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.

and now I really must go.

You need to put the tin foil hat away and start listening to different people. I see these sort of comments on Facebook all the time and honestly you're going to make yourself ill buying into all this shit.

This whole Labour can't protect our kids at school narrative is absolute bullshit and really dangerous.

I think OP is hinting at conspiracy theories

Ok, let's say that you were told about every time a school went into lockdown somewhere in the UK. Let's say it was 2 or 3 times per week. What would you actually do with this information? What use could it possibly be? Is there anything you could do about it? Franky, it sounds like sheer nosiness.

They don't just "go inside". They go into certain rooms, the blinds and windows are closed, doors are locked and they must remain below the window-line. I think practicing is sensible.

There were lockdowns in Epping because a homeless migrant man kept entering schools. It wasn’t publicised in news and was on Twitter and YouTube.

I don’t think they should be keeping these things but equally I don’t want them giving people ideas so I suppose it’s a difficult balancing act.

Reputable news channels and national newspapers will probably do some basic fact checking before they report stuff. The likes of GB news will report any old crap that suits their divisive agenda.

I suggest that you seek out more reliable sources in future so that you don't become part of the problem by unwittingly spreading fake news.

Unless, of course, you're deliberately trying to spread disinformation. Which many people do.

Read the statement, no one entered any schools. It was right wing idiots spreading misinformation.

https://www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/waltham-abbey-school-safety-concerns/

They did. It wasn’t right wing nutters. I have literally seen live footage from parents outside the school gates whilst children are inside locked down. The police were saying it is civil trespass; parents arguing it was aggravated as had caused a lockdown and distress. The fact these schools are downplaying it is additional concern.

OP, you keep talking about 'an increase in school lockdowns' and demanding that we should all know about this increase, but its not clear what is giving you the impression that there is an increase?! And I'm not convinced that the national press reporting every single time it happens would give you an idea of that either.
We had a school near us evacuated at the end of last term because of a bomb threat. That made local news, but not national news because its not of national interest (and not an uncommon occurence, particularly around exam time...). Happened a long, long time ago when I was at uni too. And I remember it happening at college. These things are not new. The ability to learn about relatively minor events that happen in all corners of our country is fairly new though, and clearly is not necessarily a good thing when it sends people in to a panic.

The person reporting these incidents was an ‘independent journalist’ whose timeline was full of right wing bullshit. Why wouldn’t the press report? What conspiracy do you think the authorities are covering up?

A few months ago people were stirring up hate saying that migrants in hotels were planning to attack primary schools (in Afghanistani, the well known language) so they’re trying to find incidents that fit this narrative. It’s bloody obvious what they’re doing.

We had a lot of frothing on the local FB page recently because a primary school had not told parents about an incident of a man, armed with a knife, being chased by armed police. Only there was no man, no knife and no armed police. Somebody may have found some kind of knife ( possibly a table knife) in the surrounding fields. The school had to email parents, apologising for not telling them that nothing had happened, when they weren't even aware of the rumour until it had spread!

I think reports of lockdown drills could easily get similarly hyped. If you know that your child's class sometimes have to sit on the floor and be quiet, are you going to feel you need to discuss school shootings with them or accept they are having story time? It is absolutely shocking if teachers and other staff are regularly threatened by parents, such that police have to be called, but reporting that as 'lockdowns' feeds anxiety unnecessarily.

I'm sadden that so many people think as long as nothing happened in the end that the increasing instances of schools locking down is not worth reporting

But what is your evidence that there is an increase in lockdowns? Plenty of people have told you that schools have been doing these for decades. The word lockdown might be new, but the procedure is the same.
And if your answer to that question is because you're hearing about it more, then your whole premise about it not being reported is false.

People will believe whatever they want to believe, I guess.

If the police were deliberately misrepresenting the facts, the national media would be all over it. It would make a great scoop. They've obviously looked at the evidence and decided that there is no story.

There's no arguing with people who are caught up in their little bubble of disinformation, though. They automatically believe that everything which doesn't support their world view is some sort of grand conspiracy.

He wasn't a migrant. He was just black.

Exactly

That’s literally what the press does - decide what to tell us.

The sad thing is that all these fake 'reports' (mostly in social media echo chambers) are leading people to withold their children from school. That's way more damaging.

If I turned up at my DC's school during the day I would find locked gates. That doesn't mean there is a lockdown. If I was in a group of 30 other parents, demanding access, I imagine the police would attend. I expect children would be kept indoors. You would be able to film distressed parents, being kept from their children.

This really isn't new though surely? I'm 42 and did lockdown drills in primary school.

They usually used the "big dog" excuse, and we were all miffed afterwards because none of us had seen the big dog.

And then there was the one time we actually had a proper lockdown, because a father who wasn't allowed to see his kids turned up with a knife demanding they were given to him.

No-one was hurt, the police were called and he was arrested. I'm sure it probably made the local paper but it never would have ended up in national news, because stuff like that happens every week somewhere in the country, and always has.

Quite frankly, I think that the average parent with a school age child only cares about incidents in their locality. I don’t mean that they don’t care if something happens elsewhere but an article where angry parent turns up, school goes into lockdown and police called and parent leaves is going to have people shrugging and saying so what? The schools are right to call the police just in case even if they are reasonably confident that nothing happened and it’s only necessary for the police to make a comment so that parents don’t rush to the school and escalate things.

I think that reading about minor incidents like that would have you reading the news forever. It’s good that nothing happened and that the parent in the example above just went home and promised not to turn up again- I don’t know if this is recorded in the police figures.

As a parent I’m happy that my kids schools have buzzers and fences to keep the kids safe. Some people on here freak about lockdowns in English schools because they jump to the US scenario when kids are given a more realistic and gentle scenario like a dog escaping from a nearby house. Ask your schools about lockdown practice. It’s treated as a drill like fire drills and very low key.

Live footage, well it must be real then.

Like the live footage of a coach outside a hotel with passengers who were misidentified as asylum seekers?

OP, you are barking up the wrong tree on MN. Here are some better trees to bark up.

Contact the Department for Education, or interrogate its published data https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/pupil-absence-in-schools-in-england/2024-25-autumn-term.

If your enthusiasm extends beyond England, you will also be able to track down information for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland as education is devolved.

Contact the education correspondents of the broadsheets and pitch a feature on school lockdown trends.

Drop the headteacher a line then, ask what the school policy and plan is. I've done that as a parent, and approved lockdown plans for a different school as a governor. As previously mentioned, the most common reasons to need to lockdown is: 1) misunderstanding, but best not take any chances 2) disgruntled parent in custody/access situation 3) random animal on school grounds, everyone back inside so animal can be safely dealt with

Our local press reported a bang near a school.
Car backfiring in the end 🙄