Rehearsing a lock down?

[Ella1980]

My son is in Year 4 at primary school. We've been sent an email by the Head saying they will be rehearsing their lock-down procedure just in case a situation arose where they had to lock down and stay out of view.

Not sure how I feel about this? Anybody else had similar?

Yes, my children's primary school does something similar. I think it's presented to the kids as "this is what we'd do if a wild animal escaped from the zoo and got into the playground" type scenario though. My children were excited rather than scared.

God I think that's pretty extreme. And, in the UK, wholly disproportionate to the actual level of risk of such an event occurring.

I suppose I'd want to ask how the process would be presented to the kids and how they would deal with any children who became distressed by the process.

Different country at the time but we had rehearsels for fire and earthquakes (real danger there at the time) at primary school. Didn't mind at all.

I think a lot of schools do this (there was a thread on the Secondary board a few weeks ago and quite a few posters said their schools had done the same). My DDs' primary has done one recently but without the kids there as it was deemed potentially too disruptive/disturbing for them. Not sure my Y6 would believe it could be wild animal related, we're not that close to the zoo! Here's the other thread As various people pointed out on there, it's not just about potential gun crime.

All primaries do this now. It is not extreme - it could be required for something as simple as a lose dog in the playground. Or as complex as a parent trying to take a child from school they are not 'allowed' to take due to court/separation agreements. The kids are not scared by it - schools make it as much fun as they can. But kids do need to know what to do.

"God I think that's pretty extreme. And, in the UK, wholly disproportionate to the actual level of risk of such an event occurring. "
Sadly in our village school we had two real lockdown situations last year.

We are not in the UK.
This is practiced every year, and made fun, not scary, for the kids. Not sure how its explained to them, and they are in bed now. Kids dont mind (especially if it happens during a lesson they dont like!).
As parents we get a text message around the time they sound the alarms to tell us it's a practice. We dont get told before the day, so we cant prime the kids.
Why does it need to be any more scary that a fire alarm? Sometimes things happen, and we need to get out of the school, this is how we know, and what to do. Sometimes things happen, and we need to stay inside, this is how we know and what we do.

We have a lockdown procedure that staff have practised but children are unaware of it. In the unlikely event of a lockdown, we have no idea what the situation would be so practising it seems a little pointless to me. For example, an intruder in the school is very different to someone outside... I don’t think we should practise it as it could be quite scary for children and would raise a lot of questions. Were we in America, I might feel differently but luckily we aren’t!

My children recently told me that they did this in Jewish Sunday school.

It become an unfortunate necessity. Security is getting tighter in all Jewish places of worship, schools and community centres.

DD's school has lockdowns quite often.

There are a few Children with disabilities who sometimes have very extreme behaviours including aggression, trying to escape the grounds etc. The school goes into lockdown for the child's sake as well as the rest of the pupils who might well be alarmed if they saw the incident.

They've also had a lockdown when an air ambulance had to land in the playground and it was considered inappropriate for the kids to gawping at the goings on.

The children all seem to take lockdowns in their stride now, it's nothing more exciting or alarming than the canteen running out of ketchup.

We will be doing this sometime soon. We are just going to tell the children that we have had lots of practice at getting out of the school building safely and quickly so we also need to practice getting into the school safely and quickly too.

This is absolutely not extreme! ALl schools have to have lockdown procedure. It’s come from the government.

It's such a sad reflection on today's society 😢

Having had to actually lock down a school- at lunch time when kids were on the field, in the dining hall etc- without having practised... I promise you drills are a good idea.

Yes. We had a letter home a year or two ago. They told the children something like ‘sometimes it’s safest to stay in the school, for example if a dangerous dog got into the playground’. My son asked me what other situations might be and I told him sometimes people are dangerous. He accepted that and wasn’t really curious.

A colleague’s children’s school had a real lockdown because there was gunfire outside (gang related, not targeted at the school). So I’m afraid it is needed sometimes much as we might wish it wasn’t.

Dunblane was over twenty years ago.
Better to know the drill.

We had one a while ago. Just told the kids the dog in playground scenario, or if it's unsafe to be outside for whatever reason. We just locked the door,pulled blinds and everyone came to sit on the carpet and we read a story.

My children went to primary school in Crowthorne, near Broadmoor. The school had a lockdown practice each term and , whilst we lived there, a couple of real lockdowns due to escapes. They took it very seriously indeed!

We have lockdown practise every so often. We did a full evacuation practise today. The kids aren't made to feel scared, they love getting out of class for a bit!

It’s juat like having a fire drill. It can be used if there is an abusive parent on site or we had it when there were 3 big Alsatians running loose on the yard as they had escaped
From their garden. It’s perfectly normal and sensible. I know one school had to have one ad they were near a gas leak. It’s not always about guns.

It's a good idea. Surely you want the staff and your child to know what to do if this happened for real.

Normal these days for primary and secondary.

Could be for a loose dog, a lone nutter with a machete or Samurai Sword reported in the area, police raid on a house nearby, a gang dispute, a batshit parent, a major accident down the road, terrorist attack, the air ambulance needs to land in the field just before breaktime to reach somebody seriously ill in a house nearby (we've had that one), threats made against the school (like some little shit did to tons of schools last year), somebody's broken their leg on the school field and doesn't need 648 kids making stupid comments about whether they are going to have their leg chopped off - or filming them crying in pain - domestic dispute being taken to somebody's place of work/school, gas leak, large fire, etc, etc.

Generally boils down the partial lockdown rehearsal, where corridors are checked, children are gathered into the classroom and the door is shut - as I understand it, nobody is required to perform a full lockdown/active threat drill (the hiding in cupboards thing) - it's to get the kids able to accept not taking their fucking phones out and calling their Mums to come and get them and not marching out to exercise their unalienable Human Right to have a piss during lesson times. The register gets called, any extras found in the corridor going to/from the toilet are notified to the office, everybody stays in class doing something quietly, calmly and under control.

Difference is that in previous times, kids would listen and just come back inside and settle down quietly, rather than argue and phone their mums. Now we have to make it an official thing in case parents go mad that their darling child was told they had to sit down and be quiet. And because there are so many happening in the US that it's likely somebody deciding to do it here would set off the fire alarm to try and get all the kids out into the open - they have to learn that they have to do what they are told at the time, even if it includes ignoring the fire alarm.

I'm glad we aren't in the US where they have full blown Active Shooter rehearsals for infants with them standing on toilets and piling into cupboards so they can't be seen.

a lone nutter with a machete

That actually happened at a local school.

I commented earlier that I thought this was pretty extreme.

It isn't something my kid's school has done and I was imagining an "active shooter" scenario, with kids practicing hiding under desks etc. Having a run through of kids sitting quietly in their classrooms in case of eg medical emergency somewhere else on site seems much less alarming.

Glad to have learned something. Thanks for your post MitziK.

We had an aggressive dog running around our playground and the children had to be locked inside until it was taken away. It's good to practise these things.