made everyone do the same thing.

He was entirely unbothered and none of my other students mentioned it, but this coincided with newly tightened security procedures which were actually put in place from yesterday - today was my first experience of them. External doors to buildings that children and staff constantly move between all day are now only opened by code or physical key, whereas they have always been unlocked before. All gates to the school grounds are always locked, but (while entirely appropriate) this is very new in my experience in small rural Devon primaries.

It's always can invacuation in the schools I've worked in. I usually explain it as the opposite of a fire drill. Fire drill is something unsafe inside so we go out; invac is something unsafe outside so we come in.

We've had to invac many times: a naked drunk man trying to climb the fence, an angry dad trying to get to his daughter (he wasn't allowed near her), the local tyre fitters set on fire and the smoke was horrendous, deer on the playground, grass snake in the middle of the school field. To be fair, the last 2 were more to keep the deer and the snake safe from curious children!

A lockdown would not have prevented that.

Last year there was a nasty car crash near our school. The air ambulance landed on the playground. We needed a way to get and keep all the children inside. Good job we had a lock down procedure.

When that car crashed into the school in Wimbledon I wonder whether other local schools went into lockdown

Don't know of any school that's done it- various parts of Scotland

Do you expect a warning for a fire drill?

Doubtful.

So why do you want a warning for a lock down?

You would think with Dunblane Scottish schools would do this

No.

My children’s schools have never done this and am not aware of any schools who do this.

we are in Scotland

A school near me put itself into lockdown when a very troubled young man kicked off outside school.

My DS had one this week at school. HDecame home and told me, calling it an intruder alarm.

They didn't let the parents know in advance.

I'm glad they do it, but I was shocked when he first told me.

We did these in my old school occasionally. It was a case of getting all of the children away from windows and into safe spaces quickly. Also checking names and classes from lists etc just like a fire drill. We never used to go into detail with the children about possible scenarios as that wasn't the point of the exercise. It was more to prepare staff for an event so they would be able to react appropriately.
Better to run through these things than not, surely! Parents are not told when a fire drill is expected so I don't see why any other kind of safety drill is any different really.

Yes they did and do so in secondary school, they say it’s incase there is a dangerous dog on site and don’t frighten the children

I’m fascinated reading this. Unfortunately the word “lockdown” brings back the horror of 2020 (a totally separate topic, I know).

I remember that at my primary school in the 1980s, it was usual practice to lock the classroom door when we were not in there; we had sharper scissors in those days, perhaps it was so that we didn’t murder each other with them.

My old primary school fitted very simple locks to all classrooms last year in readiness for any lock downs. That was the first year we had a practice. We also had to have a secret word to use if we needed to lock down. We had to have a different sound to the fire alarm and the system was too old for multiple tones. We also used a hand bell….. This was a large 2 form entry school.