Kids doing 'lockdown' exercises in school

[cantsleepwontcry]

1st day back yesterday for my year 12

Comes to tell me they did a lockdown exercise.... teacher blocked the door with chairs and they basically had to hide under desks, behind furniture until the threat was over

I'm quite surprised and upset that they feel the need to teach this in UK schools now.

They will have done them but it's normally something that most children feel is not worth mentioning and is forgotten about quickly because it's not that interesting to a child.

Is there anything at all done in any school that at least one parent doesn't complain about anymore?
Yabu.

They do. It's been in place for decades, you might not be told about it by the school or your children, but it happens.

Surely you'd rather they know what to do in an emergency than not. It's no different to doing a fire drill.

@whinge it hasn’t. I assure you. I work in my child’s old school for starters so I know it hasn’t.

In Plymouth you used to get a nuclear accident drill.

And going inside and closing (and keeping) the door closed is the fundamental tenet of a lockdown drill.

To all the people who are saying their children have never done them: as above, they very probably (hopefully) have. They just haven't realised (especially at younger ages) that's what they were doing.

There's been a bit of ping pong going on between Ofsted and the Dept Ed for some years now, with drills being "recommended" but ultimately left to individual schools as to whether they're enacted, and how. The unions have been trying to persuade the govt to have a proper, standard, lockdown procedure for years now, which must be carried out X number of times per year etc.

I'd definitely be a bit surprised if I was working in a school where they aren't done. I do a summer camp in a different school to the one I usually work at and even there over a 6 week period we do one. Our own private language school insists on it, and it's part of the T&C from the host school as well.

Never seen it either. City centre school in Scotland.

In Scotland and been teaching since before Dunblane and never done anything but a fire drill(and horizontal evacuation when I didn't work in mainstream). And never heard of it any of the other schools in our authority.

Telling small children there's a cow on the field is a lot less scary than saying Maisie in Yr6 whose been banned from seeing her is in Reception with a knife...

Yr12 however are old enough to know real world scenarios so its serious from the off.

(At DDs primary school they pretend its a lion from the zoo.)

Maybe bring it up and ask why they have chosen not to do them.

Not doing them isn't something to be proud of.

OP hasn't complained about the school doing it? Just expressed sadness at the state of the world that it is needed.

I used to volunteer in a primary, they did practise lockdowns including one where they actually evacuate the building (risk of fire or explosion type scenario) and they all piled onto the school field. Depending on what the alarm is there is a sheet on the back of every classroom door telling children and staff what they should do, including if they cannot use the usual electric bell, a hand bell that a member of staff has to walk round ringing.

It is usually phrased as a dog loose in the playground so as no to upset the children but we have had police presence because of a Dad newly out of prison trying to get to his children.

I'm really surprised so many schools don't seem to be doing them at all and people seem to think this is something to be proud of!

What happens when a situation arises where students need to stay inside (invacuation) and no one knows what to do because there isn't a procedure to follow?

I’ve got 5 kids, 2 of whom are adults and other than fire drills we never had this at all. Not once. I also never had this at school.
Those saying it is ubiquitous are wrong.

My kids are year 9 and 13 and AFAIK have never had to do it

We’ve been doing it for years. We did one yesterday too and the fire alarm. Our biggest threat is parents!

I am glad it is done. We allow anyone to have a dangerous dog, no real action against the illegal drugs trade, have a police woefully understaffed, and of course in some cases buildings where bits could fall down.

Ideally a school could let parents know when they have done such a drill, but some parents would respond in a negative way.

@TheLongGloriesOfTheWinterMoon no, it isn’t. The cow isn’t trying to break in and kill you, chances are it wouldn’t even matter if you didn’t close the door, and definitely wouldn’t need to lock it if you did 😂

The drill described by OP is for intentional threat from a human, not a meandering farm animal.

@PuttingDownRoots the post didn’t say “tell them it’s a cow” it said “might be needed for a cow” hence my reply.

What happens when a situation arises where students need to stay inside (invacuation) and no one knows what to do because there isn't a procedure to follow?

Exactly. The posters who work in schools that don't do them should be asking why not. It's better to know what to do in an emergency than have everyone in a panic.

Nobody is saying ALL schools do it. They are saying (as do Ofsted, the Dept Ed and the unions) that they all SHOULD.

These threads all go the same way, people start a thread horrified that something is being done that might just save a child's life, many posters say, yes, we do them. Others say they never have.

Maybe, as the unions would like, parents could get behind this and ask for it to be done instead of taking the piss out of schools that take children's safety seriously.

Y'know, instead of bleating about safeguarding every time a child gets told off etc.

I've taught for over 25 years and never had a lockdown drill in either of the two secondary schools or two primaries I've worked at over that time.
I've been at my current school for nearly 14 years and we haven't had one.

We do have a lockdown (or intruder) alarm which staff have heard. Very few of our rooms are actually able to lockdown. Several have a wall of windows and few lock from the inside. This isn't something the school could actually change easily either. In some rooms there aren't enough tables to hide all children under.

We do have security walls, fences and locked gates around the grounds, and all the doors into school all on fire safety safety doors, with release catches and are alarmed.

@Dontstoptherain schools usually have different levels of invacuation, so could be just go into classrooms and carry on as usual, go into classroom keep quiet and close blinds, or most serious go under desks

Glad you find primary school protocol for protecting children so hilarious.

Standard for years. There was a gunman in the loose near my kids school 10 years ago, whole school was locked down until 5pm and parents had to collect from back entrance then, guy was found a couple of miles away later that evening. Better to be safe