To think it's very depressing that school children need to learn this

[Eastie77Returns]

DD's school is producing a video showing children what to do in the event there is an intruder in the school and they need to go into 'lockdown'. I found out as she has been asked to take part in the video production.She is in Y7.

DS is in Y4 and he told me they did a practice drill at his primary school where they followed the steps they needed to take in a similar situation.

Honestly it makes me feel very sad. I understand in the current climate it's necessary and in countries like the US it's standard but I never thought I'd see something like this here.

Then you don't have a problem with lockdown drills, you have a problem with children sitting under desks.

Surely arguing against lockdown drills is equivalent to arguing against fire drills in the workplace. A fire at work is fairly unlikely for most, but it is vital that people know what to do. Likewise, the safety briefing on an aircraft.

Yes, I also wonder if they really are beneficial.

Firstly, the chance of a dangerous intrusion is low (someone here said once a month in the UK, so that’s a tiny chance for any given school, then you need to further reduce to get to situations for which the drill does any good).

But more worryingly, if the children are calling this shooter drills, we are normalizing the idea of attacking schools as a response to upset.

Given how much we know social contagion affects suicide (another response to mental distress), especially amongst teens, we may well even be increasing the likelihood of attacks directly.

And because the base rate is so low, if that’s true then we are almost certainly hurting (increasing attack likelihood) more than helping (reducing risk of harm, if there is an attack).

These parallels don’t hold. You don’t increase the chance of a fire by holding a standard fire drill. I bet if you started holding ‘arson drills’ in schools you would increase arson, via normalisation.

And as for drowning, it’s a good question. The answer is that children are far more likely to die of drowning than in a school attack (about 20-40 child drowning deaths a year), so ifs perfectly consistent to support teaching about drowning but not teaching about school attacks, even if you ignore the worry about normalisation.

But these drills aren’t just about potential shooters coming into the school, many of us have given examples where they might/have been used.

Many incidences where an invacuation has had to be performed won’t involve hiding under desks. Many of them will be just to get children into class quickly and calmly with no dawdling, running back to get a jumper, stopping in the cloakroom to go through a bag, getting your water bottle, and any other distraction a child can think of. If children are out at break and an invacuation was required, so break had to end early it would be quite hard to get children in quickly without some of them (and possibly some staff) stopping to ask why. If they have practised an invacuation drill it will be much easier

There's no lockdown that does this.
They aren't all hiding in terror under their desks.

It's all about, get inside and away from the danger, be still and silent (just like a fire drill).
Teacher's may lock them in the room, that's the only difference.

I think if the drill is just practicing lining up and being quick, with no association made with an attack (even by the children), that is probably not doing much direct harm.

There’s still counterfactual harm though from getting priorities wrong. If any significant time is spent on this, rather than, say road safety or drowning, then there are almost certainly many children dead now who would have been alive because of that choice. 50-60 children a year die on roads, 10-20 by drowning, 10 or so by accidental poisoning, 10 or so by other accidents. I can barely find any UK deaths by in-school attacks. ChatGPT says 1-2 per decade.

So you really have to think you’ve reached as close to perfection as you can get in road, water, accident awareness training before you should divert time to school attacks.

That logic is stupid.

As mentioned in my previous comments, I do not disagree with the drills. I simply said it's a sad fact that they are even needed (although I still maintain that it's a bit odd to feel delighted they exist).

That said, I would hope teachers would not make my Y4 child aware of 'unspeakable things' that might require a drill. I think it's possible to impress on young children the importance of paying attention and obeying instructions in drills without describing the heinous acts that might necessitate them. I do appreciate that after a certain age children are aware of these things anyway and we can't really control that.

I'm in my 40s and we had these drills when I was at school. For younger age groups, the teachers used to say it was because there was a dog in the playground 🤔not sure how that was supposed to help with the stay away from the window bit though!

If that’s a response to me, why do you think it’s stupid?

We should focus our safety efforts on the biggest risks (or rather, on the risks where our efforts can have the greatest good).

We should remember all choices involve trade-offs.

We can’t allocate all of the school day to safety training, so we should pick wisely.

We should do that based on evidence, because what better approach is there?

Lockdown drills are absolutely essential although I agree it’s sad. My children had one in their primary school, it was real. A pupil had brought a knife to school and was chasing their sibling around the playground with it following an argument.

A lot of parents removed their children from the school afterwards. Although they managed the drill perfectly well and all of our children were safe. This child was back in class the next morning, parents weren’t notified of the incident at all. It wasn’t until our children came home absolutely terrified after witnessing it that parents knew something had happened. The school refused to acknowledge that parents should have been made aware and called the children lists in regards to the knife. Police got involved with a statement and sure as anything, the children weren’t lying.

Because you are suggesting that lockdown drills are 'diverting attention' away from road safety or water safety which is just wrong. Of course schools try to teach kids about water safety and road safety. They don't cancel those lessons for lockdown drills.

You also suggest that we shouldn't try to minimise harm to children by preparing for events, which, by the way do happen. It's not just about kids dying and it's certainly not just about adults with murderous intent.

And I'm sure that if you google kids dying in school fires in the UK you wouldn't come up with much either, but does that mean we shouldn't 'divert attention away from water safety' by holding fire drills?

I do appreciate that after a certain age children are aware of these things anyway and we can't really control that.

I think we do make a difference though.

Children know suicide exists, even methods. We still don’t describe it and focus on it, because we know that increases suicides significantly, by making suicide feel like a normal or natural response to distress.

Ditto for anorexia, cutting, etc. If you normalize a particular response to distress, you get more of it.

In the US, school attacks are well know to have a contagion aspect. Many attackers turn out to have studied earlier attackers or been inspired by them.

I’d want to be really sure that UK school-attack is somehow immune from this effect before I’d be happy to say ‘well, can’t do any harm’.

GeneralPeter · Today 12:05 I think if the drill is just practicing lining up and being quick, with no association made with an attack
No, sad to say this is not the case.

The French primary school for invasion where I worked, the children had to hide under their desks behind satchels and no making a noise. Teachers were also under their desks, och my back. The head with the police patrolled the corridors. If a child messed about they had to visit the heads office later.
There was also another practice when they had to go to and stay for an hour or so, in a big hall/ canteen, where the windows were taped and air conditioning stopped. They children knew in advance of this drill and could bring a pack of cards but had to be silent.
Of course there was the usual fire drill when the children lined up and evacuated the school.
Children from a young age watch films and the news. Unfortunately, frightening it may be but sadly it’s how we live today.

@noblegiraffe

I’m not persuaded.

Time does not expand to create extra hours to spend on attack drills. If we spend any time on attack drills, that is time that could have been spent on road safety, drowning or accident training.

Does it feel more likely to you that an hour spent on something that kills 1-2 children per decade is better spent than on causes that kill 80-100 a year (or 800-1000 a decade)?

Which would you pick?

But there’s also the contagion/ normalisation concern. It seems more likely than not that UK school attacks have a social angle, just like US school schooling do, just like UK teen suicides, cutting, anorexia do. I’m not sure what would make it an exception.

That’s what makes it different from a fire drill.

Lockdown drills aren't replacing road safety assemblies, that assertion is just daft.

It'll be taking time out of a lesson that would otherwise be spent teaching maths, not road safety.

And lockdown drills aren't causing things that require lockdowns. Again another stupid assertion. Schools go into lockdown for all sorts of reasons.

You also suggest that we shouldn't try to minimise harm to children by preparing for events

Ah, you’ve misunderstood. I’m keen to minimise harm to children, which is what motivates my position.

You don’t seem to be bringing much other than to just call things stupid.

Let’s try to work out where we actually disagree:

a) if they were trade-offs, would you pick the road safety talk or the school attack one?

b) do you think school attacks have a social/normalisation aspect?

But no one is picking a lockdown drill over a road safety assembly so to pretend that's a choice that is being made is stupid.

And why do you think school lockdowns are about school attacks when mostly they're not?

Many of the things you talk about @GeneralPeter should also be taught at home. Drills of any sort at schools are for teaching children what to do in case of a scenario at school. Same with drills in workplaces. They are not teaching adults about fire safety they are teaching adults what to do in an emergency in that particular workplace

@noblegiraffe

You’ve not quite grasped my points, either one.

My first point is that there is, in fact, a trade-off in devoting time to attack drills. That’s not a claim about what school are actually using their assembly time for. Or what they would, in reality, divert attack drill time too.

And I’m not saying that the benefit from drills comes mainly from managing attacks (I’ve said nothing on that), which seems to be what you mean by what they are ‘about’. I’m saying a harm of attack drills relates to increasing the likelihood of such attacks.

You may disagree on both, but it’s more productive if you engage with the actual claims not different ones.

....rather than, say road safety or drowning, then there are almost certainly many children dead now who would have been alive because of that choice.

I was taught road safety by my parents.

And the most useful thing children can be taught about water safety is 'stay away from water.' Again, by their parents. A lot of drownings happen because children/young people were playing around in or near water which was not safe to play around.

Whereas school safety drills can only be practised in schools.

I’m saying a harm of attack drills relates to increasing the likelihood of such attacks.

based on?

Let’s take an angry parent scenario, unfortunately a quite regular occurrence across schools. If said angry parent comes onto the playground at drop off in the morning and starts mouthing off at teacher, being threatening. Best thing is to get children indoors. Ring invacuation alarm. Children know to make their way into the classroom, not faff about, not question why school bell has rung early, no hanging around the cloakroom. Go straight into class. There will be no hiding under tables at this stage. Lessons can carry on.

If parent’s behaviour escalates, police need to be called, then next stage of lockdown drill may be invoked, internal doors locked, blinds down. If continues then may have to be escalated to sitting quietly under tables.

Most scenarios like this will only get to stage one.

Drills like this are not going to traumatise a child. Watching their teacher being threatened by a parent might