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.

Relying on an area being extremely safe is very naive. Even rural areas have angry parents and situations that could require a school to lock down. Knowing what to do in an emergency prevents panic. Would you be ok with a school not practicing fire drills, because if the worst ever happend the students and staff would know what to do?

Why would you object to that? We get instructions at work, the world we live in would anyone be surprised if that happened?

Not sure if they do them routinely in Scottish schools? We've certainly never had them and never heard other parents of other schools children talk about them...

It's a useful life skill actually anyway. I once had a random attacker on a drug high trying to get into my house (and this was in a very sleepy village)

As long as it's talked about sensibly with the children I am fine with it

Rampaging cows can be dangerous

@Dontstoptherain

Imagine several idiotic teens encountering a cow and trying to corner it/chase it/pat it. The poor thing is going to get distressed and injure either itself or them or both.

people in the countryside probably have more legal access to guns eg farmers.

I assume if cows wander into playground most children would know to go indoors (invacuation).

If schools have an alarm for invacuation then it is important everyone knows what to do otherwise they might try to go outside ie evacuation

Im happy with the fire drills because that’s a real potential risk, I honestly don’t think it is needed in a lot of schools and that is reflected in the Department of Education’s suggestions. It’s not compulsory. I can see the need for it in cities but it’s up to individual schools to assess their own level of risk and I am happy to leave that in the hands of our very capable head to make that level of decision. I’m pretty sure they would manage the situation in the best way possible. I like to think my children think of school as a safe place, which it is and we have a very small school with a very close knit community.

If done correctly it’s a sensible thing to practice. Unlike when my daughters school did one in 2017 and she was so traumatised.

for drills the teachers are meant to be notified beforehand and what type so they know what action to take , different alarms too for fire or lockdown. If the alarm went off unexpectedly the teachers would be sent an email or text to say it was a false alarm.

So one day it went off and the teacher was shocked as no pre warning of a drill. It was the lockdown alarm so she took the girls to a cupboard (in a drama room) that had a curtain over the opening and they say and waited for the email to say it was a false alarm. Nothing. Then the fire alarm went off to the the lockdown one so they were confused was it a drill for lockdown or fire?? Or was it real and if it was a fire they were in a cupboard. After a while they started to get a bit upset and the teacher reassured them but told them to be quiet.
After 45 mins they heard footsteps and the door opening and stayed silent and terrified (later turned out it was another member of staff checking the room but they didn’t call for them )
By this point the girls were crying and the teacher kept checking her emails and was getting nothing and hadn’t had replies to hers. After 1.5 hours a group of girls came calling their names and that’s when they came out of the cupboard.

All shaken up and crying and given biscuits and drinks. The school didn’t tell us !!! DD came home so upset and crying. We called the next morning and got told it had been a drill bit they’d had some ‘technical issues’ and it was actually positive as had highlighted issues they now know to work on 🤦‍♀️

@Dontstoptherain

If the school has a lockdown alarm, they might just press that if they want everyone to stay inside, rather than run around trying to let every teacher know about a cow? And if the protocol is to hide under the desk and barricade the door, then that's what they do? Or maybe decide now is as good a time as any for a practice drill?

All these cow comments are hilarious. They are obviously all made by townies. We don’t have cows randomly accessing school grounds. They are kept in fields. 🤣

Never heard of any school in our region doing anything like this, nor any school of friends either.
Not sure there’s much point TBH. Common sense to shut the door and lock it if there seems to be a problem, but the chances of someone in the U.K. breaking into a school with a gun are almost zero. A looney with a knife can be quickly contained - but again, it’s so rare I’d rather my kids did fire drills .

M son is year 13 and has be doing them since primary.
Many secondary kids call it a school shooter drill even when the school use lockdown /invacuation to describe it and more likely examples like someone escaped the local prison (there's one a mile away), extreme weather, dangerous chemical spill in the corridor, animal in corridor...
If you use Google then you'd be shocked that there are instances where schools need to use lockdown procedures. Here's some random ones
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-sussex-66249039
https://leamingtonobserver.co.uk/news/update-kineton-high-school-was-forced-into-lockdown-after-masked-intruders-entered-its-grounds-44363/
https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/newcastle-school-lockdown-live-updates-26966114

Er, why are cows suddenly breaking into schools?? My school was quite literally beside a farm - the council bought a field and built a school- and not once did we have cows or sheep on the premises!
And if we did see one, I would imagine the protocol to be - ring farmer and tell them one of the cows has got free, please come and fetch it!!

It’s absolutely shit they need to do this, but I think you can never be too prepared. It’s teaching the kids basic skills for a situation that could happens. Hopefully not ever needed.

@Prescottdanni123 I didn’t suggest they should allow kids to approach a cow 😂the part that made me laugh was the insinuation that the procedure as described by the OP was necessary for cows on school property.

Maybe the farmers aren’t so great in our area but we have had cases of livestock on school playing fields

And with all the XL bully type dogs around not such a bad idea to have invacuation process

I.don't know that it is standard but my son left year 11 in the summer he never did s,lock.down drill.in either primary or secondary school.

Both of my DC have had this, both London. Sad sign of the times and hopefully something they'll never need to use. I don't love it but better to have the knowledge in case, heave forbid, something did happen.

Schools also been known to do them for chemical leak etc in locality

Was the "really high fences in primsry" a national thing then?

Around 5 or 6 years ago I remember our primary adding them. I assumed it was as we had a runner kid who would leave school! But now I'm wondering if it's coincidence.

@BellaTheDarkOverlord oooh I wonder if I was at the same school although on the 90s I think it happened a fair bit.

The fire alarm went off... we dutifully lined up in the playground next to the school. Fire/police whoever turned up and got us all to move to the back of the field which made us twig it was "real" but turned out to be a hoax bomb threat at a time when it was a real possibility!

I thought this was going to be a thread about Joe Wicks!

Our kids primary school does them too
It'd sad its needed but I've no problem with it

@CupOfCoffeePlease This would have been early 00’s as secondary school. Ours was a hoax too.