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.

This has been happening for many years in UK schools - eldest is 18 and these drills were definitely happening when they were in infants, so well over a decade, probably much longer.

I don't really get it, school intruders aren't a new thing, Dunblane was 29 years ago. And better safe that dead

I would hope they make it fun, easy and not too scary. Usually anything to get out of lessons is fun anyway, something a bit different. In the 1980s we were in fear of nuclear attack - I didn't know anything about it as I was too little. It can be done in an age appropriate way.

That you know of! Turns out my kids had been doing “dog in the playground” drills for years before I found out anything about it, because the school hadn’t mentioned it to parents.

Can someone explain to me why it’s a necessity?!?

the children were told it was in case there was a dangerous dog in the playground.

I remember reading on the news that a school somewhere in the Midlands had to do it for real because there were two potentially dangerous dogs loose outside the school. They couldn't let the children out at home time until the dogs had been dealt with.

I remember drills happening at secondary school after 9/11. So 2001.
It was to prepare for potential chemical attack on local city ( not even a big one), or bombing, or anything else. We were to take a book to hall and close windows on the way. Then sat in hall for 20mins until all clear given.

Fire drills were different as obviously taken outside to wait

It’s also quite good skills for them to learn on taking action in emergency situations.

This has been happening for at least 10 years in my experience. We tell the children it's in case a dog or a swarm of bees get into school or into the playground.

I don't think you need to worry with nursery children to be honest. You can just tell them that we are going to play a game and when I say, see how quickly we can all get under the table and pretend to be sleeping mice, or whatever it is. There are also a lot more adults in the room!

Except that since there has been no other incident involving a school shooter in the U.K.
Were not the US! Thanksfully

I worked in a London school from 2012 - 2018. We did lock down drills as standard. We also did fire and bomb in the building drills.

Scotland very commonly.

Every school in my region has a lockdown procedure. Thankfully they also have one for students with knives, actioned in a primary school here only last week. Child with weapon.

AFAIK everyone in my family/friends under 30 and/or their children have such drills annually. Start of the academic year usually. Fire drills a couple of times a year.

Its not just guns.

A 15yo died at school last month in Sheffield after being stabbed.

Why?

What sort of danger do you think it’s going to protect children from?
And
Do you think it would be in any case efficient?

eg the primary schools where I live are all open plan.
No doors on the classrooms etc…

I remember doing this at school years ago but it was under the pretence of a loose dog and I always thought it was crazy, why would we have to close the blinds the dogs not going to be inside, I think a lot of schools do similar where the kids don’t even realise what they’re doing the training for. I think it’s a good thing same as fire drills better to be prepared

Not standard anywhere I’ve heard of and my kids have never had a drill. However at 16 and 19, their tech college went into lockdown a few months ago because there was an armed man threatening a neighbouring college. That was scary enough for two kids who’d only known the bubble of a private school until this year.

I am hoping that their peers have not lived like this, but they were apparently very matter of fact, so I concluded that we’ve been living in a very privileged bubble indeed.

And doing drill is going to help in which way?
That the current system didn’t do

I think it's entirely possible to acknowledge that they are keeping your child safe while simultaneously feeling pretty appalled that it's necessary at all.

Can you think of what changes that were implemented possibly related to this?

I don't think it's standard everywhere, I just asked my son (yr 7) and he said that he's never done one at primary or secondary (Kent)

“Where are these drills happening?”
Well we’re in a village near a “nice” rural market town - about as far from inner city schools as it gets 🤷‍♀️.

Also how do you know about your many nephews and nieces? Just because they haven’t told you about it doesn’t mean they haven’t happened! We’ve never mentioned our kids’ school drills to their uncles or aunts, so they wouldn’t know that they’ve experienced them - but they have.

My son's school had two lockdowns because people let dogs loose in the sheep pen behind the school. Dog started worrying sheep, so farmer had to shoot it. They are rural kids so they weren't concerned about hearing a shotgun. My son was more upset by seeing a sheep getting ripped to pieces.

I'm not the person to ask, it wasn't me that came up with the idea!

That particular school wasn't open plan. I was working in the reception class at the time and the children hid in the class kitchen, the toilets, underneath furniture, etc. They found it all a great deal of fun tbh and we had to keep shushing them as they were giggling.

No trauma involved at all.

My dd had an actual lockdown this week. Someone brought a knife in and they had to hide under the tables in silence for 40 minutes.

They had absolutely no idea what was happening and could hear men shouting ‘armed police’ as they searched the whole building for the perpetrator.

My dd said people were throwing up because they were so frightened. They didn’t know what the threat was. They didn’t know who they were looking for or whether the voices they heard were actually the police or whether it was the person they were hiding from. And she said she kept thinking that the person could be in the room with them!

I asked her if she thought the drills had helped and she said yes because at least she knew what it actually was because of the no talking that could not be communicated at the time. Also she said that the people who were in classrooms were OK as there was a teacher telling them what to do but that people who were doing PE or who were just walking down a corridor wouldn’t have known what was happening at all if it hadn’t been for the drills.