"Safety procedure" at school..anyone heard of it

[josiewosiee]

A friend mentioned today that her dd school had practiced a safety procedure at school, where shutters come down, doors are locked and children go under the desks. I have never heard of it, but apparently it is happening in all schools. To be honest, it frightened me a little. First I have heard of it though, anyone else heard of it

No school would not as the kids would be high as kites on that info! It’s practised just like a fire alarm is. It’s also used to practise things like internal emails for exchanging info if phone goes down etc.

I'm just wondering if they have done it with my dc and they just haven't mentioned it to me then.

Have lockdown here but not going under the desks. It was activated in a few schools here a few years ago as there was an axeman loose in the area. Kids spent all afternoon locked in until police found the suspect.

Raoul Moat was the bloke.

Have it in my DC's primary (NW England). First time they mentioned it was last academic year but not sure when it was brought in.

All schools (UK) that I know about do it as a 'if there is a loose dog on the run' As said it is no difference from a fire drill, but that is a concept we are all familiar with, a school should probably inform parents of the concept, because otherwise it sounds quite scary if it is a concept that you are not familiar with.

We had this in my last school but not I nthe one I'm in now.

However, we didn't actually practice it with the kids, surely they would be really scared?! We just had the procedure in place and all staff knew what to do.

@Haggisfish that was north east, Northumberland but yes, it would make sense for every school to do it, none are immune from 'dangers.'

We have lockdown drills in 2 of the 3 schools my DCs are at. One school sends a text to parents to say they are in lockdown and it’s just a drill, no cause for concern and another to say the drill is over.

Yes, was activated and used in real circumstances at DC"s school recently. The first I knew was a call from DC while I was at workl, telling me they were in lockdown. Followed by text from school to all parents. Lockdown was at police request following threats. The police managed to contain the threat and children were released. Prior to that I had no idea they had a procedure, but I'm very glad they did.

We brought it in last year. We didn't get the kids going under desks but do the shut blinds/shutters, lock all doors, gates are already locked. We thought it would never need to be put into practice.

A few days before the end of summer term, we had to put it into practice for real!! In our sleepy little town in the rural NW, there was a murder just outside our school, with the whole town put on lockdown until the man with a knife was caught. Then, half our kids couldn't get home for ages because of road blocks while the ambulance worked on the victims (5 people were stabbed, one died, the other 4 seriously injured and air lifted to hospital). We were very, very pleased we had a policy, and had practiced the drill. The kids were calm, as they thought it was an unannounced drill, staff kept it low key, nobody stressed as we knew what to do and we were certain that our procedures and security measures were enough to deal with the situation.

So it may well be necessary, even in the least likely places. We really truly thought we'd never need this procedure and we were just ticking a box for Ofsted. Now we know better.

Yeah it's standard lockdown procedure practice.

We had one at the nursery I worked in (south east)

Very common to practice lock down procedures. They are used for lots of reasons-
In case of aggressive/dangerous people on site

Loose animals (this has happened twice at our school where dangerous dogs were on the loose close to school grounds which needed armed police)

Intruders under the influence of drugs or alcohol

Those of you who have experienced this-

1. Primary or secondary schools?
2. What part of the country?
3. State or private schools?

I’m a teacher in the north-west. Secondary school. We do lockdown. But we just lock the doors and shut the windows. No hiding or anything over the top. We sat it’s in case of intruder, rioting, gas leak or other air pollution cloud, stray dog, stampeding cattle.... basically anything where they need to be kept safe!

Yes , my children’s school started having lockdown drills last year.

Very common. Been doing them since reception age

I’m in Ireland...we don’t do it. Never heard of it here but it could be a procedure possibly in some Dublin schools?? I’m not sure 🤔

Yes, its lockdown, my dd had it in her school, about a year or so ago, we are northants.

I am a governor and our state primary introduced this last year, our LA now expects all schools to have an emergency plan which includes evacuation, invacuation, a grab bag (which hilariously, the LA guidance says should include phonecards... Yeah, good luck with that), communication plans and contact details, where the children would go off site, where the SLT would meet off site, etc etc.

And the practices themselves are very low key but useful. In our case they revealed you couldn't lock the classroom doors from the inside...

We do lockdown drills at my primary school. It is presented to the children as a game, a bit like hide and seek... when you hear the signal, we will close the blinds and stay very quiet. I bet the headteacher won't even guess we're in here! That kind of thing. The kids enjoy doing it and sometimes ask if we can play that game again soon.

Hopefully a shooter scenario is very unlikely, but most schools have had to deal with a violent, abusive parent at one time or other. I've seen parents fighting on or near school grounds. Even a traffic accident or police incident outside the school, which you wouldn't want the kids to see.

I'd like to see how they'd manage a lockdown in our son's SEN school ...

Ours do it in the NW. Just 3 rings of the bell, lights out, blinds down, doors locked, email to the office to say everyone is safe and the class continues as normal until the bell rings again. The fire drill is far more exciting because everyone gets to go outside