Lockdown Drills

[AugustRose]

My son's school has informed us they'll be carrying out their first Lockdown Drill tomorrow morning and I just wondered how common this was in UK schools. They've recently joined with an academy trust which has one other secondary school, the rest are primary, so I'm not sure if it's something this other school does. Neither school is in a high population, violent area and I'm wodering if I'm being unreasonable to think this is creating an unnecessary climate of fear.

Very common. And if it’s like our local secondary schools there will be a real lockdown at least once a term (due to fights, knives, etc).

Extremely common. Every school in the UK (possibly just England) should have a lockdown alarm and drills. How often it’s practiced is probably school dependent though I think.

Sadly it’s common now. Better to have practiced for a never event than have no plan.

Normal.

How often it's practiced might vary. I can remember that our school had differing evacuation drills for fire (everyone out fastest way, no running) and bombs (everyone out but on a specific route). Can't remember lockdown, but it must have happened.

Very common. In fact I would think poorly of a school that didn’t practise. We have used it twice-once when an aggressive ex student came on site and once when a stranger was spotted on site.

Common. We are somewhere I would consider low risk and DDs had them in primary and secondary iirc. Useful for loose dogs and angry parents, it isn't just about guns and knives.

Thank you for the replies. It seems I'm quite out of touch despite DS being my 4th child (he's 13) to go through secondary school (two different schools) as none of my other kids have had them either. They obviously had fire drills but never lockdown drills. We live in Cumbria and maybe we've just been lucky that there haven't been any incidents that I'm aware of in our local schools.

Think schools are required to have a lockdown drill now.

I know quite a few schools that have had to use it. They're not for shooters like in the US, we don't get those, but sometimes for an intruder on site. I know a school had to use it for a fire nearby.

We have one per term.
We find this takes the fear out of them a bit more.

Very common.

I believe they are required now.

Ime they are less fear mongering and more an absolutely ludicrous and oddly funny situation for students, when it is a practise of course. Nothing quite so bonding as being stuck in a classroom hiding behind some tables.

My son is in year 7 and his had a practice of this the other week. We are in wales

Dunblane & many other incidents have been in sleepy backwaters or middle class areas. All schools have them and practice. High school kids know they are needed sadly

Yes its normal.
Used it for real once when I was teaching... rival gang situation.

Its for intruders and other threats like escaped animals.

My son is an adult now but was having them at primary school,it's not a new thing, possible called an emergency drill instead .

Primary teacher here...we've been doing them for two years now. The kids are used to it and we make it into a bit of a game so none are stressed out by it.

I'm also a primary school teacher. We've always had fire drills but lockdown drills are newer. We've probably done them for about 5 or 6 years.

They're not scary for the children. We use a story about some mice hiding from a cat and the Head tells of the time that horses got into the school grounds at her previous school.

We turn it into a bit of a game and the children aren't scared.

We're unlikely to have school shootings in the UK so there isn't the same sense of threat but schools do have to use them occasionally.

For primary schools it's most likely an angry parent and for secondary schools, gang related.

But any school might have to take precautions if there's an incident unrelated to the school in the neighbourhood. A school recently went into lockdown while police were hunting for the man who murdered 3 women with a crossbow.

The only drills any of my DC have had are fires drills, definitely no emergency drills. The email makes a point of this being the first one they've done and explains about it being a full lockdown with no contact for 30 minutes.

From everyone's responses it seems odd that they've never had one before, my DC are 28, 22, 17 and 13 and have attended two different secondary schools and three different primary schools - oldest DC was at primary in Scotland for a while.

I'm sure DS will tell me all about it when he gets home tomorrow. Thanks again.