Should the National press report on primary school lockdowns?

There was a lockdown in our sleepy village school last week, and GB News could legitimately have said it was due to a dangerous intruder. The dangerous intruder was in fact a cow which had escaped.

Oh I judge. I judge HARD.

The OP came here with some poorly-formulated thoughts about how 'our' kids are being put in danger and this is being kept from us by the media. And because of the GB News mention in the first post, there's an obvious underlying narrative about race and migrants. It didn't quite go the way they wanted though, so now they're on their soapbox about school lockdowns for some unfathomable reason.

A school lockdown drill is no different to a fire drill. An actual lockdown where there turns out to be no threat, is no different to a fire alarm when someone burns their toast.

Also OP, you're talking about not being able to avoid news about the Beckhams and other celebrities, which suggests to me that you just need to read some different newspapers.

Yes so I am not quite sure who’s having a problem here. Essex police writing skills, or people’s comprehension skills. I do agree they have set out the information in a format as clear as mud.

If you read the information in its entirety…

Turning to an incident involving the same suspect – who is a rough sleeper – accessing school grounds in Loughton on Wednesday 17 September.

ie. A lockdown

This individual accessed an area of school playing field, where he was reported to be seen looking in the bins for food.
Related to Loughton

Next day…

Initial reports suggested that the suspect, who is the same man who was arrested after allegedly breaking into a school near Epping on Wednesday, had attempted to gain access to Leverton Primary School. However, Essex Police have since said this is untrue and there have been "no offences, threats or issues relating to school property". Leverton Primary School in Waltham Abbey in Essex confirmed to the Express that it entered lockdown security measures at around midday on Thursday.

So either the express and the video footage of THE police I have seen are both lying (note the police have NOT said that this school did not go into lockdown). Or the school did in fact go into lockdown due to the presence of this man.

And that’s exactly the issue. It is apparently not a criminal offence to enter a school.

As I said they are presenting this information clear as mud.

So yes my belief is this man has caused two schools into lockdown; directly and/or indirectly.

This. 100%.

And I try not to judge too much because of the amount of effort from grifters that goes into suckering in gullible people but it's so hard sometimes.

I agree, and I think people like the OP need to fuck all the way off. Just transparently scaremongering with utter shit.

This one?

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/2110240/essex-schools-lockdown-updates-manhunt

An Essex Police spokesperson said: "We’ve made an arrest after reports of a man trying car doors in Waltham Abbey. [He is] in custody on suspicion of vehicle interference. [There was] one report of him on a Loughton school field on September 17, looking in bins. No other school-related incidents [have been] reported, despite inaccurate claims."

Also just FYI any local news site with LIVE In the name like Birmingham Live is owned by Reach - they’re the Mirror/Star/Express. So the national news have decided it’s best on the local page because lockdowns where nothing happened aren’t of national interest.

Not a conspiracy?

https://fullfact.org/education/uk-school-lockdown-drill-footage-2017-not-2025/

It's not actually and a lot of times police won't be called.

In the snake example I gave above, no police called and classrooms were locked down purely because we didn't need a few undred kids wandering past this snake or prodding at it, or screaming because "omg, a snake!". We needed the corridor empty while the owner came and collected it. Needing corridors empty is a reason for many lockdowns. Example, TA falls off a ladder and hurts herself. We would need the corridor empty because a, it's upsetting for the children to see that and b, it's not good for her or her right to dignity and c, space is needed for first aid to be given and/or paramedics to get in there - all much more difficult with kids milling around.

Another reason for lockdown, swarm of bees. Kids would need to be gotten inside quickly with doors and windows shut then locked down to the inside of the building until the swarm has passed or is collected.

A fire or an incident elsewhere might create lockdown. Someone got hit by a car on the road at a near school nearby and the ambulance landed on the school field. School was locked down with children kept in classrooms and windows/blinds closed because they had a view of the road and it wasn't good for them to see or hear the man dying under a car. We also didn't need any of them going outside where the helicopter was.

Lockdowns happen for all sorts of reasons, not all of them are police incidents.

What?! 😂

Honestly I don’t know what to say. And so many people have replied I am not replying to each of you. Perhaps this is what the OP are talking about. That unless someone is stabbed to death then lockdowns are not worthy news.

I don’t think it’s my understanding here which is troubled. In the statement itself it says that he entered the playing fields (by scaling over a fence). And was then found rummaging through the bins. And you think the bins are where? Outside the school? On the other side of the playing fields? No. They are blatantly next to the building.

The thing which makes this troubling is that this man had targeted two schools in short succession. A considerable distance from one another. After being spoken to by police for the first incident. He knew it had caused distress and triggered people panicking about a potential major incident.

It’s not a conspiracy. It’s quite clear what’s happened.

Because you have been called out over your inaccuracies? The Southport killer was born in Cardiff BTW.

I was at school on London during the 80/90s.

We'd lock down about once a month during IRA campaign.

I got time off school due to Bishopsgate/Canary Wharf and John Lewis bombs.

I bet loads of people reading this will have to go google these bombs...

Our local press reported a bang near a school.
Car backfiring in the end 🙄

Drop the headteacher a line then, ask what the school policy and plan is. I've done that as a parent, and approved lockdown plans for a different school as a governor. As previously mentioned, the most common reasons to need to lockdown is: 1) misunderstanding, but best not take any chances 2) disgruntled parent in custody/access situation 3) random animal on school grounds, everyone back inside so animal can be safely dealt with

OP, you are barking up the wrong tree on MN. Here are some better trees to bark up.

Contact the Department for Education, or interrogate its published data https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2024-25-autumn-term.

If your enthusiasm extends beyond England, you will also be able to track down information for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as education is devolved.

Contact the education correspondents of the broadsheets and pitch a feature on school lockdown trends.

Live footage, well it must be real then.

Like the live footage of a coach outside a hotel with passengers who were misidentified as asylum seekers?

Quite frankly, I think that the average parent with a school age child only cares about incidents in their locality. I don’t mean that they don’t care if something happens elsewhere but an article where angry parent turns up, school goes into lockdown and police called and parent leaves is going to have people shrugging and saying so what? The schools are right to call the police just in case even if they are reasonably confident that nothing happened and it’s only necessary for the police to make a comment so that parents don’t rush to the school and escalate things.

I think that reading about minor incidents like that would have you reading the news forever. It’s good that nothing happened and that the parent in the example above just went home and promised not to turn up again- I don’t know if this is recorded in the police figures.

As a parent I’m happy that my kids schools have buzzers and fences to keep the kids safe. Some people on here freak about lockdowns in English schools because they jump to the US scenario when kids are given a more realistic and gentle scenario like a dog escaping from a nearby house. Ask your schools about lockdown practice. It’s treated as a drill like fire drills and very low key.

This really isn't new though surely? I'm 42 and did lockdown drills in primary school.

They usually used the "big dog" excuse, and we were all miffed afterwards because none of us had seen the big dog.

And then there was the one time we actually had a proper lockdown, because a father who wasn't allowed to see his kids turned up with a knife demanding they were given to him.

No-one was hurt, the police were called and he was arrested. I'm sure it probably made the local paper but it never would have ended up in national news, because stuff like that happens every week somewhere in the country, and always has.

If I turned up at my DC's school during the day I would find locked gates. That doesn't mean there is a lockdown. If I was in a group of 30 other parents, demanding access, I imagine the police would attend. I expect children would be kept indoors. You would be able to film distressed parents, being kept from their children.

The sad thing is that all these fake 'reports' (mostly in social media echo chambers) are leading people to withold their children from school. That's way more damaging.

That’s literally what the press does - decide what to tell us.

Exactly

He wasn't a migrant. He was just black.

People will believe whatever they want to believe, I guess.

If the police were deliberately misrepresenting the facts, the national media would be all over it. It would make a great scoop. They've obviously looked at the evidence and decided that there is no story.

There's no arguing with people who are caught up in their little bubble of disinformation, though. They automatically believe that everything which doesn't support their world view is some sort of grand conspiracy.