Dangerous person in school?

[WhinnieThePoohHead]

I’ll preface this by saying I know it’s not a AIBU, I just want to use the voting option :)

Met Friends for dinner today. One friend, a teacher, mentioned that her school does ‘lockdown drills’ as well as fire drills. I asked what they’re for and she said in case someone dangerous gets into the primary school. They lock the classroom door, shut the blinds, turn the lights and screens off and hide under their desks silently. My friend told me that all schools do these drills the same way they do fire drills. this is in the U.K.

YABU- yes all schools do this, you’re out of touch
YANBU- schools in the U.K. don’t do lock down drills

Of course this is standard practice. I’d be worried if schools didn’t do this!

I'm all for anything that might save lives in an emergency, same with fire drills.

School DSL here. This is totally standard practice, or should be. It's quite worrying how many posters are saying that their schools don't do this.

We do, it's called "deer in the playground". The children have to be quiet because the deer might hurt itself if it gets frightened and tries to jump the fence.

YABU
My children's primary does this. I was horrified when I first found out but actually I now realise it's better that the children now know how to keep themselves safe.

Our school have never told us they're doing them but I worked it out after my children (and others) told me that they have done a practice in case a wild animal get in. A parent governor friend confirmed for me.

Yes and it's been needed in our sleepy town. Armed police and helicopters for a twat with a gun. Expect the police forgot to inform the private schools, just the state ones

Just asked both my kids (9 and 7) and their school doesn’t do anything like this. We’re in Scotland

I disagree with this. It will make the ideas seem more real for young people and maybe not no beyond-the-pale, if they grow up doing lockdowns for school shootings there's bound to be one or two who act on it when older that might not have otherwise.
The adults need to drill but on a wider social psychologically I think it’s better for children and young people to think “that doesn't happen here”

my eldest is 20 and they did 'dog in the playground' drill when she was at primary

I agree. It's really worrying.

I'm curious about lockdown drills. The advice I've heard about hostage-type situations is 'run, if you can't run hide, if you can't hide fight'. Because in the US hiding hasn't actually worked, has it? Surely getting the hell out of the building if you can would be better.

Sorry so many typos in my post. You get the drift. We are making ideas mainstream that really shouldn’t be in the mainstream.

My small state primary does this (in UK). My child wasn’t clear what it was all for just that X codeword means we now do this to practice for danger.

Kids have to do so much weird stuff at school that it was just one more odd thing, my child is a big worrier about eg PE but didn’t bat an eyelid at the drill.

I've never done this as a teacher although I am now retired. Neither my teacher daughter or grandchildren have mentioned doing it either.

My Dad, now in his 70s, used to do a very similar drill at primary school but then it was ‘what if we get bombed by Russia.’

Does it, though? If young people grow up knowing what happens in a school lockdown, then when one in a million decides to conduct and school shooting they will know exactly what to do won’t they? They’re not going to believe that classroom with the blinds drawn is empty. They are going to go in and shoot under the desks.

By having our children grow up in fear like this the nutters out there are winning.

The way to prevent school shootings is proper social and mental health support, not normalising the idea of violence by having drills in preparation for it.

I’m in Scotland and my children have never done this at either their primary or secondary schools. It’s an all through campus and the school building is locked, you have to be buzzed in by reception. The playground is locked too. The primary school classrooms didn’t even have doors as they were all open off a central corridor but they did have blinds on the windows.

The secondary school part does have classroom doors but you need a pass to get through doors into the corridors for each subject where the classrooms are.

But it is useful and in gov guidelines to do so expect schools to follow this. There is now a lot of research discrediting the idea of trigger warnings being useful but this is not the same. In fact it is better to feel confident to face any situation that may arise.

Yep primary definitely do it. Dd1 hasn't done it yet at secondary but only started in Sept.

100thname Lockdown drills aren't just a response to school shootings, as others have already said, there are lots of reasons why they're useful.

All schools have systems in place for lockdowns.
My primary school has a specific alert on the fire alarm and procedures we have to follow. We practice it just as we do fire drills.
Haven’t done one for a while mind you! I’m only there part time so I might have missed it!

Secondary teacher in the UK, we definitely do them!

I was just about to ask if there were any Scottish posters on this thread.
Not currently done in this area of Scotland either.

My DD's are in year 2 and year 10, not sure if Primary do it but DD's secondary do. They've had to do it for real a couple of times, once there was reports of someone outside the school with a gun and and another time a threat had been made against the school, they weren't allowed to leave until the police established it was a hoax

I work in a high school and they did a lockdown drill last year. They're not as common as fire drills but should definitely be practiced. We did have the threat of someone coming to the school at one point so it's good to be aware of protocol.