Or is this inappropriate for a summer camp?

[Herewegoagain84]

My five year old has been going for a few days here and there over the summer to a day camp based at a school - well known company - seems to really enjoy it. This morning she mentioned that a few days ago they did “lockdown training” and she had to hide under a desk. She has been asking questions about what a lockdown is etc. We are in London.

Considering I don’t think this has been introduced in schools / we don’t have the same record as the US in this country, AIBU that this was an inappropriate “activity” to do with a group of five year olds? I want to call them to discuss it, as if they planned this I think it should have been brought to the attention of parents. If they did it as a game, I think that’s even weirder?

DDs primary school tell their students they are practising for if a dog is loose on the field, which the children all seem to believe. The summer camp probably just used shoddy language instead of making it child friendly often because summer cmp workers are often very young and wouldn't think to put it into child friendly terms if they had been asked to run a lock down drill.

Schools in the UK have practised them for about the last five years, we do 2 or 3 a year. Normally last 20 minutes on a last period.
It isn't just about guns, it's about things like nearby chemical spills and their is rising knife crime around the country particularly due to County lines etc so they need to be done for those reasons too. There are different levels of lock down, hiding out of the view of doors and closing all doors, windows and blinds for intruders/ guns/ knives etc. Lockdowns where you have to be indoors with windows shut but can carry on as normal normally incase of chemical spillages or large fires in the area.

I tell DD and my students that just like fire drills it is important to know what to do as when they are older they might be visiting or living in a place where these things are more common and its important to know what to do and by practising it becomes instinctive.

Both mine have them at secondary school.

We had bomb drills (different from fire drills) when I was at primary nearly 50 years ago due to the IRA threat.

I used to take Brownies on Pack holiday and we always had a fire drill shortly after arrival. We also had termly drills at our meeting place. I don't think it's any different.

We have these in work as well.

To ‘lockdown’ for what exactly? An earthquake? A gunman? Weve never had a school shooting in England. Scotland had one in 1996. Our earthquakes don’t tend to be strong enough to pose a threat to life, although I just googled it and someone died from a falling rock in 1915. Not many rocks in classrooms though.

I think it’s scaremongering young children and completely unnecessary. We don’t do them in my school.

I’m a teacher in a primary special school and we do lockdown training. Like fire drills there is an expectation that we do these (not sure if it’s coming from headteacher/ governors, LA or Ofsted etc though) and I don’t think we inform the parents specifically beforehand.

I wouldn’t think anything of it unless it has been presented in a way which has left her very scared and anxious, such as if they were talking of bombs or guns etc. We wouldn’t mention anything like that. Usually we would just say we need to practice staying safe in the classroom or hiding, sometimes we might mention pretending there’s an escaped zoo animal or similar to the children able to understand if they were asking more questions but the aim isn’t to make anybody frightened or scared something is going to happen. It’s just about having a procedure in place that can be followed smoothly in the unlikely event that it’s needed.

My son’s school had a lockdown due to a body being found on the school field, a hanging that could clearly be seen from some classrooms. Pupils were locked in school and blinds were closed, so not scare mongering and can be for many reasons

They have this in dd secondary school too.

Former primary school teacher here. We ran yearly lockdown drills, I seem to remember doing them from the early 2000s onwards. Good job we did because we had to do it for real when a drug addict appeared in the school grounds armed with a knife. We didn't get under desks but had to lock ourselves in the classroom and keep away from doors and windows. The children wouldn't really have realised what was happening. Actually, what I mostly remember from that incident is that I was based in a small annexe across the playground with a few other classes and SLT forgot to tell us when it was all over. We only realised when we phoned up to ask what we should do about lunchtime and they airily said 'oh, the police took him away ages ago!'

Not sure it's appropriate at a UK summer camp but glad to hear kids have this training in schools.

My son's primary was next to a secondary school and whilst he was there a pupil was knifed outside their school during a week day morning and on another occasion a father of a child at the secondary school attacked the child's mother with a knife and then went to pick the child up from school to go on the run. So his primary had to go into lockdown twice in the space of 3 years. So definitely not far fetched.

I think the fact my daughter used the term lockdown when she came home suggests it wasn’t handled well. No mentions of loose dogs! By way of update I have emailed the camp head office just to enquire more about what happened, and they seem perplexed that it was delivered at all. They are now investigating.

Yes to all the above, I don’t disagree with the training in principle, but not on a random day of summer camp with inexperienced staff. School would make much more sense. It’s interesting to hear different experiences of how this has been implemented across schools / age groups - it seems very disparate - I guess there is no general policy as yet.

yes indeed. Our school does a fire drill every time and a lockdown drill every term. Obviously they are different because in the fire drill you need to exit the building.

As it happens when DS1 was in nursery at that school a burglar was trying to escape from police and actually leaped over the fence into the nursery part of the school grounds and went through the school. The lockdown drill was employed and then when it was all over the teachers took the kids to our large local cafe for hot chocolate. Ds still says this was the best day ever he had at that school!

It's sad that it is neccessary.

My children did this at primary and at two different secondary schools … it’s normal . There were adverts on TV a few years back to which you probably watched about surviving a terror attack . I’d rather my children had a clue what to do than not

Our village primary has lockdown practice. Preschoo - Yr 6. If the fire alarm is constant brrrrrrrrrrring without stopping it's for a fire. If it is an intermittent quick bring bring bring then it's lockdown.

Agree.
They do it here in Primary school.

We've been doing this for years at my primary school. We used to call it a lockdown but after the recent covid lockdowns we had to change the name, as it was confusing. So 'invacuation' it is. Evacuation eg fire alarms etc we leave the building asap. Invacuation we move into rooms / corridors with no external windows/ doors and sit silently. We have a zoo nearby so have always used the 'escaped animals' story and we don't usually warn the parents in advance, as we wouldn't with fire drills, but we do inform parents afterwards. Sadly it's a necessity and has been for many years. We are in a tiny village school but still take this seriously.

I don’t disagree that it’s appropriate in a school setting - this was a random one off day at summer camp with young inexperienced staff.

I also work in a school and yes we have practiced fire drills 0(leave building congregate on yard) bomb drill (leave building and move furthest away from school building i.e: bottom of the field) and lockdown procedures (doors locked, blinds down, no noise)
We had training on the last one before any drills. Parents are not told of any drills (why would they be?) The staff don't know when they are happening so telling parents beforehand kind of defeats the element of surprise.

My DC is in KS2 in London and since reception they have been doing lockdown practice.

If I were you I would be asking your DC’s school when they will be introducing it.

My primary dc have done it this year and we’re a rural up north village. Year 4 and reception.

I’ve never known a school do, and I’m a secondary teacher. I would guess that it was just a time-filler activity planned by the people running the camp, rather than anything necessary. Personally I wouldn’t be overly pleased if my child did it as it is scaremongering somewhat.

It is normal for a school to have a lockdown protocol but I am not sure all schools practise it. It’s to help manage intruders of any kind and keep staff safe. And it is a sad fact of the world we live in. It might be a rare occurrence but if it helps manage a potentially dangerous situation, so be it.

@Iamnottheone I share your experience.

It sounds like this was handled badly in the summer camp setting. I am surprised your DD hasn’t experienced a drill in school however.

I'm not sure what good hiding under a desk would be in the event of a nuclear explosion fufflecake.😆

If she is disturbed by that she is not old enough to go to this day camp op...