Aibu No security at Daughters dance class

[loveyoutothestars]

My 8year old daughter has been attending the same dance class since she was 5. The teacher is lovely, but she is the only adult in the room (she does have a teenage helper). Since the tragic events at a holiday club in summer last year, I have been growing more anxious at the lack of security at the dance class.

The class is held in a local village club, where there are a few small social rooms and a bar. It is very open and people come and go quite easily. The children enter through an unlocked door and exit through the fire exit, although with the warmer weather returning I noticed she has taken to propping the fire exit door open throughout the class which makes me very uneasy.

Parents drop off and pick up for the session, although occasionally I will hang around outside because of my nervousness.

I don’t know how to approach the teacher with my concerns as don’t want to be seen as an overly anxious mother, but events in the news terrify me and it feels like she hasn’t considered how vulnerable the class could be. It is worth mentioning that 5 mins away there is a Psychiatric hospital and we often see patients out and about in the community, although not always appearing well. Although I’m not suggesting this is my only concern, I do worry how open and vulnerable the class appears.

AIBU to raise this concern with the teacher? There isn’t usually time for any interaction between classes so communication is via email.

Appreciate your thoughts on how to approach, but please be kind this is my first post.

The OP has clarified a few times that she doesn’t mean actual security staff, she means security such as door locks and entry systems.

You’re comparing an intentional mass murder with an accident.

I think you're getting a hard time on here OP.
We run a youth group on a Saturday morning, 1 class with kids aged from 7 to 18.

We are the only ones who hire the building that day. Gonna admit we were lax with our security, however after the Southport attack we re did our risk assessment forms and an adult is now on the door for 10 mins at the start of the session and 15 mins at the end for parents to come in and wait. And as a PP queried 'do you want the kids locked in?' Erm... yeah doors are locked between those times.

Chances of anything happening are extremely slim but pretty much guess the dance teacher at Southport thought the same. We are responsible for the safety of other people's kids . We can lock doors so we do.

Issues within an open community centre are more difficult but as you say the Brownies seem to have sorted something. All groups working with children should really have a risk assessment so maybe just have a chat /email with the teacher. Acknowledge the difficulties in improving security but wonder if they have a risk assessment and if so what it entails.

We told the parents what we were doing and they all agreed it was the sensible route to take. A couple came and thanked us as they had been worrying over it.

"frankly the risks involved in offering a job for a man to watch a child’s dance lesson.@

Sorry?!?

It’s not me comparing them and it’s the risk being compared not the incidents.

I didn't give you advice about all the ways your child could be hurt - it was used it as an analogy on approaching risk.

For the sake of any confusion ongoing - there are far higher risks for your child elsewhere, and people are trying to point that out. I'm not trying to put you down personally either - but this is AIBU and you need to expect that people may disagree.

I Know you’re concerned, but out of curiosity, just looked up car statistics to put things in prospective.

Five people are killed everyday on average in the UK, and 80 are seriously injured.

Yes, there has been terrorist attacks over the years, but you can’t live your life in fear or a ‘what if’ situation. Yes, take precautions -know where fire exits are in cinemas, wear seatbelts in cars, don’t speed etc, but you still have to live.

I would be very concerned about a locked door impeding evacuation in the event of a fire, which is far more likely to happen than a mass murder.

I am more concerned about the lack of independence so many young people now have, and that this has been exacerbated by attempts to ‘keep them safe’.

My DC grew up in the 2000s/early 2010s and they were perfectly able to meet the adult collecting them outside school/scouts/swimming with no issues.

A lot of these measures are well-intentioned, but ultimately DC need to have chances to be independent in an age-appropriate way.

It is no wonder so many are addicted to screens when the real world is being portrayed as so dangerous that they cannot walk outside to a parents’ car.

The bigger risk here is that the class has to shut because people's risk perception is so badly skewed.

Your child is thousands of times more likely to be killed or injured on the roads -that includes walking/driving with you to and from the class - than they are to be killed in the class itself.

Our risk perception is hugely distorted by news stories. So we act to minimise risks that are already virtually nonexistent. That misallocates resources and increases paranoia while taking our focus away from the areas of genuine risk.

No. It’s pushing an alternative agenda to what is being discussed.
OP is concerned about predatory adults having easy access to her daughter’s dance class.
The PP then used this conversation as a vehicle to discuss her disapproval of Land Rovers.
A Land Rover isn’t going to get access into a dance class.

You’ve misunderstood the post. There is no disapproval of land rovers. It was based on the incident of a Land Rover crashing through a fence and killing two children. OP is concerned about predatory adults but the PP made a risk comparison which was legitimate and not an alternative agenda.

Really surprised at the general attitude. Open, unrestricted access does not only invite mass murderers in. Yes, Southport made me say it out loud but the lack of security during my child’s dance lessons was and still is shocking. Similar set up as OP with the added bonus of unsupervised toilet visits when anyone can just walk in. When male parents are out in the lobby waiting for their kids. I am not accusing anyone of anything but you just do not know. My daughter also does MMA with trained instructors who technically could keep her safe, and they lock their doors. You have 10 minutes to get there, if late you cannot come in and the door is locked. Also, there is such a thing as a door that locks from the outside only for fire safety reasons. Really surprised at how relaxed people are. I understand not to live in fear but if a small request like lock your doors can give my child 5 minutes extra to get to safety for whatever reason why not!?!?
Op, talk to the teacher , put your concerns out there, a fire door should not be kept open regardless of the reason anyway. Do not be afraid to be afraid, in the end fear is what keeps us safe.

^^ this. I admit I often think the same at my daughter's ballet class. In a busy church that's unlocked and anyone can walk into. I used to go to the shops or for a coffee during it. Now I hang about / only 30mins though. Stockpot was rare a though and we should try not to live in fear.

I understood it perfectly well.

Do you think that the security schools have is superfluous, unnecessary, overkill?

Should we get rid of the gates and security systems and make them more publicly accessible?

I think the sad reality is that a very determined person would find a way if so inclined. It’s also true that the world is full of (mostly very small) risks, most of which we have to accept in service of a ‘normal’ / non-restricted life.

Saying that, this has made me think about the setup for drop off and pick up at my kids’ school (semi-rural village primary). At drop off/collection the gates are left open and parents stream in (or out) with kids - if so inclined and they knew where the school was, any lunatic could rock up, join the throng of people and open fire indiscriminately on a huge crowd of kids. Security is a bit tighter during the actual school day in that you have to knock at the main door to be let in, but I don’t think there’s an actual intercom so again, someone very determined could probably be buzzed in and then run past reception into the classrooms…

Maybe our school is just very lax?! 😬

YABU

As a PPs say, this is how thousands of dance classes operate all over the country. Every week. The murders at Southport happened once. And your mention of a psychiatric facility nearby is just downright bigoted.

Are you ready for the cost of your classes to double to cover the cost of an extra person?

Stay during the class if you’re so anxious. You can read in your car or sit in one of the rooms.

I guess the other option is to stop the dance classes… .

Yeah, and look what happened in Southport

YANBU to tell her to stop propping the fire door open in any case. They're fire doors for a reason, they need to be kept closed. And it might make you feel less anxious

A one off incident after hundreds of thousands of classes that have run.

With kindness, this is exactly how terrorism works. By Instilling fear in even the most innocuous circumstances. Yes what happened was horrific but I don't think it created a benchmark where by all dance classes for children must now have security 'just in case'. We can't as a society live in collective fear because of the actions of one maniac. In my lifetime (I'm in my fifties), I've never heard of an incident like Stockport before and probably never will again. I think try to keep things in perspective. Lots of things in the news terrifying me. Should I not let my child go to after school club because there was once an incident at another after school club the other side of the country? Should I not go to the city centre in Edinburgh because there were once violent conduct at demonstration in London?

That is a good point with the tennis and i dont know the set up there but it is about minimising the risks at each activity as much as you can and because the dance class is inside and they have the means to be able to secure it then they should be doing so. Yes its not going to make tennis secure but its not a perfect world where you can have safety measures at each facility the point is if you can do so you should be doing so because protecting even 1 child is better then nothing at all just because another group can't. For the providers its about their own group and taking the responsibility and risk assessments seriously and doing as best as they can to keep children safe.

Once.

And an attack which was out of the blue, perpetrated by a deeply disturbed person.

It's far more likely your DC will be killed or maimed by the car trip you take to the dance class.

I agree with OP and at the very least a fully lockable door should be in place that is only opened at the start and end of the class. Not a door propped open in warmer weather!!