Should the National press report on primary school lockdowns?

[Lazytiger]

Why aren’t the national press reporting the primary school lockdown near Birmingham? Only GB news and local news outlets reported it. I haven’t seen anything in the broadsheets/TV news.

AIBU to expect the National UK press to report things that happen in the UK?

In the last two days two school lockdowns have been reported, but only locally.

One was a report of schools in Weston-super-Mare that locked down due to a suspect person with a knife. The second was a school near Birmingham called Shireland Hall primary Academy. Where a gang wearing balaclavas and carrying weapons entered the school and threatened teachers and pupils.

Am I being unreasonable to expect the press to report what is happening in this country?

You may argue that the first schools didn’t come to any harm so perhaps nationally reporting something that would just cause concern is the right thing to do (I don’t, but understand others might) But the second school, I feel, should have been more widely reported. Perhaps it will be. But it happened on Tuesday and it is now Thursday.

Googling the school in Birmingham I was surprised to see Birmingham live have reported several lockdowns over the year and other schools in other areas come up in the search too.

I recall a while ago that we had rolling news on the fires in California. Other than telling us there had been fires in California the 24-7 News coverage wasn’t adding much detail. There were plenty of complaints at the time that this was to distract the population from the ongoing Rotherham case. Something that was of far more interest to the UK population. Thankfully the media didn’t succeed and people didn’t forget about those girls.

Is this the same reason for the under reporting - race relations?

Regardless of the worry these incidents may cause in the wider population I feel it is the job of the UK press to report these and to not, on our behalf, decide what we should be told and what we shouldn’t.

We had to listen to how many people died ‘with’ covid on a daily basis, yet there seems to be zero interest in reporting ongoing threats to our children.

Good I’m glad these reports came to nothing but I was quite shocked that a quick Google search showed lockdowns weren’t uncommon.

To me that is big news as I wasn’t even aware it was something that was happening. I knew Jewish schools had upped their security but had no idea other schools were engaging in lockdowns.
When did locking down primary schools become the norm? As someone with children a primary school this has never been raised and they certainly don’t practice it (I’ve asked).

Im afraid I don’t see these events as ‘nothing happened’. I think locking down schools isn’t normal.

Because the world has enough conspiracy theorists?

Lockdowns happen all the time. My best friend is a teacher in an area of the North East and they had one a few months ago. It was a disgruntled dad trying to smash his way in to see his children (who he was quite rightly prevented from seeing). Police arrived and he was arrested.

The lockdowns are just improved security, similar to schools now locking the gates and having buzz entry systems.

Has your child never come home saying that "a big dog came into the playground so we all had to go inside"? Schools practice lockdowns, they just don't do it in a way that would upset the children. This isn't the US where they have to practice active shooter drills and kids are very aware of gun crime. This is done quietly and appropriatly so that the kids don't even know the drills have happened.

So now you say these lockdowns are being reported. And what has anyone's race got to do with all this?

Yes reported in the local press.

I never said anyones race did have anything to do with this. I said they had in the past and I was wondering if that is why they don't report any incidents until they have to do so. They got it so wrong with the reporting on Stockport (saying he was a Cardiff boy) and then the speculation over the man who drove the car into the crowd in Manchester (who turned out to be white British).
Don't try and make this post about race - this is about the press choosing what they report on and what they don't.

(saying he was a Cardiff boy)

He was born in Cardiff, though. His parents were immigrants, which was very quickly reported. There was no attempt to hide his background.

Seriously OP, you don't think it would be national news if an armed masked gang entered a school?

I’m a teacher … we have had several lockdowns over the years, all due to parents threatening the school. These are usually over quickly and nothing has ever actually come of it. We practice lockdown drills through the year.

My school is on a busy high street in a city centre and we do regularly get reports rung in of people looking into / loitering near the school. These are investigated quickly but almost always turn out to be absolutely nothing.

No. They absolutely haven't and going inside a school isn't a something you need to practice or notify the police about.

"This is done quietly and appropriatly so that the kids don't even know the drills have happened." Or the parents it would seem! I'm not OK with that.

If my child is being covertly drilled in what to do in a lockdown then I want to know about it. I want to be able to talk to them about it. Reassure them. This would be massive overreach of the state and schools, to do this without informing parents.

Ditto I want to know how common they are in the UK, how statistically likely it is that they could be involved in one. If they are increasing so I can have a sensible conversation about it.

A lockdown event is not harmless event if the outcome is.

Schools lockdown for all sorts of reasons, drunken parents turning up , strangers wandering in the grounds, not every lockdown is because of a serious incident, thankfully few really are, do you really expect the national news to cover such things, unless it genuinely and sadly is serious

Stockport?

You mean Southport.

@Lazytigerlots of people in here have given you examples of why schools might implement a “lockdown”. I think the word itself has connotations due incidents such as school shootings in the states.
issues happen all the time in the community and always have that mean that schools need to be proactive in implementing a temporary increase in security. It’s nothing new, but the term “lockdown” most likely is.

And the Southport attacker was from Cardiff. So what was inaccurate about that?

My son's primary sent us a letter last week that there will be a lockdown drill on a date in October. It's a very thorough letter. If you aren't happy about not being told, speak to the school.

In can guarantee your children schools have done lockdown drills. It’s just sensible. Your kids don’t need a drama made out of it. It’s the same as doing a fire drill.

I also think she must mean Liverpool and not Manchester as the perpetrator of Manchester last week was not white.

Leamington Spa College had a similar incident. The press reported very freely on that.

National news outlets are not a public information service. Their role is to judge if a lockdown is a story of national significance. If it is, they will cover it. If it isn't, they won't. There are so many schools lockouts that they couldn't possibly cover them all.

But nothing did happen. Someone thought they saw a bad thing, but they were actually talking nonsense. Do you really want the national news to feature reports every time a building is evacuated due to a false fire alarm, for example?

Why not? I mean my original post is about lockdowns where the police have been called, not just children being removed from an area of the school for a limited time to avoid them seeing any unpleasantness. But why not report this nationally? Do we not need to know that our schools are becoming unsafe? That parents wander into schools drunk and cause problem for teachers and pupils? Is that not newsworthy? Is this not worthy of out-range that teachers are subjected to this? Is this not a national problem just a local one?

If, as a nation, we do not know what is happening in each others regions how can we support each other and make things better? Aren't the subpostmasters a lesson in what happens if you are allowed to treat one big national scandal as just a few occurrences over many geographical areas? Don't let them know that this is a bigger issue? That is the point of national news. To tell us what is happening else where in the country.

We are fed a diet of junk news, about global issues and celebrities, things that we can't do anything about. Things that are going on in our own country, the changes in our schools aren't being reported. They are being accepted. As you say they aren't deemed as newsworthy because they are judged as individual events, they are not reported collectively as a wake up call that things aren't heading in the right direction.

My sixth-form aged child had at least 2 lockdowns when she was in primary school, both strangers in the playground. Police were involved in one incident if I remember correctly. Parents were informed, children were unscarred. Lockdowns are not something new.

You’re just shit stirring. Go outside, touch some grass. Maybe turn off GB News.

It sounds like a non story but GB News is capitalising on this because its racist viewers will be looking for more reasons to look down their noses on multi-ethnic Birmingham