Do they do lock down drills at your dc school?

[PrincessHoneysuckle]

The secondary i work at has announced they are starting soon due to the recent stabbings in the news.

We are definitely warned beforehand. An e-mail goes out saying when and then a follow-up text to say it has been completed. In contrast the termly fire drill is never broadcast widely except to my DS and a few others who have sensory issues relating to the alarms. Ds told me the children like him (and a couple of teachers with sensory issues) are warned beforehand very quietly and they go to a quiet place and sit until it is over. It's become a bit of a group activity for them.

Yes, they’ve done one recently in my children’s school. And all the lefty parents were up in arms over it. You should have seen the outrage on the parents WhatsApp chat about how traumatised their children were about having to go through the ordeal of it and how outraged they were that the school didn’t warn them in advance.

Surely that’s the whole point of it? To practice the reaction to an UNEXPECTED event? I was grateful that the schools are putting in measures to prepare for such an occurrence and think the parents should be more outraged that schools have to do such drills in the first place.

They certainly weren’t required when I went to school 30+ years ago.

Just to add, when I asked my children about it after I found out, they weren’t bothered at all and one of them even described it as “fun”. I asked about one of the children who was supposedly traumatised and up all night unable to sleep afterwards and my child said they weren’t even in the room at the time 🙄

Hardly anyone will experience such an incident

Why terrify every child?

This language is unhelpful it's not terrifying if done properly and hardly any schools will experience a fire so by that logic we shouldn't do fire drills either?

The older ones generally piss about and have a whale of a time. In the week before we have a presentation to go through the procedure with the kids and tutors will have a chat with the anxious kids. In schools close to me there’s been a student threatening a member of staff with a plank or wood and kids with air rifles on the school field. Other schools have had soft lockdowns due to chemical spills and dogs on site.

The kids are actually more resilient than many parents give them credit for. We chat to the kids leading up to the drills and identify those that may be more anxious and reassure them. It’s not like we tell them that we are practicing for school shootings/stabbings. There’s a multitude of scenarios that might require schools to do a hard/soft lockdown. We’ve also practiced the bomb evacuation, more likely for old world war bombs than world war 3 but it’s important we all know what to do.

Child mental health stats suggest modern approaches are not actually working very well

It’s been a requirement for years. As people have said in primary they use ‘dog in the playground’ and the kids don’t seem scared at all by it.

I also did it at school in London 30 odd years ago due to IRA threat.

Our sons does, I’m in my mid thirties, we had them at both my primary and secondary school.

I think children’s mental health is a whole separate issue. I’m just talking about the resilience of the kids to practice lockdown procedures. Imagine if any sort of intruder got into site and schools didn’t have a plan in place, schools would be flamed.

In my children's primary school they do a lockdown drill about once or twice a year. They do it as a dog in playground type thing or hiding from the school mascot. The kids aren't terrified at all , they don't know the real reason for these drills they just practice doing it.

Ours did a deer in the playground a couple of years ago and my ND daughter is still fuming that she wasn't allowed to see the deer and hopes it gets into the playground again!!

No this is if something happens in the school

I have never ever heard of this in the UK. None of my kids have ever had a lockdown drill and nobody else I've ever met has mentioned their kids having them. Really surprised that they are a run-of-the-mill experience for so many people here. This is eye opening.

I was a uk school governor for 11 years and I know we had to do lockdown drills annually as I had to put it in my annual report

I.only every recall 1. I've been at my school 20 plus years

It was an inner city school so you did sometimes get random things happening

I only knew my DDs school had one last week as we got a text message. They were completely unbothered by it... same as a Fire drill or when they needed earthquake drills when we lived abroad.

Incidentally, they also took their school needing armed guards checking IDs completely in their stride as well (the parents were more stressed by that!)

Yesterday, another local Secondary had to use their lockdown drill for real.

I might have thought that they were unnecessary until my child's school had to enact a lockdown very recently. This was because just around home time, a group of drug dealers, one with a machete, started kicking off just outside my son's city centre school (we live in York, generally a pretty safe city). Luckily, it was all very smooth, and swiftly dealt with by police.

My DC was involved in a real school lockdown that was badly handled. The poor handling, even more than the traumatic nature of the actual situation, has been hugely detrimental to their mental health. I think it’s vital to practice these things, though in fact my DC is, unfortunately, quite badly triggered by even practicing… still I’m glad they do, though, as the consequences of a chaotic lockdown are potentially v bad ☹️

DCs did this a while back and school had never mentioned doing one before. We are near Southport though. They also installed higher fences around part of the perimeter at the same time, as some were scaleable.

The school explained it as a hide and seek game to the children, which somehow made it feel worse. As pps said, when they shared this with us it was just so upsetting given everything going on at the time which was incredibly close to home.

My dd's secondary school was doing them while she was there - she's in her mid 20's now so quite a while back.

Our secondary does them yearly. Primary never did them but its been a few years since mine were there so they might so them now although it its a little primary school in a tiny village. They did put up 6ft fence all around a few years ago though so the only way in is via the locked reception door unless the unlock the gates.

last year there was a real lockdown. Police were chasing a suspect who was armed. He was near the school so they locked it down.