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

OK, this is a much more productive style of discussion. Actually pick the bit you doubt, and engage with it, and we can discuss that.

My concern is that things that are described to or perceived by children as attack drills may serve to normalise the idea that attacking a school is a normal or reasonable response to distress. That we've heard on this board of how drills are so described or so interpreted, at least by older children. And that by analogy to what we know happens with other responses to distress (suicide, cutting, anorexia), it's a legitimate worry that this may in fact be the result. And that, given the extremely low base rate of attacks, the risk is that in the UK context especially, it's the drills that would do more to normalise the idea rather than, say, media coverage of actual UK attacks (because they, currently, are so rare).

A) irrelevant they're not.
B) it no mt about "school attacks" it's about getting YOUR CHILD to safety in a calm and efficient manner where an event might cause them to be at risk of harm. This could be a mad man with a knife, but it's more likely to be a rogue animal, and angry parent, an air ambulance needing to land on the school field, an incident in the road outside which means pupils cannot be safely released etc.

@TheMissingLinkHasBeenFound the most chilling session on the safety talk was about on line safety and grooming. Maybe some of the posters on here who don’t like the thought of lockdown drills would complain about talks like this. I was quite traumatised by it.

They won't, but staff will have "what to do in terror attack". It's essentially, run and hide.

Do fire drills encourage arson?

School attacks have a contagion aspect.

There is evidence that school attacks inspire other school attacks.

The argument that sitting in a classroom with the door locked inspires school attacks is one that you alone appear to be making.

Fire drills are for the school setting. Fire safety talk will be something different. I remember going on a school trip when DS was in Y6 to local leisure centre where all the local Y6 classes converged to have various safety talks including ones from all emergency services. DS is well beyond Primary age now. Would be interesting if they have built in safety talk on what to do in a terrorist type scenario on this trip now

An assertion that school attacks in the US have a contagion aspect, yes, and that suicide and anorexia and cutting do, including in the UK.

Do you doubt those claims? Or you just haven’t previously heard them so need the data now?

Based on your repeated assertion and no evidence then.

I'm sure that if you google kids dying in school fires in the UK you wouldn't come up with much either, but does that mean we shouldn't 'divert attention away from water safety' by holding fire drills?

I looked up child fire deaths (not just in schools, because school fire talks don’t just protect against that), and they are about 5 a year. So, well below road safety or drowning, and well above school attack. I do think that is relevant to deciding what we should focus on.

Saying: ‘well, fire’s a 4x lower risk than drowning, I bet you think we should prioritise drowning there too!’ doesn’t feel like a gotcha to me. Obviously as the numbers get closer it’s more nuanced (maybe there’s nothing more we can say to children that will change their water behaviour, but there is for fire, for example. Or if your school is near water, that’s obviously relevant). But this kind of comparing using data and reason isn’t some sort of crazy talk. It’s normal and good safety practice.

If not making these decisions on data and reason, what else to go on?

Whereas school safety drills can only be practised in schools.

I think that’s a fair point (setting aside the attack-normalisation worry), but the risk rates are so different, like 100x, that I’d still devote school time to the main threats. Even if I had ten safety lessons to allocate, I’d guess that the most protective way to allocate them is still to give all ten to road, drowning, other types of accident.

See my posts at 9:21 and 12:44. You’re welcome to disagree, but you seem to require an awful lot of help to understand (or even to find) the points you are disagreeing with.

Let’s take an angry parent scenario, unfortunately a quite regular occurrence across schools. If said angry parent comes onto the playground at drop off in the morning and starts mouthing off at teacher, being threatening. Best thing is to get children indoors. Ring invacuation alarm. Children know to make their way into the classroom, not faff about, not question why school bell has rung early, no hanging around the cloakroom. Go straight into class. There will be no hiding under tables at this stage. Lessons can carry on.

If parent’s behaviour escalates, police need to be called, then next stage of lockdown drill may be invoked, internal doors locked, blinds down. If continues then may have to be escalated to sitting quietly under tables.

Most scenarios like this will only get to stage one.

Drills like this are not going to traumatise a child. Watching their teacher being threatened by a parent might

I’m saying a harm of attack drills relates to increasing the likelihood of such attacks.

based on?

....rather than, say road safety or drowning, then there are almost certainly many children dead now who would have been alive because of that choice.

I was taught road safety by my parents.

And the most useful thing children can be taught about water safety is 'stay away from water.' Again, by their parents. A lot of drownings happen because children/young people were playing around in or near water which was not safe to play around.

Whereas school safety drills can only be practised in schools.

@noblegiraffe

You’ve not quite grasped my points, either one.

My first point is that there is, in fact, a trade-off in devoting time to attack drills. That’s not a claim about what school are actually using their assembly time for. Or what they would, in reality, divert attack drill time too.

And I’m not saying that the benefit from drills comes mainly from managing attacks (I’ve said nothing on that), which seems to be what you mean by what they are ‘about’. I’m saying a harm of attack drills relates to increasing the likelihood of such attacks.

You may disagree on both, but it’s more productive if you engage with the actual claims not different ones.

Many of the things you talk about @GeneralPeter should also be taught at home. Drills of any sort at schools are for teaching children what to do in case of a scenario at school. Same with drills in workplaces. They are not teaching adults about fire safety they are teaching adults what to do in an emergency in that particular workplace

But no one is picking a lockdown drill over a road safety assembly so to pretend that's a choice that is being made is stupid.

And why do you think school lockdowns are about school attacks when mostly they're not?

You don’t seem to be bringing much other than to just call things stupid.

Let’s try to work out where we actually disagree:

a) if they were trade-offs, would you pick the road safety talk or the school attack one?

b) do you think school attacks have a social/normalisation aspect?

You also suggest that we shouldn't try to minimise harm to children by preparing for events

Ah, you’ve misunderstood. I’m keen to minimise harm to children, which is what motivates my position.

Lockdown drills aren't replacing road safety assemblies, that assertion is just daft.

It'll be taking time out of a lesson that would otherwise be spent teaching maths, not road safety.

And lockdown drills aren't causing things that require lockdowns. Again another stupid assertion. Schools go into lockdown for all sorts of reasons.

@noblegiraffe

I’m not persuaded.

Time does not expand to create extra hours to spend on attack drills. If we spend any time on attack drills, that is time that could have been spent on road safety, drowning or accident training.

Does it feel more likely to you that an hour spent on something that kills 1-2 children per decade is better spent than on causes that kill 80-100 a year (or 800-1000 a decade)?

Which would you pick?

But there’s also the contagion/ normalisation concern. It seems more likely than not that UK school attacks have a social angle, just like US school schooling do, just like UK teen suicides, cutting, anorexia do. I’m not sure what would make it an exception.

That’s what makes it different from a fire drill.

GeneralPeter · Today 12:05 I think if the drill is just practicing lining up and being quick, with no association made with an attack
No, sad to say this is not the case.

The French primary school for invasion where I worked, the children had to hide under their desks behind satchels and no making a noise. Teachers were also under their desks, och my back. The head with the police patrolled the corridors. If a child messed about they had to visit the heads office later.
There was also another practice when they had to go to and stay for an hour or so, in a big hall/ canteen, where the windows were taped and air conditioning stopped. They children knew in advance of this drill and could bring a pack of cards but had to be silent.
Of course there was the usual fire drill when the children lined up and evacuated the school.
Children from a young age watch films and the news. Unfortunately, frightening it may be but sadly it’s how we live today.

I do appreciate that after a certain age children are aware of these things anyway and we can't really control that.

I think we do make a difference though.

Children know suicide exists, even methods. We still don’t describe it and focus on it, because we know that increases suicides significantly, by making suicide feel like a normal or natural response to distress.

Ditto for anorexia, cutting, etc. If you normalize a particular response to distress, you get more of it.

In the US, school attacks are well know to have a contagion aspect. Many attackers turn out to have studied earlier attackers or been inspired by them.

I’d want to be really sure that UK school-attack is somehow immune from this effect before I’d be happy to say ‘well, can’t do any harm’.

Because you are suggesting that lockdown drills are 'diverting attention' away from road safety or water safety which is just wrong. Of course schools try to teach kids about water safety and road safety. They don't cancel those lessons for lockdown drills.

You also suggest that we shouldn't try to minimise harm to children by preparing for events, which, by the way do happen. It's not just about kids dying and it's certainly not just about adults with murderous intent.

And I'm sure that if you google kids dying in school fires in the UK you wouldn't come up with much either, but does that mean we shouldn't 'divert attention away from water safety' by holding fire drills?