"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

Our schools have a safety procedure in case of escape from Broadmoor hospital as we are only a mile away
I lived near there as a child. It was put into action more than once in the 60s.

I'd like to see how they'd manage a lockdown in our son's SEN school
I'm sure they manage fire drills somehow - there will be a plan.

Happens at our schools - SE England.

These were normal throughout my childhood. I’m really surprised that some people have never heard of them.

We're in Scotland and DC have never mentioned a lock down drill either . . .which is odd since according to posts here, it seems we've had 2 incidents in the last 3 years which would have met lock down criteria.

The primary school I work in have them once or twice a year. Had to put it into practice last summer when a drunk parent scaled the 6ft playground fence and started trying to smash windows with a sledgehammer whilst screaming abuse. The kids (at least the ones who didn't see/hear the opening few moments) weren't phased at all because they'd practiced it.

We are South East, our DCs school have done this, infants - seniors

@NearlyGranny but it isn't just about guns or the worst case scenario. There are multiple reasons why a school may have to go on lockdown and it is very naive to not have plans in place.
Most of us hope they will never need to be used but at least we know if we have to the procedure will be controlled rather than chaos.

Yup, not only needed for crazy gunmen or loose dogs, but potentially also for angry Dads who have discovered where their fleeing-from-domestic-violence kids go to school.

Practicing isn't traumatising if done calmly.

We have to do it once every term. Ours is triggered by an announcement at which point all blinds are closed and children sit in the place designated safest in each room (away from doors, windows etc). The KS1 and younger KS2 children probably don’t even know its a drill of any sort as no alarm or anything is sounded think along the lines of “would the owner of the orange van please report to the caretakers office”... basically a set phrase that would NEVER be put over the tannoy unless to trigger a lockdown.

Our lockdown and fire drill logs are checked by Ofsted so I’m sure all schools do them... a fire drill is obvious to the children so parents tend to hear about them... lockdowns probably don’t even get mentioned.

And no, we don’t tell parents about them, it’s not necessary to do so. We don’t tell them about fire drills either.

Ours do it. Last year in reception they were told they were going to be playing hide and seek with the headteacher. And that when the bell sounded they were all to hide under desks etc so that when the headteacher looked inside, she couldn't see them.

Good way to make such an exercise child friendly IMO and not scary.

The shooter in the NW was Derrick Bird. We were just inside the area advised to keep inside before the incident was over.

Raoul Moat was a different type of incident and in Northumberland.

@NearlyGranny but it isn't just about guns or the worst case scenario. There are multiple reasons why a school may have to go on lockdown and it is very naive to not have plans in place.

We had to trigger a lockdown at my last school when a parent who had been banned from contact with their child found out where they were (fostered child) and tried to force their way in. Parent was removed by the police and only one child who happened to be in the office was even aware anything untoward had happened. If it’s been done properly then no, most of you won’t ever have heard of them.

It's called invacuation at ds's school.

The procedure has been instigated a couple of times at local schools. one was an ex students who entered the grounds and started making threats, another was an argument between two members of the public outside and there was also an armed robbery at a local off licence.

I am a primary school governor, and in the last year or two there have been suggestions coming down from above that we should do this drill.
So far the head has been working with staff to work out what we would do and what is appropriate, as all our classrooms have external windows, and then the hall has an external door!

So they have been 'practising' it at a management level, and at some point they will do a drill with kids.

So quite new, and is in response to terrorism. Slowly filtering through all schools I woudl say.

I was talking to one of my ex-colleagues about this, and she laughed and said that sometimes her kids will beg to play ' the let's all hide when the signal goes' game.

I understand that they had them regularly at DD's primary. It was just one of the procedures that were practiced regularly, so that they became 'no big deal'.

They had to do one for real once, when an air ambulance landed on the school playing field. They did the lockdown to prevent the youngest from being alarmed and to stop the older ones gawping out of the windows at the poorly patient. It went like clockwork and proved that practice had meant that a potential emergency situation was handled calmly.

Wow I never knew this was a thing in the UK! My son just started school this week. We are hoping to move to Canada and was so put off by the fact they have to do lockdown procedures but if we do them here too then maybe it is a bit less worrying and not a given that there will be a school shooting!

I’ve worked in a SEN school and yes they do this.

Invacuation once a year at DCs south west England state secondary, they are no big deal. Once they used a zombie Apocalypse as part of a science event for cover.

Was actually used last year irl because 2 f**king american kids fell out over Minecraft. One sent email death threats to multiple schools in UK trying to 'frame' the other (you cant make this up, google it).

We are not killing obsessed America but better to be prepared.