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

By the way, if people on this thread are worried about stabbings and want to take measures to reduce the threat/ safeguard children- an evidence based campaign is working on banning sharp pointed kitchen knives. Get a rounded one! They are perfectly practical for cooking and vastly safer. If everyone did this it would significantly reduce rates of homicide in this country x

Invacuations can just be a way of getting children inside quickly and calmly but with no dawdling.

Ok fair enough- I’m not at all against practicing this type of thing and can see how it would be useful for relatively minor- albeit potentially chaotic - incidents like dealing with an angry parent on the lose.
I was objecting to the ones where they practice hiding under their desks because of a murderous intruder.

Where there is an incident at one school, like a stabbing, it is likely that other local schools will go into lockdown as a precautionary measure. Or if something is kicking off in the local area

@Tandora angry parent probably statistically more likely than a fire. Most fire evacuations probably happen due to children setting off alarms.

I have had dealings with a number of schools. Of them one had a fire in one of the buildings where no children were at the time but school evacuated. Don’t know of any other fires in the schools. But know of at least 3 lockdown incidents, one involving angry parent.

And children don’t always hide under desks. Invacuations can just be a way of getting children inside quickly and calmly but with no dawdling. The dog in the playground is an example given for younger children when carrying out a drill. But let’s face it if an XL Bully was on the prowl you wouldn’t want children in the playground

Schools have used lockdowns for bee swarms, chemical spills in local area when people are advised to stay indoors with windows shut. In these cases lessons will carry on, no need to hide under desks but there will obviously be no outdoor play or PE

So there was an absolutely devastating school shooting in Scotland in 1996, and then two decades later a lad in Luton was arrested having plotted to carry out a school shooting, although he never actually got anywhere near a school, and abandoned his gun and was arrested before it happened.
Do I think this rationally implies my 3 year old needs to practice hiding under her desk at preschool? No.

My kids had drills 20 years ago, not new and alas needed everywhere. When we lived in the USA we had earthquake drills as well, kids loved them because you get to hide under the table holding onto the legs

I did some voluntary work at a school and there was a lockdown drill one day. Nobody had told me and it was one of the most disturbing experiences of my life. The children were amazing. I was trying to hide being a gibbering wreck because it was a sobering reminder of how necessary this is in today’s society. Yes it’s sad but I’d rather kids had a chance in a situation like that.

do children need to practice routinely hiding under their desks in case once in a lifetime a drunk man comes running through the school corridors?

The problem is that people think this is only for the absolute worse case scenario, but there are any number of lockdowns that can happen for all manner of lesser reasons that won’t make the news. We had one in the 80s, a drunk, violent parent who came to settle a score with a teacher. I still remember him running through the school shouting and swearing, with all the children locked in the sports hall singing to drown out the noise.

Sorry, I don't read every thread on MN. And I asked quite early in this thread.

A couple of local schools have invoked lockdowns when a child has dysregulated and is damaging property, so again it is good to get children to leave the area

There are usually different levels of lockdown drills. An important part is for pupils to recognise the invacuation alarm so they can distinguish it from fire alarm so they know to go inside rather than outside.

If an angry parent comes onto playground and alarm goes off children know to go inside immediately not dawdling or rushing back to pick up their jumper etc. They don’t always have to sit under tables.

Children take them in their stride like fire drills. If they are going to get traumatised by them it is probably down to their parents making a big thing about them

That wasn't the OP's point. She stated she felt it was depressing school kids need to learn lockdown processes nowadays. I agree with her.
Complete lack of control over borders and law and order over the last few decades to blame.

Have you not seen the news this week? Google Nicholas Prosper.

It’s not new but schools are practising more now because of the boy in Luton who was going to his old primary school with a shotgun.

YANBU but this has been happening for years here. My DC’s both did it and they went to a little village school. The year before my daughter went to secondary school a mentally ill lady tried to get into the secondary school before wandering off to the local primary with a kitchen knife. Luckily the secondary called them and they had already locked down.

I remember when I was at secondary back in the 90’s and we did bomb scare drills with all the troubles fear. I suppose schools prepare based on the world they are living in. I also remember every few weeks there being messages about attempted kidnaps or vans driving around, it doesn’t seem like that happens so much anymore.

Ours were less than polite the one time they did encounter an intruder...

They do it very politely- "Hello, can I see your ID please" - it's usually only the older kids that do it, but one of the year ones challenged the Y5 teacher once, and told her off when she gave an excuse!

I think the only way to prevent these things is to seriously invest in mental health services to identify and hopefully prevent sick (or evil) people from acting on their urges.
Telling a child to get under a table for protection just isn't enough, is it?
No amount of drills would have prevented the Southport massacre. Properly monitoring and treating the perpetrator, who was already known to be a risk, might have just stopped him.
Better risk assessments are needed too. No one should be able to walk into a dance studio off the street. Locking the doors would have prevented access. Our local Brownie unit is like Fort Knox.

Getting children to hide under a desk just risks distresses them and in reality, how effective is it going to be.

....bombs early in ww2

Most of WW2 - rather less in the early part, in fact.

Lockdown practices are fairly common in our local primary schools here in the UK.
My children had a couple of them over the last 4 years. My sister in law, who is a teacher, had a real lockdown situation two weeks ago after a letter was sent about an imminent attack on a primary school in the area.

I recall our HT telling children to challenge people without lanyards. TBH, that idea made me uneasy - I reckon that it's safer for the children to tell the nearest known adult.

The thing is, since the beginning of the 20th century school children have had to do things which are unpleasant but necessary…. Like learn to use an air raid shelter, (zeppelins ww1, bombs early in ww2) duck and cover ( questionably useful)….and yes, it’s desperately sad they should be learning about sheltering safely from intruders/harm…but children are resilient, and so much better safe than sorry….

After Dunblane, they did that in every single primary school in my region...but not in the secondaries. It took about a good while before they installed such systems in the school where I worked.

One day after school, I found two adults at my classroom door. They'd come in the back door instead of the front, so the office had no idea that they were in. They were friendly enough, but I reported that to the HT as a security issue.

Nevertheless, it was some time before the council supplied the necessary security upgrades.