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

We practise each year and have had 2 real 'code blues' as we call them.

A massive swarm of bees came over the playground one lunchtime.
The other was a phone call from the police saying 2 men with a machete been chased from the police and were thought to be in local gardens. (We told the children some naughty cows had got out of the field).

I work for a group of schools. I've been in one of them when they've done a drill - there are two types, red or green. Green is stay in classrooms and do not allow anyone out. Red is lock/barricade the door and if possible restrict visibility to the room. There are so many ways to enter a school building I'm surprised it's not a wider done thing to prepare for it.

I’m a primary school governor and have suggested the school begins this. I’m in favour.

DC used to go to a prep school that did these. They used to tell the children that it was in case the bees swarmed from the beehives or if the ponies got loose from the paddock 😂

I'm a primary school and I've done it for real. Phone call from the police- dangerous person in the area, they would be landing police helicopter on our field, all children to be inside and not close to a window. It was lunchtime, all teachers on lunch and 1000 children split between the dining hall and the extensive fields, so it was a bit of a drama for about 5 minutes.

Why do people keep saying 'all schools do this'? How do you know this? You're also wrong.

Taught for 20+ years and never done one. I do have a key for our classroom on a high hook which is newish within the last 5 years.

Our schools do.

codeword blown🤔

Secondary teacher here, we do them and have done so for a number of years.
Depending on the age group of my tutor group at the time i can sometimes downplay the reasons for it.

Yes worked in 2 primary schools and have done lockdown drills in both. Both schools had a different alarm for lockdown to normal fire alarm.
It was done in a way that the kids weren’t scared or worried.
Schools have to be prepared for everything not just a fire.
The chances of anything happening are rare but the chance is still there.

@WhinnieThePoohHead yes it’s certainly a thing at my daughters school and personally as much as it shouldn’t be needed, I think it’s responsible that the school have a plan for a possible situation like this.

I work in a school, and yes, we do what's called "lockdown drills".

I teach in four schools. They all either do a lockdown drill or have a lockdown procedure.
My son's primary school (about 10 years ago) had to do this because someone escaped from a nearby prison and had been seen with a knife on the school field.

I’m a primary teacher and a school I used to teach at did this.
Although not all primary schools (well the others I have taught at before & since) do this.
Neither do my children’s schools.

Worked in a primary school where this happened- bomb scare outside. We went into lockdown but didn’t say to the kids . They watched a movie in the classrooms calmly, not realising they were over half an hour late being sent home , waiting for the police all clear. schools have a written policy for this type of event.

Yes this is quite confusing, especially as education is devolved so saying "all UK schools" means nothing because they don't follow the same procedures. Ofsted certainly wouldn't check if Welsh schools were doing this as they're inspected by Estyn.

My children's school doesn't do this, nor do those in which my relatives work; we're in Wales.

Depends on the hall. Some are heavily windowed which is why we were told not to lockdown in those. Safer to get into classrooms where the doors could be locked from the inside.

Different alarm to the fire one, and through doing the drills all staff knew what to do and where to go, just like fire ones. After school meetings we’d also talk about various scenarios including phone lines cut so we had a number of none smart mobiles that we got through donations.

How long has this been a thing for?! We certainly never did it at school, and I'm surprised to hear how common it is.

But now I think of it it's been 8 years since I was in secondary school so... perhaps I'm a little past it now 🤣

Yes its normal - I presume you have heard of Dunblane? Until that happened all my schools were on a lovely open campus then the fences came...

Just asked DS who is 16 and he's never done one at primary or secondary. I'd imagine it much more of a priority in certain places (ie big cities) than it is in other places, but definitely not done in all schools.

All the schools round here do it and the parents know about it, but we have a gas pipe (I'm hazy on the details) nearby and so there's a tiny chance there will be a leak. So it's very much 'gas drill day' and we treat it as normal. I'd not ever thought it could be useful for other circumstances, but of course it could.

I wasn’t aware that my daughters schools did this until the youngest came home and mentioned it. They seem to do this regularly.

I was shocked. I went and read the DfE guidelines on this and contrary to what people are saying in this thread, most schools should NOT be doing lockdown drills. They must have a lockdown plan, based on FORESEEN risks in their local area. They aren’t supposed to actually do drills unless a clear and identifiable threat has been highlighted in their risk assessment.

It is a very long document though, so I am unsurprised that schools haven’t read the whole thing and have misunderstood.

Just asked my 8 year old & DC said they don’t do it?

None of my 3 kids have ever mentioned it and I work in a school and don't think they do it there either. That's 7 schools/colleges between me and the kids (in England)