Should the National press report on primary school lockdowns?

I'm sadden that so many people think as long as nothing happened in the end that the increasing instances of schools locking down is not worth reporting

But what is your evidence that there is an increase in lockdowns? Plenty of people have told you that schools have been doing these for decades. The word lockdown might be new, but the procedure is the same.
And if your answer to that question is because you're hearing about it more, then your whole premise about it not being reported is false.

We had a lot of frothing on the local FB page recently because a primary school had not told parents about an incident of a man, armed with a knife, being chased by armed police. Only there was no man, no knife and no armed police. Somebody may have found some kind of knife ( possibly a table knife) in the surrounding fields. The school had to email parents, apologising for not telling them that nothing had happened, when they weren't even aware of the rumour until it had spread!

I think reports of lockdown drills could easily get similarly hyped. If you know that your child's class sometimes have to sit on the floor and be quiet, are you going to feel you need to discuss school shootings with them or accept they are having story time? It is absolutely shocking if teachers and other staff are regularly threatened by parents, such that police have to be called, but reporting that as 'lockdowns' feeds anxiety unnecessarily.

The person reporting these incidents was an ‘independent journalist’ whose timeline was full of right wing bullshit. Why wouldn’t the press report? What conspiracy do you think the authorities are covering up?

A few months ago people were stirring up hate saying that migrants in hotels were planning to attack primary schools (in Afghanistani, the well known language) so they’re trying to find incidents that fit this narrative. It’s bloody obvious what they’re doing.

OP, you keep talking about 'an increase in school lockdowns' and demanding that we should all know about this increase, but its not clear what is giving you the impression that there is an increase?! And I'm not convinced that the national press reporting every single time it happens would give you an idea of that either.
We had a school near us evacuated at the end of last term because of a bomb threat. That made local news, but not national news because its not of national interest (and not an uncommon occurence, particularly around exam time...). Happened a long, long time ago when I was at uni too. And I remember it happening at college. These things are not new. The ability to learn about relatively minor events that happen in all corners of our country is fairly new though, and clearly is not necessarily a good thing when it sends people in to a panic.

They did. It wasn’t right wing nutters. I have literally seen live footage from parents outside the school gates whilst children are inside locked down. The police were saying it is civil trespass; parents arguing it was aggravated as had caused a lockdown and distress. The fact these schools are downplaying it is additional concern.

Read the statement, no one entered any schools. It was right wing idiots spreading misinformation.

https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/waltham-abbey-school-safety-concerns/

Reputable news channels and national newspapers will probably do some basic fact checking before they report stuff. The likes of GB news will report any old crap that suits their divisive agenda.

I suggest that you seek out more reliable sources in future so that you don't become part of the problem by unwittingly spreading fake news.

Unless, of course, you're deliberately trying to spread disinformation. Which many people do.

There were lockdowns in Epping because a homeless migrant man kept entering schools. It wasn’t publicised in news and was on Twitter and YouTube.

I don’t think they should be keeping these things but equally I don’t want them giving people ideas so I suppose it’s a difficult balancing act.

They don't just "go inside". They go into certain rooms, the blinds and windows are closed, doors are locked and they must remain below the window-line. I think practicing is sensible.

Ok, let's say that you were told about every time a school went into lockdown somewhere in the UK. Let's say it was 2 or 3 times per week. What would you actually do with this information? What use could it possibly be? Is there anything you could do about it? Franky, it sounds like sheer nosiness.

I think OP is hinting at conspiracy theories

You need to put the tin foil hat away and start listening to different people. I see these sort of comments on Facebook all the time and honestly you're going to make yourself ill buying into all this shit.

This whole Labour can't protect our kids at school narrative is absolute bullshit and really dangerous.

That too.

I think it's safe to say that details are not their strong point.

Hundreds of thousands of things happen all day and night all across the country. We can't turn every single one into a news story. Even if we could magically have every story turned into an article no one would ever have the time to read them all or even sift through them to find what's worth reading.

A car exploded outside my house a few weeks ago and led to quite a large fire that took a few hours to put out. To me, it was a massive scary event that I had a lot of questions about. For my city? It was one of many car fires that night and nothing noteworthy at all.

There is no real public interest in hundreds of "x school went into lockdown but then nothing really happened and everything carried on as normal" stories. It would just drown out the real noteworthy events and spread fear without actually doing anything good.

As a teenager in the 80s we regularly had evacuations to the playing field because of hoax IRA bomb calls by kids who were off school. It’s nothing new.

It’s for events of national significance, not false alarms which warrant no significant action.

But why! It’s barely even local news.

Would you expect to hear about fire drills

GB News is best thought of as a work of fiction.

Schools have lockdown protocols. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/school-and-college-security/school-and-college-security

I was a recently qualified teacher when Dunblane happened in 1996 and remember it like it was yesterday.

I’m sure it is a bit of a shock to you if you never knew this was happening. Unfortunately @Lazytiger this is a regular occurrence in many schools. At my primary school in a large city, we had a recent lockdown due to a former pupil being on the school roof. The children were kept inside to keep them safe. Police attended, chased and caught the intruder. We practise lockdown drills regularly like we practise fire drills. The children see them as routine, nothing to worry about.

Police have been called to our school and immediate local area maybe 4-5 times in the last year. Mainly for altercations between parents and/or staff. Sometimes for pupils. Sometimes for dangerous members of the public. It’s not a massively bad area - It’s just not news when it happens so frequently.

The national press never do. My nephews school has the literal swat team called in one day due to a child claiming they had a weapon (falsely). They literally came in brandishing guns scaring the kids. The same week my nieces school, in the same area was put into lockdown due to a girl with a knife. I think it’s because of the type of area. As soon as it starts happening regularly in middleclassville we will start hearing about it 🙄

Just imagine if every local news item was in the national news! We'd have 'The News at 6 to midnight' (at least).

I just read the article from Birmingham Live. Read until the end- the Police report nothing happened.