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

Where is "here"?

My children's school had armed soldiers guarding it st one point as it was on a Terrorist target list.

The novelty for the children wore out quickly and they just accepted it. It the adults don't make a fuss, the children trust them.

Sorry to serial post - dropped my phone...

Tornadoes are far more real and frightening to everyone here than anything to do with guns. A storm passed through two evenings ago that generated tornado warnings and activated the local sirens.

My dc 18 & 20 both did this at school. In my school days (I’m 54) we did drills in preparation for a nuclear attack.

My year 7 had their first lock down drill this week. We’re in Cornwall so probably depends on your area

When I was at Primary School we used to have a drill to prepare for a nuclear attack! We used to go to the gym because there wasn’t any glass windows to shatter on us.

It was in the early and mid 1980s.

I also remember bomb evacuation drills took place at least once a term - a hand bell would be used to signal the bomb drill rather than the electronic school bell!

Each generation goes through this!

Yes, tornado drills. I am in the US in a state where tornadoes occur during spring and summer storms. We have never experienced one in the locality where I live, but it is extremely important to be prepared and to act quickly without panicking.

Also, wrt mitigating harm - the schools my DCs attended all had an external doors locked during the school day/ entry only by buzzer policy from the early 1990s. Internal doors (to classrooms, offices, loos) were not locked but could be locked manually by teachers inside the rooms in one school, and in the other, could be centrally locked.

No parents ever entered the school during the school day, including drop off and pick up, unless you were escorting a child who was late, or picking up a child who was sick and waiting in the office, or if you were volunteering in some capacity.

The one actual lockdown my DCs experienced occurred after a nearby bank robbery when the robbers were on the loose. The lockdown occurred to prevent any possible hostage or fortress situation, which would have been immensely traumatic to all the children, far more harmful than doing the drills.

Tornado? 🤯

I haven’t read the full thread.

I’m glad schools are doing it.

Taking the recent case of Nicholas Prosper, can you imagine if he did indeed manage to get into that primary school? He even said he would finish what he started if he ever got out, everyone always thinks it won’t be them till it is. I can’t imagine what those poor parents felt when they realised how close their child came to death. In a world where radicalisation is becoming more common drills are super important.

My children have all left school & finished university & had anti intruder practices when they were at school. One of them was at school when an intruder got in.

I was at school in the 80s and we had bomb scares.

I agree with this, my children are 27, 21, 19 and 7 and not one of them has ever taken part in such a drill.

@Tandora
Part of all the drills my DCs did was practicing immediate silence once the buzzer went off, and immediate full attention to the teacher and compliance with all instructions.

Therefore there would be no classes full of panicking children in the case of a fire, tornado, or armed intruder.

The point of drills is to practice exactly what will happen and exactly what everyone is supposed to do.

Fires are vastly vastly more common than intruder shootings/ stabbings in UK schools. And there is evidence that fire drills actually mitigate / prevent harm.

Again, this thread is evidence that schools need to be focusing on educating the public about risk, instead of teaching kids to hide under the desk.

No.

It is vital to protect our children from a society that includes a wide range of people with varying degrees of mental health, radicalisation etc etc

Preparation is vital to ensure that should the worst happen, our children react appropriately just like they would during a fire drill with has been practised over and over and over again.

yes it is sad

ds didn’t quite view it the same way and loved this day. When I picked up him and his friend they were absolutely overjoyed to have to pretend their was an intruder in their school and reenacted the drill for me when we got home a number of times

Oh and where I am now we have nuclear reactor meltdown practice, regular alarm tests etc. it’s part of school life in the immediate vicinity to practice Evacs for that too

IRA bomb threats came to my school and surrounding buildings so we had bomb and fire drills. We were also quite close to a psychiatric hospital and there was the occasional wandering patient.

It was and still is essential we know how and what to do in these events. Practice! Practice! Practice! Keeps everyone as safe as possible.

we could clear a building of over a 1000 students in minutes when real threats came in. We could also get ourselves into the school hall just as quick if we were outside the building and there was an issue.

yes the threats are different but it’s life sadly.

I have worked in a school where there was a ‘word’, which meant the corridors were locked down (and fire alarm wouldn’t open them). The students didn’t practice and only certain teachers knew it, there was also a secret tannoy that wasn’t used, only for a major incident.

It was used once when I was there for a student who was going mad. Not to hurt anyone else but he would have hurt himself, no one could touch him so then slowly herded him out of the building.

My DCs went to school(s) in the US and did tornado drills, fire drills, and lockdown drills all through their school years. They experienced no cortisol related issues because the drills took place every year, predictably. You would honestly need to lead an incredibly sheltered life to have these drills affect you.

In addition to the school drills, there are municipal tornado sirens that are tested on a the first Tuesday of each month at a certain time of the morning. The sirens blast out from all the fire stations and the town hall and libraries.

We get frequent intense storms here, and the tornado sirens often go off for real, at which point we all troop down to the basement of the building and hope for the best along with all our neighbours.

They most likely would have but it might have been called something else. Its very standard practice now along with Prevent training against radicalisation etc

We live in Los Angeles and my son was in a REAL lockdown when he was 6 yrs old, in his school in Santa Monica when there was a gun man on the loose who had shot a few people at the Santa Monica college. All schools went into lockdown immediately and didn't come out for 4 hours. So he was in a dark art room with his scared friends, literally hiding behind a sink for 4 hours not knowing the gunman was not on site, and not knowing if he was going to get shot or not.

I think having drills is essential here, where we live, but I'm surprised they are happening in the UK. Either way, a drill is a drill. Don't get sad about a drill, get sad about an actual shooting.

It was ironic!!

Cancel the cheque.

It’s essential.
The school my children attended was involved in a serious lockdown (not uk) but the (false) alarm was sufficient to trigger special forces storming the school, and a lockdown scenario that lasted several hours.
One of the major issues was all the children being locked in classrooms and needing the toilet . I’ve since thought most classrooms should have some sort of porta potty for such eventualities, crazy as it sounds.