School intruder training

[incognitoe]

DC12's school organised "intruder training", which involved an actor banging on windows and shouting and an alarm going off for around 40 mins, and the children being asked to close curtains of room, get under desks and stay silent for that time, teacher they were with apparently not knowing anything about it. Half the class were crying or not able to breath properly.

Has your school done this? Actor came and met them at the end of the "training" to tell them it was not real.

Thanks

He or she should have met them at the beginning. Otherwise it’s a good idea to do this training with students (unfortunately).

That sounds terrifying not knowing it’s a drill.

Sadly it’s training that is very much needed in the US, and something useful to have anywhere just to be prepared in case the unthinkable should happen. However, I think the children and parents should be told about it in advance, so they know it’s just a drill, but that if (god forbid) it should ever happen when they’ve not been warned about it they should treat it as serious and do everything they’ve been taught in this training session.

Yes I think most schools do
the drill

Not heard of actors being used though

So the school don't accept that a percentage of the children will have experienced domestic abuse and find that traumatising? Or they just didn't join the dots?
WTF is goin wrong in schools right now? They just don't seem to have abused children on their radar at all.

My son's nursery (UK) does intruder training but nothing like this! I think the kids are just told that they have to sit in a certain place and "play" at being quiet.

Like a fire drill, they should have been informed it was training before it began. I've no idea why it needed to be 40 minutes either..

Yes, my daughters school have practiced drills where they all get into a teachers cupboard or under desks away from doors and windows.

They've done it three years in a row, only once with an actor - otherwise its a teacher in a high vi's vest doing it almost like a game of tag, noting who or if they can see or hear students in different rooms.

It's caused more than one asthma attack that I know of.

Just adding they've ALWAYS warned of drills and certain students have been discretely removed before they start. No idea of the selection criteria of those students.

They should have been told a drill/practice was going to take place and what would needed to be done.
How is someone meant to learn an emergency procedure if it's not practiced in advance - but they need to know in advance.
FFS
Sadly these drills need to take place - but not that way.

My DCs primary school do this, though without the actor and only for about 5-10 minutes. They emphasise having to stay in due to something outside, but DS 10 knew there was more to it as they closed the curtains and hid in the cupboard.

Yes they've had lockdown drills. But it was explained first in an age appropriate manner. So with the little ones it was more a game of hide and seek, the middle aged ones they talked about escaped animals etc and the older ones knew it could be adults trying to get in. It was the caretaker in a funny costume.

I've worked in a school where it wasn't a drill.. A rival gang after someone, with knives. Angry parent was another one. There has to be these procedures and the kids hVe to know what to do.

Just a couple of weeks ago a high school local to me had to implement the lockdown / intruder drill for real after a man got into the school grounds.

They do need to be practised but the way OP describes is cruel and unnecessary and I would make complaint.

Thanks for all the comments. If any of you are from the US please could you say? I was wondering about schools in the UK and forgot how global MN was for a moment! Also does anyone know if there are government requirements and also government guidelines given, about warnings in advance? Thank you!

@incognitoe I'm from the UK. I believe it is the local education authority who devise the guidelines.

UK as well. It was either a bizarre coincidence or an arranged thing that lots of the schools locally had their lockdown drill in the same week. (It was the topic of discussion at the Rugby club at the weekend practice)

Sounds bizarre, why would they have a man banging on the windows?
It’s not like they start a fire for a fire drill.

Lockdown drills are fine, but the actor (that no one knew was an actor) is a bit much, surely?

We are leaving the school at the end of the year - this last event was one of many.

Just in case anyone is interested, I emailed the head to ask her to let me know in advance if there were any more out-of-the-usual things planned, and I also said that I had been told that best practice was to let everyone know what was planned in advance and to introduce the actor, to avoid unnecessary stress and also so that if a real intruder entered the children wouldn't think it was just another drill.

Her response - she apologised, which was nice, and then said that the purpose of the drill was to find out how children and teachers would react if there were a real intruder...

so to use the analogy above... would she set a classroom on fire to see how they react to a real fire?

Lockdown drills are quite common in schools (in England) now. Not heard of one with using an actor in my area though.

Assuming you are in the UK, I would be furious if this was my child's school. What is the point of a drill like this? A bit of training for the teacher maybe, but getting children to practise hiding under a desk, they don't need to practise that. It's no wonder anxiety levels are through the roof if we teach children the world is such a terrible place and somebody could just come in and try to kill them at any minute. Why not focus on some real dangers to children, like air pollution.

I thought all schools had to have lockdown drill just like fire drills (not the actor bit).

No actor but similar. They had a lockdown drill where the school caretaker walked around the school and they had to hide under desk, close blinds, lights off, doors locked and make sure he couldn't see them.
My kids are reception and year 2 and the whole school did it.

@Kendodd someone has posted that they had to do a lockdown as an intruder came on the school premises. Someone I know is a school receptionist and they had to activate a lockdown when a man with a knife was seen in the school grounds.

Some schools have different levels of lockdown, so low level will just be getting everyone inside, next level will be closing curtains and staying quiet, highest level hiding under desks and in cupboards

@Kendodd some schools have had to activate lockdown due to local gas leak/chemical leak

I genuinely didn’t realise this was done in the UK. Have any Scottish posters experienced this?

I can understand the reasoning behind it, but a stranger banging on windows without prior introduction as being part of a safety drill feels like a really thoughtless way to go about it.