To think it's very depressing that school children need to learn this

I had a bet with myself that you would try to get another dig in while pretending that you weren’t replying to my post.

So predictable.

@crumblingschools Also, sorry for being a rude in replying to you earlier on fire drills. I actually mistook you in the moment for a different poster, who I felt was being unnecessarily antagonistic. I had already written about fire drills vs 'arson drills', but there's no reason to think you should have read all my posts. Apologies.

Yes, it could well be that children who see these as attack drills are getting this mainly from outside the school.

And I'm not dogmatic that these drills should never happen in any form. If there are lots of dangerous animals or angry parents breaking in to a particular school, then perhaps it's right for those schools.

But for most schools, I'd be surprised if overall time devoted to such drills wouldn't be better spent on more mundane but more deadly threats. And for very unlikely scenarios like the air ambulance might need to land.... well, yes it might. But the numbers make me suspect a child is much more likely to be seriously harmed because of poor water sense or road sense or accident awareness, and I think that should get the attention proportionate to the risks.

@GeneralPeter do you think children, especially younger ones, who see these as shooter drills are actually getting that from their parents. Let’s face it the posters on here who work in schools are telling you the reasons why the majority of these drills/invacuations take place. The ones who are up in arms about them (excuse the pun) are people who don’t work in schools and purely see them as shooter drills.

I don't know what you get out of coming onto a thread and trying to tell other people their jobs when you don't know what you're talking about and make daft claims like lockdown drills increase the risk of school shootings and then pretend that it's everyone else that's at fault when they point this out.

Do you have any register other than abuse? Debating someone who pugnaciously makes good points can be a lot of fun (that's why I asked you why you said my original post was stupid). But someone pugnaciously making bad points is really tiresome, on the receiving end. I can't really see what you get out of it either.

So, I think I'd say: firstly, if we are trying to keep children safe, is this the best use of time, or are there other better ones? And I'd be hesitant to have such drills at all given the concerns I've stated. But if we are accepting that they should happen then it's totally right to avoid linking it to shooting-type or attack-type scenarios (even by adults), and to be carefully aware of whether they are being described as such by the children (as anecdotally seems to happen).

But as the majority of invacuations don’t involve a shooter or knife wielding maniac or indeed hiding under tables, what do you think schools should do to teach children about the more likely invacuation scenarios @GeneralPeter? Especially when the schools carrying out these drills don’t call them shooter drills

I certainly wouldn't defer to a risk management professional who claims that kids sitting in classrooms with the door locked raises the risk of school attacks.

@TheMissingLinkHasBeenFound But you haven't really said what you think is going to happen or what you're basing that on?

I really have, by now. My two points are about: i) prioritising time in a way that doesn't reflect the data on which the really serious risks to children are, ii) risks of normalisation of school attacks, drawing on what we know about the highly-contagious nature of such attacks in countries where they occur, plus what we know about the highly contagious nature (including from the UK) of other types of response to mental distress.

If you think my claim is that more drills are bad because they increase the likelihood of liquid spills or animal attacks, I suggest you haven't read my posts. If you don't think it's that, but you are portraying it as that, then I think you are arguing in bad faith.

I really don't know what your problem is. It would be just as silly to say "defer to the risk management professional". As far as I'm concerned, I've been trying to have a careful discussion with you, where I've clearly explained what I'm claiming, what I'm not claiming, and why. You seem to want to continue that, but only if you get to be generally abusive, dismissive, and straw-mannish. It is just fine to disagree with someone online, without all that.

Someone who doesn't work in schools should perhaps listen to those people who do work in schools about what the risks are that might necessitate kids being kept in classrooms instead of googling 'kids murdered at school'.

No. Do I work in risk management? Yes. Could it be that our different perspectives lead to different judgments? Yes.

Anyway, I'm not saying you are definitely wrong. And I realise you haven't been the main person engaging with me. I've just found it a bit tiresome being told (not by you) that I must not want to keep children safe, that my concern is stupid, daft, that my posts with numbers and careful reasoning are mere unevidenced assertion, etc.

If you work in a school, I'm sure you are keen to keep children safe, and I don't think that attacks are the only (or even main) reason to do such drills. Not at all. But that was the aspect I was highlighting (largely because it was the OP's too).

And as a broader point, I do think it's healthy to keep in mind proportionality about different types of risk. Humans tend to overestimate shocking but very rare risks, over much greater risks that are more familiar. So to keep children the most safe, we should try to guard against that by thinking deliberately about what the main safety risks actually are. As many of the early posts were about how it's sadly absolutely necessary we have attack drills, I though some data would help.

Your position seems to be that having a method if getting children into a room, quickly and quietly causes some sort of issue.

But you haven't really said what you think is going to happen or what you're basing that on?

We're saying that 99% of the real alarms,will be for reasons that are not knife wielding maniacs. So your logic states that, actually there's going to be an increase in loose animals on school grounds, or unidentified liquid spills...

You haven't provided any evidence that lockdown drills increase school attacks.

Why would the drill itself cause harm?

What harm is coming form children quietly moving into a classroom at the sound of a particular bell?

Why would that increase the amount of "madmen" attacks?

@GeneralPeter do you work in a school?

I'm really not sure why you've been so emotional about this throughout. I think we each understand each other's position fairly well by now. Different judgments about things, based on different assessments of the evidence and different prioritisation of goals, are pretty normal (or should be). Not cause for head-banging. Anyway, have a good rest of the weekend.

It's relevant to point to the fact we don't have a string of school attacks. You see that as a reason to support having drills

<bangs head against wall> because lockdown drills aren't just about school attacks.

If not doing invacuation drills how do you propose schools teach the process of getting children into a safe space, say to get away from an angry parent, or clear area for air ambulance in the same way they teach evacuation drills @GeneralPeter

These are all reasonable positions. I guess I don't understand why all the aggro and calling things stupid, daft, bollocks, etc etc etc., claiming that my motive must be to oppose keeping children safe, etc.

We disagree, that's all. You think it's illegitimate to worry about normalisation of attacks, I don't.

It's relevant to point to the fact we don't have a string of school attacks. You see that as a reason to support having drills, I think it's a reason to devote more of that time to things that are significantly greater threats (like, 100x, if looking at deaths), while I also worry that we might be changing our culture in a way that creates a risk that wasn't previously there.

a) It's not irrelevant to working out where we agree or disagree (I do realise that you aren't the original person I was discussing with, but that's why that question is there. And I do in fact think they are trade-offs, because I think we are always making trade-offs, and if you are choosing to give time to X that you could give to Y, that is a choice. It's legitimate to discuss whether it's a good choice).

b) Sure, there are many reasons to do these drills. My claim is not about whether they are useful in case of an air ambulance or animal. Happy to discuss that if you want to. My focus was to engage with the OP's post, which was about school intruders and comparing to the US. Very often such attacks are current or former students of the school.

Of course, it's totally legitimate to think it's good to practice drills to help with an air ambulance, an animal, or an angry parent. But if, as you say, the point is to get your child to safety when there is a risk of harm, then I think it's helpful to consider whether the drills themselves cause harm. I could help my child practice handling choking by giving them things to choke on, after all, but we don't, not because the practice wouldn't help them learn how to handle choking, but because it's not irrelevant whether our method is itself dangerous.

My kids had this at primary school in the UK 8yrs ago. The threat has been real for a while

it's a legitimate worry that this may in fact be the result.

You assert that its a legitimate worry, I assert that it's absolute bollocks.

Seeing self harm, anorexia or a killer glorified in a school shooting is nothing like an alarm going off and kids going to their classroom or staying in their classroom, while being told by their teacher that it's in case of a gas cloud or dangerous dog, or needing to get them inside away from an incident.

Schools do actually have lockdowns, for a variety of reasons, they are not uncommon. Among teacher friends from different schools I can think of at least three cases of kids being kept locked in classrooms in the last twelve months because of genuine need to keep them safe. That you don't appear to know that suggests that the actual lockdowns aren't inspiring a string of school attacks, so why would a practice run?

This on the other hand, is a waste of both our time. I've already given my view upthread, as well as my reason for it. I don't think fire drills standardly increase the risk of fire, though I do think doing widespread 'arson drills' might well in fact do that. In other words, that it's the normalisation route that I think does have an effect on children's behaviour in response to distress.